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American Morning

Talk With Editor of Groundbreaking News Magazine in Baghdad

Aired July 17, 2003 - 07:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, University of Michigan student David Enders spent his last semester studying in Beirut. Now, just a few months later, the 22-year-old is the editor of a groundbreaking news magazine in Baghdad. It's called "The Baghdad Bulletin" and it's published twice a month. It chronicles life in Iraq in English.
And it's editor-in-chief, David Enders, joins us this morning from Baghdad.

David, good morning.

Nice to see you.

DAVID ENDERS, EDITOR, "BAGHDAD BULLETIN": Good morning.

O'BRIEN: Your magazine comes out every two weeks. Your circulation, I've read, is 10,000.

What do you write about?

ENDERS: We write about, like you said, daily life in Iraq. Our problems, we're living out here in Baghdad, have become, our problems are the same as everyone else's problems. So we're sort of covering day to day life, the kind of things every day Iraqis deal with -- the electricity problems, the water problems, what life is like under occupation, what's going on with the new government. And we're also doing, in addition to the local news, a lot of comment and analysis from people inside Iraq and outside Iraq about what's going on here.

O'BRIEN: David, give me a sense of the break down. Your magazine, as we mentioned, is in English.

What percentage of your readers do you think are American troops or British troops and what percentage do you think are Iraqis who can read English?

ENDERS: Well, there are quite a few Iraqis who read English and we're distributing it free to neighborhoods where there are a lot of English speaking Iraqis. About 4,000 of those copies are going to those neighborhoods. We drop off about 1,000 at the coalition offices. We deliver them to the local hotels, where they're picked up by NGOs, journalists and there are some foreign businessmen in the country.

But the bulk of the readership are English speaking Iraqis. O'BRIEN: What do the troops have to say about the magazine? There have been some reports that some have said they think it's anti- American.

ENDERS: Yes, some people have complained that it's anti- American. We think it's fair. Tensions are really high here and the troops are in a really tough position. And they don't take criticism well. And I can't blame them, really. A lot of them feel like the situation is becoming, is starting to become rather hopeless and they don't appreciate anyone who they feel is maybe adding fuel to that fire.

And then there are some people who accuse of us being pro- coalition. So we're being called all things, which, in my opinion, means we're doing it right.

O'BRIEN: You're 22 years old. I know for a fact that your mom is worried about you. There's been growing violence against Americans in Iraq.

Why did you decide to do this as your first job out of college?

ENDERS: Well, I just took a chance. I wanted to be a foreign correspondent and I think this is one of the most important places to be doing journalism right now. Nowhere in the world do I think Americans especially have a more gross misunderstanding of the way things are and I felt that this would be something extremely useful in a post-war atmosphere, both here and all over the world.

O'BRIEN: You rely on advertisers. Has it been difficult to get Iraqis to sign on? That's something that their news media generally does not do.

ENDERS: It's been difficult, but we've been picking up -- most of the ads in the magazine right now are Iraqi. We can't fund it entirely on Iraqi advertising. We'll die out here -- at least the publication -- if we don't start getting some international advertisers. There's been interest, but so far not much actual money coming in from outside the country.

It's true that it's a new culture, but it's slowly picking up. Iraqi businessmen are becoming involved. We have investors here. And they're excited about what we're doing and they think it's really viable.

O'BRIEN: David, do you ever have a sense of the bigger picture outside of sort of putting the magazine out day to day? Do you ever feel like you're contributing in a bigger sense to bringing English language journalism and journalism and the free press to Iraq?

ENDERS: A little bit. You do kind of work yourself into a bubble here. But we've finally got more regular e-mail contact and we're getting a lot of support from people who are seeing our Web site and seeing some of the stories that have been being done about us, saying that this is a historic thing and that this is extremely important for kind of closing the gap between the two sort of worlds. And, so, yes, it's kind of in the back of my mind.

O'BRIEN: "Baghdad Bulletin" editor-in-chief David Enders, thanks for joining us this morning and good luck to you.

ENDERS: Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





Baghdad>


Aired July 17, 2003 - 07:34   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, University of Michigan student David Enders spent his last semester studying in Beirut. Now, just a few months later, the 22-year-old is the editor of a groundbreaking news magazine in Baghdad. It's called "The Baghdad Bulletin" and it's published twice a month. It chronicles life in Iraq in English.
And it's editor-in-chief, David Enders, joins us this morning from Baghdad.

David, good morning.

Nice to see you.

DAVID ENDERS, EDITOR, "BAGHDAD BULLETIN": Good morning.

O'BRIEN: Your magazine comes out every two weeks. Your circulation, I've read, is 10,000.

What do you write about?

ENDERS: We write about, like you said, daily life in Iraq. Our problems, we're living out here in Baghdad, have become, our problems are the same as everyone else's problems. So we're sort of covering day to day life, the kind of things every day Iraqis deal with -- the electricity problems, the water problems, what life is like under occupation, what's going on with the new government. And we're also doing, in addition to the local news, a lot of comment and analysis from people inside Iraq and outside Iraq about what's going on here.

O'BRIEN: David, give me a sense of the break down. Your magazine, as we mentioned, is in English.

What percentage of your readers do you think are American troops or British troops and what percentage do you think are Iraqis who can read English?

ENDERS: Well, there are quite a few Iraqis who read English and we're distributing it free to neighborhoods where there are a lot of English speaking Iraqis. About 4,000 of those copies are going to those neighborhoods. We drop off about 1,000 at the coalition offices. We deliver them to the local hotels, where they're picked up by NGOs, journalists and there are some foreign businessmen in the country.

But the bulk of the readership are English speaking Iraqis. O'BRIEN: What do the troops have to say about the magazine? There have been some reports that some have said they think it's anti- American.

ENDERS: Yes, some people have complained that it's anti- American. We think it's fair. Tensions are really high here and the troops are in a really tough position. And they don't take criticism well. And I can't blame them, really. A lot of them feel like the situation is becoming, is starting to become rather hopeless and they don't appreciate anyone who they feel is maybe adding fuel to that fire.

And then there are some people who accuse of us being pro- coalition. So we're being called all things, which, in my opinion, means we're doing it right.

O'BRIEN: You're 22 years old. I know for a fact that your mom is worried about you. There's been growing violence against Americans in Iraq.

Why did you decide to do this as your first job out of college?

ENDERS: Well, I just took a chance. I wanted to be a foreign correspondent and I think this is one of the most important places to be doing journalism right now. Nowhere in the world do I think Americans especially have a more gross misunderstanding of the way things are and I felt that this would be something extremely useful in a post-war atmosphere, both here and all over the world.

O'BRIEN: You rely on advertisers. Has it been difficult to get Iraqis to sign on? That's something that their news media generally does not do.

ENDERS: It's been difficult, but we've been picking up -- most of the ads in the magazine right now are Iraqi. We can't fund it entirely on Iraqi advertising. We'll die out here -- at least the publication -- if we don't start getting some international advertisers. There's been interest, but so far not much actual money coming in from outside the country.

It's true that it's a new culture, but it's slowly picking up. Iraqi businessmen are becoming involved. We have investors here. And they're excited about what we're doing and they think it's really viable.

O'BRIEN: David, do you ever have a sense of the bigger picture outside of sort of putting the magazine out day to day? Do you ever feel like you're contributing in a bigger sense to bringing English language journalism and journalism and the free press to Iraq?

ENDERS: A little bit. You do kind of work yourself into a bubble here. But we've finally got more regular e-mail contact and we're getting a lot of support from people who are seeing our Web site and seeing some of the stories that have been being done about us, saying that this is a historic thing and that this is extremely important for kind of closing the gap between the two sort of worlds. And, so, yes, it's kind of in the back of my mind.

O'BRIEN: "Baghdad Bulletin" editor-in-chief David Enders, thanks for joining us this morning and good luck to you.

ENDERS: Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





Baghdad>