A select group of undergraduate and graduate students will begin the Pearl Project this fall to seek answers related to the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi, Pakistan. The Pearl Project will aim to answer the following: Who really killed Pearl? Why did they kill him? What are the underlying international and domestic politics surrounding this case? The project will also look at the wider relationship between the Muslim world and the press. The class will also report and write profiles on the media-related professionals who have lost their lives in recent years. Led by Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism Asra Nomani and Dean of Journalism Barbara Feinman Todd, this class will teach the investigative reporting tools necessary to do the patient work that an in-depth endeavor such as this requires, including the techniques of computer-assisted journalism. Students will follow leads that come in over the Georgetown Pearl Project tipline (email: pearlproject@georgetown.edu or call 202 687-9288) as well as pursue sources among the Washington intelligence community, the Hill, and law enforcement. The class's progress will be chronicled in various media forms including a website and video journal and the results of its reporting will be published. (Asra Nomani is a former Wall Street Journal reporter who has written two books. Barbara Feinman Todd is the Journalism Director for the English Department's undergraduate journalism program and the Dean of Journalism for the new School of Continuing Studies’ MPS Journalism program.)

Permission by instructor only. Class open to graduate journalism students of the MPS only. Interested students should submit a 500-word essay explaining why they want to take the class and send to feinmanb@georgetown.edu by November 10, 2007.