Monday, September 18, 2006

I Was A PR Intern in Iraq

By Willem Marx, Harper's. Posted September 18, 2006.

In this astonishing confessional by an Oxford graduate who worked in the green zone of Baghdad, we see the perversity of the American version of a 'free press' in Iraq.



Last spring, during my final semester at Oxford, a cousin wrote to tell me that she was planning to work for an American company in Iraq over the summer. She suggested I join her. The company was called Iraqex, and it claimed on its website to have "expertise in collecting and exploiting information; structuring transactions; and mitigating risks through due diligence, legal strategies and security." Iraqex was also looking for summer media interns, my cousin pointed out, who would "interact with the local media" in Baghdad and "pitch story ideas." This was almost too good to be true.




SNIP, you can read rest HERE



You can also listen to an interview with Willem at the following:



Former Intern on Planting Iraq Stories for U.S. Military


Talk of the Nation, September 11, 2006
Willem Marx, a former intern with the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based government contractor, tells how he took stories from the U.S. military and planted them in Iraqi newspapers.

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