Students tackle media hazards in film showing
By Ara Chawdhury
Cebu Daily News
First Posted 11:18:00 09/28/2008
Should a journalist write a story even if it causes pain to a private citizen?
Is it all right of a news reporter to date a news source? What happens when a reporter is kidnapped while on assignment to interview a terrorist?
These were some of the questions dramatized in two movies watched last Friday by 212 mass communications students from universities in Cebu.
The twinbill film showing of “Absence of Malice” (1981) and “A Mighty Heart” (2007) at the Marcelo B. Fernan Press Center Theater was part of the annual observance of Cebu Press Freedom Week.
The film showing was sponsored by Cebu Daily News and Nokia. A raffle was also held to give away Nokia bags, gift certifcates of Figaro coffee and stuffed dolls of Philippine Daily Inquirer's carabao mascot Guyito.
In between scrennings, students from the University of the Philippines-Cebu (UP-Cebu), Cebu Normal University, University of Cebu, Southwestern University and University of San Jose Recolletos discussed challenges of the journalism profession in an open forum moderated by CDN video game columnist Salvador Reyes.
“Absence of Malice” directed by Sydney Pollack featured Academy Awardees Sally Field and the late Paul Newman. “A Mighty Heart” starred Angelina Jolie as the courageous wife of kidnapped Wall Street reporter Daniel Pearl.
Radio dyAB’s Jun Tarima advised aspiring journalists not to get “too socially involved with sources” in covering the news. He said that in his 21-year media career, he avoided joining any organization that may pose a conflict of interest in his job of covering the news, even if the group was just a Rotary club.
USJR student Omar-Razdawie Sahibbil compared the ordeal of kidnapped Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl in “A Mighty Heart” with the recent kidnapping of ABS-CBN anchor Ces Oreña- Drilon
He said Pearl made formal arrangements with his sources in Pakistan for an interview (and was later killed) while Drilon disobeyed her network’s restrictions and nearly got killed along with her crew by suspected Abu Sayaff bandits.
Sahibbil, a Muslim, also lamented the way t terrorism was often linked by media to Islam.
editor in chief Connie Fernandez explained that reporters have talk to their editors about risky stories.
“You don’t go to assignments just because it's exciting. There’s no story worth dying for. If you're dead, you cannot write,” Fernandez said.
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