“At a time when paid news is holding all our attention, it is probably important to watch and reflect on a different kind of journalism too, where lives are risked and sacrificed to bring information to us, the people”

Moneylife Foundation, on Saturday, held the screening of the documentary, The Journalist and the Jihadi – The Murder of Daniel Pearl. This the third session on documentary screening conducted by the Foundation.

The 75-minute film screening was followed by a free-wheeling discussion. Participants including few journalists, discussed about how in the era where whistleblowers are attacked and efforts are made to stone-wall information, lives are risked to bring out that information and present reality to the people. “At a time when paid news is holding all our attention, it is probably important to watch and reflect on a different kind of journalism too, where lives are risked and sacrificed to bring information to us, the people,” says Sucheta Dalal, founder of Moneylife Foundation and managing editor of Moneylife.

The Journalist and the Jihadi- The Murder of Daniel Pearl, is a film directed by Ahmed Jamal and Ramesh Sharma which documents the life of the reporter Daniel Pearl, working with Wall Street Journal, who was kidnapped and executed by a terrorist outfit in Karachi. The movie compares and contrasts his life with that of one of the terrorist, Omar Sheikh, mastermind of the killing. Both were well-educated, but where Pearl sought to bring people together through his work, Sheikh took a path that led to religious extremism. The film showcases how Pearl’s death reverberated through much of the world.

Earlier, Moneylife Foundation had screened two documentaries—noted media man Paranjoy Guha Thakurta’s documentary “Blood and Iron” on destructive illegal mining in Bellary and Umesh Aggarwal’s documentary, “Brokering News”, produced by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT), exploring the alarming issue of paid news in depth, including the Niira Radia tapes.