When I was home on leave, a fair number of people, when hearing my stories from Iraq said, "Well, we certainly aren't getting that in our news." And, it's true. As I read my online news sources, they are for the most part only about the tragedies in military and civilian deaths. If you want to get the stories that don't make CNN Headline News or the Fox Report, might I suggest "Stars and Stripes."
The same Stars and Stripes that has been around for generations during war and peace is still published daily overseas. With the advent of the Internet, now anyone can download the same paper we have access to here (truth be told, I read my copy on the computer anyway). I'm not trying to say that Stars and Stripes has better news than AP or Reuters and the editors make a big point that they are not run by the military and therefore don't have to print only approved stories. But, one thing Stars and Stripes brings the other news sources don't are a group of reporters who are here with the military writing stories about the military. Sure there are the reports about death and destruction, but there are also stories about mud, reconstruction, civil affairs projects, etc - the kind of story that wouldn't even make the bottom of the 7th page in newspapers back home, but are all about what we are doing here.
So, I don't mean to endorse the Stars and Stripes as the be-all-end-all newspaper, but I think you might find something you haven't seen before to give you a complete picture of life here in Iraq and elsewhere.
(Here's the link http://estripes.osd.mil/ - click on the edition you'd like to read and wait for the download in PDF format)
Cheers, Pearl
