View all newsletters
Sign up for our free email newsletters

Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

  1. Archive content
February 28, 2002updated 17 May 2007 11:30am

Execution of Daniel Pear causes worldwide disgust

By Press Gazette

Pearl: London memorial service next week

The name of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal  correspondent slain in Pakistan, is being officially added this week to the glass panelled Journalists’ Memorial in Washington’s Freedom Park.  It brings to 11 the number of journalists who have died covering the Afghan turmoil, and to more than 50 the number killed around the world in the past 12 months.  But the gruesome killing of the 38-year-old newsman has shocked journalists in the US more than any of the others.  It has also prompted a review by many news organisations in the US of how much risk correspondents should take in their coverage of the world’s hot spots.  Ironically, Pearl was a member of a WSJ team which put together a booklet recently on how to avoid taking risks in perilous situations.

Some organisations have already sent memos to their staff in the field. Time Inc has told its correspondents in Pakistan that if they feel endangered to get the first plane out. So far none has done so. And it’s likely to be the same elsewhere.

Terry Anderson, the former Associated Press newsman who was held hostage in the Lebanon for seven years, thinks few reporters will shy from their duty.  Ann Cooper, a former reporter for National Public Radio, who now runs the Committee to Protect Journalists, echoed the view and said: "Daniel Pearl thought he was pursuing a story. It turns out he was the one being pursued."  In fact it is now well believed that his kidnappers had no intention of ever letting him go free. Which has prompted the question here whether the WSJ inadvertently contributed to his kidnapping.

Originally the kidnappers asserted that Pearl was a spy for the CIA, later charging that he was working for the Israeli secret service. And even, as they were about to kill him, making him admit his Jewish roots.   It is now known that every effort was made to conceal Pearl’s family background. Even to the extent, after his abduction, of closing down the family’s website in Israel.

The kidnappers’ assertions were, of course, denied and Pearl’s credentials as a newsman reasserted. However, just days before Pearl’s kidnapping it was revealed that the WSJ had handed over to the US authorities a discarded laptop computer that had been bought on the black market in Kabul by one of the paper’s reporters.  The computer, it turned out, contained many files created by Al-Qaida terrorists.

The WSJ felt that in the circumstances, with lives at stake, it was doing the right thing, although normally it would hesitate, even refuse, to hand over similar material to the authorities.

Content from our partners
MHP Group's 30 To Watch awards for young journalists open for entries
How PA Media is helping newspapers make the digital transition
Publishing on the open web is broken, how generative AI could help fix it

Just two days later, Pearl was lured to his death.

At the time, he was investigating possible links between Al-Qaida in Pakistan and Richard Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber". Although there is no  proof the two events were linked, or the Journal behaved inappropriately, there is suspicion that the kidnappers may not have seen it that way.

It may have confirmed their belief that all journalists are spies. In the words of an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, it also points out the fallacy that foreign correspondents, especially American, are untouchable and are always just a phone call or a plane ride from safety.

The WSJ, which is setting up a fund in memory of Pearl, will pass on any messages or tributes to his pregnant wife Mariane. The address: Dow Jones and Co, (For the attention of Barney Calame), PO Box 300 , Princeton, New Jersey, 09543 USA.

lA memorial service in London will be held at St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, on Tuesday, 5 March, at 3pm. St Bride’s placed Pearl’s name on its ‘Journalists’ Altar’ following his abduction.

By Jeffrey Blyth in New York

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

Select and enter your email address Weekly insight into the big strategic issues affecting the future of the news industry. Essential reading for media leaders every Thursday. Your morning brew of news about the world of news from Press Gazette and elsewhere in the media. Sent at around 10am UK time. Our weekly does of strategic insight about the future of news media aimed at US readers. A fortnightly update from the front-line of news and advertising. Aimed at marketers and those involved in the advertising industry.
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network