Iraq Election News

With the help of Spirit of America donor support Friends of Democracy was able to create their very own news network that provided coverage of Iraq’s national elections on January 30, 2005. This network, centered on the Internet and Iraqi blogs, provided a ground-level first-person view of campaigning before the election, voting on January 30, and the post-election results. Friends of Democracy posted their election coverage in English and Arabic. And, a live television show on Iraq's elections was shot live in National Geographic’s TV studio in Washington D.C. and was broadcast on C-SPAN. If you missed us on TV you can still watch the show on streaming media. Approximately, $1,810 was donated to this project. These funds were transferred to Friends of Democracy for compensation of election news correspondents.

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Iraq’s elections were a historic event. Our goal was to ensure that Iraqis and Americans got a full, accurate, and in-depth picture of the elections that was neither sugar-coated cheerleading nor driven by a sensationalist “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality. Election News Sources The Friends of Democracy election news network used three main information sources: (1) News correspondents hired by Friends of Democracy at the local level. (Every province and major city was covered). The correspondents were equipped with digital cameras, camcorders, and satellite phones and were able to provide multimedia reports. Each correspondent also had their own blog (using the Spirit of America Arabic blogging tool) where they published their reports on the Internet. (2) Iraqi bloggers who used the Spirit of America Arabic blogging tool to create blogs on democracy and the elections. To stimulate the creation of election news blogs throughout Iraq, Friends of Democracy held a contest for "Best Election Blog" with a $1,000 prize in each of Iraq’s 18 provinces. (3) Friends of Democracy encouraged Iraqis to send in their stories, reports, and digital photographs by email on election day. Friends of Democracy aggregated these stories, photos, and reports onto their Web sites in both Kurdish and Arabic. They also included links to stories from other Iraqi and Arab news sources. The best reports were translated into English and made available on the English-language Web site along with photographs, video and audio reports. Friends of Democracy also forged relationships with Iraqi newspapers and TV and radio stations in order to more widely distribute the election news content.

Use of funds
We are a 501c3 nonprofit and your donation is tax deductible. 100% of all donations to this project will be used for direct project expenses (e.g., purchase and shipping of the needed equipment, salaries for Friends of Democracy correspondents, prizes for “Best Election Blogs” ). We do not deduct fees or expenses for organization overhead. Those expenses are funded separately. Donation Policy Typically, we need and use all donations for the project to which they are earmarked. Any donations in excess of those immediately needed to fund this project will be used for the expansion of the project. And, after expansion of the project, any surplus donations will be used according to the donors' instructions. As a donor, you will have a choice to (A) reassign any unused portion of your donation to other Spirit of America projects, or (B) get a refund of the unused portion of your donation. If we contact you and you do not reply we will reassign any unused portion of your donation to other Spirit of America projects and 100% of those funds will be used for direct project expenses.