A group of Swarthmore students are interviewing Iraqis through the Internet to try to capture what life in Iraq is really like. The result is a weekly online radio show. The LA Times story:

The program’s reporters have never been to Iraq. Instead, they troll the Internet for e-mail addresses of ordinary Iraqis, then use a free Web-based phone system to interview them on matters great and small. They also track down U.S. soldiers, Iraqi movers and shakers, and experts on everything from Iraqi poetry to the Baath Party.

Although limited to Iraqis who can speak English and have access to the Internet, as the LA Times notes, the show still captures voices that otherwise wouldn’t have been heard.

The show’s method is innovative, but the show started with the students’ and their professor’s passion for the topic, and only afterwards did they figure out the technology they would need to use. Their genuine desire to reach average Iraqis created a way to do it that no one else had thought of, or tried anyways.