If you think being a college student in the United States is hard, try getting your degree in a war-torn country. It's hard to imagine a tougher environment to go to school and produce a student newspaper than Iraq, but one of Paper Trail's favorite blogs, College Media Matters, has the inside scoop on life at Iraq's first independent student newspaper.
The newspaper, AUI-S Voice, publishes weekly at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani, a private liberal arts college in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq. The student reporters are advised by Jackie Spinner, a former Washington Post reporter. The publication has come out nine times as of April 26.
"Students want a newspaper," Editorial Page Editor Baker Alhashimi tells College Media Matters. "This is a newspaper. This is a newspaper. It avoids politics. This is from students to students. All of the editors are part of the campus so you have to talk with them. Every issue is free for everybody. And the person who is in charge of it was part of the Washington Post, so nobody will say that it is not accurate and it is not quality journalism."
Sounds good to Paper Trail. This will be an interesting story to follow.
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