Student intern from Iraq appreciates freedom

The next time you're frustrated with a source who won't return your call or an editor who can't be satisfied, think of Washington Post intern Omar Fekeiki, profiled in the Christian Science Monitor this week.

Fekeiki, from war-torn Iraq, was assigned to cover a fatal shooting and wondered how -- if just one or two are dead -- do reporters know whether it's a story?

"I was born and raised in a Baghdad family that appreciated and practiced writing," Fekeiki said in an introductory bio for the newsroom, "but I never thought I'd become a journalist, because I lived under a dictatorship. To me, it was a taboo profession because the only thing journalists did under the regime of Saddam Hussein was to praise the government and lie to the people."

Here's a link to the complete story and photo -- http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0823/p20s01-ussc.html?page=1