My good friend Jill Carroll. who was kidnapped in Iraq last January for 82 days, will detail her ordeal in an 11-part series that is scheduled to appear next week. The series will appear in The Christan Science Monitor (on-line as well — with video). According to The Boston Herald:
The 27,500-word series will be the first public accounting by Carroll since her release. It will detail what she did during captivity, the Monitor’s efforts to free her and the "lessons learned," according to Dave Cook, the newspaper’s Washington bureau chief. "This is clearly one of the most widely anticipated and in-depth series that we have run," Cook said.
"In the Monitor’s 98-year history, we’ve never had anyone held captive as long as Jill, and an immense and intense effort went into winning her freedom. We’re extremely grateful that she returned alive and was able to tell her own story."
The series will be a first-person account by Carroll with "contextual narrative" by Peter Grier, a senior writer in the Monitor’s Washington bureau who has spent a lot of time interviewing Carroll. The editing process for the series was an extensive one, Cook said, as Carroll feared that divulging certain details about her captors could result in retaliation. "Jill has taken great care to make sure that nothing she says will harm her colleagues in Baghdad who are still there reporting," Cook said. "We took the concerns seriously." Clips from a videotaped interview of Carroll will be included with the story on the newspaper’s Web site.
Source: [Boston Herald]
Click here to see the ad that the Monitor is running to advertise the series. For those that have been following her ordeal make sure to check out the series that will start next Monday.
UPDATE: The US military is reporting today that they’ve made four arrests in connection with Jill’s kidnapping. Some details are available here and there’s more in a new post here.
Hello Carroll,
First I’d like to say that I’m glad you are freed. But I have some hesitation lately about how widely publisized and how your personal story that is shown by the press may be causing reference to future kidnappers in the middle east. Please be carefull how vigilant you appear when telling your story, or at least ask that the press show your story in such a way that you personally don’t come out looking vigilant. I realize that here in the States your personal story has every right to be vigilant, however when your story gets on national news, it becomes visible to the middle east. Terrorists may use these references the next time a female is kidnapped and may not show any sympathy or hesitation to the next victim.
Please don’t take this statement as a criticism, I’m only hoping it can be used as a second thought, a different viewpoint, one that may not have been considered.
Again, so glad you are freed and safe.
Sincerely
“My good friend Jill Carroll…”
Sweet feathery Christ, will someone scrape this barnacle off her hull?
Oh, sure – it’s great she was released before they beheaded her and stuff, but in the immortal words of Supertramp, “Where do we go from here?
It’s just that I think she has peaked early and nothing she can ever do will approach the impact of her teary pleas in that comely Arab garb.
We need a pictoral in the worst way…
If Sharapova can shred and disfigure her opposition like an endless roadway of IEDs, and still appear cute in the sand of the beach – what’s Jill waiting for?
Do we really need a serialized wordy account of this terrified girl lounging in captivity, complete with detailed accounts of the bleak fare she was served for meals, the scratchy texture of the bedding, reflections of her worried face in the aluminum foil covering the windows, doubts of her own survival and the dread of the worry her family was feeling?
Give us something we can use. It’s non-news at its worst. It will sell millions as a book. Yawn.
Actually, since she doesn’t want to be famous, maybe there should just be an epic poem. No one ever reads those.
(strum)
Now comes the tale of Jill with glasses red
Before whose laptop clouds of ignorance fled
(strum, strum)
I really can’t do any more, as aside from her coming through safely everything involved was fairly tragic and I shouldn’t make fun of it.
The real question is, will there be an opera?
Cool!