Upcoming Jill Carroll Series Tops 'CSM' Syndicated Sales

By: Joe Strupp The upcoming 11-part series by Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll, which will recount her 82-day ordeal at the hands of Iraqi kidnappers, has already become the best-selling syndicated story for the paper's news service since it was brought in-house four years ago. The project is being heavily promoted on the newspaper's Web site, promising photo galleries, a video interview, even a podcast, launching this Sunday night.

Dan Lawrence, business manage for the Christian Science Monitor News Service, which has 162 regular clients reaching 14 million people, said more non-clients have signed up to purchase the series on a one-shot basis than at any other time since the paper began operating the syndicate in January 2002. Prior to that month, United Media ran the service.

"This would be the number one story in the four and a half years we have had the news service in-house," Lawrence said. "It is a tremendous response."

Lawrence would not say exactly how many non-regular clients had bought the series. The news service has been in existence since 1972.
The series is being sold to one-time buyers at a rate based on circulation, which Lawrence would not reveal.

An unexpected timely twist arrived yesterday with news that four men were arrested in Iraq in connection with Carroll's kidnapping.

The series will be available to readers online at no charge as of Sunday night, editors said. An online ad for the package says it will include an online video interview with Carroll, in which she also will answer reader questions. "They were questions [sent in] from all over the world," says Dave Cook, the Monitor's Washington, D.C. bureau chief and a spokesman for Carroll. "Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Istanbul, China, from all over."

Karla Vallance, Monitor managing editor/electronic publishing, said the podcasts will be of two Monitor staffers reading the entire series.
But she the video elements were the most ambitious piece of the package. "It breaks some new ground in story-telling," she said.

Online readers can sign up to have daily notices sent to them via e-mail reminding them to read each segment.

The series line-up offers a few clues about what will be in each segment of the series. They are titled as follows:

Introduction
82 days in captivity

Part 1
The kidnapping

Part 2
A spy with a homing device

Part 3
The first video

Part 4
A mother as suicide bomber

Part 5
Mujahideen movies

Part 6
Reciting Koranic verses

Part 7
False hopes

Part 8
A new enemy

Part 9
The Muj Brothers

Part 10
Freedom

Epilogue
Family reunion

Carroll was released in Baghdad on March 30 after being held captive for nearly three months. A freelancer at the time, she was kidnapped on Jan. 7. Her kidnapping drew worldwide attention as numerous human rights and journalism groups urged her release. The Monitor has since revealed that she was moved more than a dozen times during the ordeal.

Her abductors, who had demanded the release of all Iraqi women prisoners several times, dropped her off at a political party office with no explanation. Since her release, Carroll has maintained a low profile, declining requests for interviews, and even avoiding invitations to appear for awards and other accolades.

Carroll, who had worked for months in Iraq as a Monitor freelancer, had been made a staff employee of the paper shortly after her abduction. No information has been revealed about what her future assignment may be beyond the personal story, but she is currently on staff in the Monitor newsroom editing international stories.