he original marketing strategy was simple. Jihad Unspun would tell both sides of the story and let the reader decide the truth for him or herself. This made sense for a lot of reasons. Any publisher that is worth their salt knows that readers aren’t stupid and that they can and will draw their own conclusions given both sides of an issue and generally they formulate the right ones if we are doing our jobs. This also meant that we could rely on third party material and that would help keep our limited editorial budget down. To accomplish this, we created a custom news system based on the latest intelligent agent technology. Intelligent agents are self determining pieces of computer code that work independent of a browser and travel through cyberspace caring out their preprogrammed functions. In our case, they scrape the screens of source sites and bring the information back into our master database. This was a major development project all by itself.

Getting the other side of the news proved a little more complex. There was virtually no true news in mainstream about the resistance that the Coalition was facing in Afghanistan or elsewhere and even statements being aired of Bin Laden’s were always excerpted and almost always out of context, when they ran at all. A lot of the “jihad” sites and boards that published this material were up and down like yo yo’s, so we couldn’t rely on them for a steady stream of information. Some were just angry diatribes and others had questionable information so we established a group of news monitors who would visit a variety of sites and boards for this information which we would then cross-reference and translate from Arabic and Pakistanis’ native Urdu. We also set up news monitors in areas close to the conflict who could then work local contacts to fill in the gaps. It wasn’t a slick system but it gave us a start.

All journalists are a little off centre one way or the other - it’s a prerequisite for the job. In my career I have worked with many so I also rekindled contacts with a few I knew who were a little closer to the edge and could grasp the concept to help formulate some of our own editorial pieces for the launch. God willing, if all went well and we were able to secure the financing we hoped to secure once we launched, I would have a team in place.

The other thing publishers know is that readers are fickle. If the publishing cycle is interrupted – readers go elsewhere. I knew we would ruffle feathers on both sides at some point simply because we reported both sides and at any giving time, someone wasn’t going to like something they read. Although we never anticipated the kinds of challenges that subsequently developed, we did know we would most likely be the target of hack attacks, viruses and the like and we wanted to make sure we could keep the system up. We implemented a variety of hardware, processes and procedures as solutions to counter these efforts to make sure we could keep the site live 24/7.

The biggest challenge of course was to understand the current issues to the point that we could present high quality information. Most importantly, I was going to having to understand where Muslims were coming from if I was going to tell their side of the story without the propaganda. This was a temporary stumbling block as I had never talked to a Muslim (that I was aware of) or met one for that matter.

I contacted a variety of different Muslims organization in Canada but got little response, probably because they were scared stiff talking to non-Muslims at that point which I couldn’t blame them for. I emailed Muslims scholars in the US, the UK and the Middle East which helped with some of the issues but didn’t give me a feel for Muslim sentiments in general. I hit the net again - this time to locate chat groups and forums that English speaking Muslims frequented. From there I was hooked up with friends of friends, relatives, groups, Sheikhs and others who could help me and the network began to grow.

With plans well underway for the launch, there was still one missing element. I knew this was a war against Muslims, partially because it appeared they were easy prey, but in many instances is was clearly religious persecution. What was it about Islam that rubbed the wrong way? As a Christian, I knew nothing about Islam, what Muslims believed or what their doctrine was. Even though Islam is one of the world’s major religions, in the West there are only two that are dominant, namely Christianity and Judaism. I began to ask questions, never thinking for a moment that my own beliefs would come into play.

I came to religion relatively late in my life having had a life full of adversity and one that truly can not be considered normal. Everyone goes through challenges and each of us has a unique experience in this world, but my experiences have long surpassed what most would go through in ten lifetimes.

Being an adopted kid who was crippled, who spent most of my childhood in hospitals until I realized I would die there unless I learned to walk again (which I did by sneaking out of my hospital bed at night and falling on my face until I finally achieve the goal and had a “miraculous” recovery), certainly gave me an interesting start. After that, I was already an adult who did not fit into the child life expected of me and l subsequently left home at age 13, was pregnant at 14, married at 15, separated at 17, remarried at 18 and divorced twice by the time I was 20, just to give you some highlights. I was forced to give up my six year old child at 21. By the time I was 22, I realized that my life was never going to be like others; I was not going to be a victim and beg steal or borrow, I was never going hungry again. I also came to realize that the adversity I had experienced was actually a source of strength – when you overcome big hurdles, you gain power and I came to believe by 23 when I started my first business that if I wanted to do something bad enough, the was little that could stop me. I began to make huge gains but also would experience great losses – my life was constantly a swinging pendulum of great successes and dismal failures.