Daniel Pearl Page

Text Box: Daniel Pearl, journalist, husband, father, 1963-2000

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Text Box: Most of the world knows Daniel Pearl from the horrific headlines of January 2002, when, on assignment for the Wall Street Journal in Karachi, Pakistan, he was kidnapped by Islamic terrorists and later brutally murdered. But to many of us at the Journal, Danny was far more than lurid headlines and the cruel object of fundamentalist savagery. Danny was our pal; a valued colleague, a drinking buddy. And I share these observations not to trivialize him. I share them so that we might all remember that. however Danny’s case is resolved and however it plays out in various causes around the world, Danny was flesh and blood; one of us; a good guy with a smart, beautiful wife and a son on the way; a very good journalist working very hard at his job. To strike Danny down for nihilistic political motives is not merely terrorism but a repudiation of humanity itself.

Text Box: I’d known Danny for many years, going back to his early days on The Wall Street Journal in the Atlanta Bureau. But I got to know him best when he worked in the Washington Bureau. I’d go down there from New York occasionally in my role as a Page One editor to talk about feature writing, prospect for story ideas or brainstorm with reporters whose projects I’d been assigned to handle. Danny ended up being best friends with one of my best friends on the paper, Asra Nomani, another Washington Bureau reporter and a quirky feature writer whose stories I often shepherded onto the Front Page. Inevitably, the end of the day would find us at a bar someplace in Georgetown or Adams Morgan and typically it would be me (the visiting credit card), Asra, Danny, another colleague named Nancy Keates, and a few others, all trying to solve the problems of the world (or at least the problems of the paper.) Danny was a sweet guy, very smart, very funny in a self-deprecating kind of way. But he wasn’t a pushover and held his own in the good-natured ragging that inevitably ensued in these bull sessions. Women considered him devastatingly handsome and the joke among the guys who hung around with Danny is that we all wanted to sit next to him—just to take his road kill. (Journalists are infamous for their jaded sense of humor, and this is exactly the kind of joke that would make Danny laugh.) What I remember most about Danny was his amiability and open mindedness. He was a regular guy, totally approachable, just a lot smarter than average; a thinking-man’s beer drinker always ready to buy the next round; a derelict in the most affectionate way that us fellow derelicts use that term. He was also a total pro as a journalist, despite the ludicrous efforts by his murders to label him a spy. I was the Page One editor assigned to a piece Danny wrote in late 1998 that basically threw cold water on the U.S. assertion that it had overwhelming intelligence supporting a cruise missile attack in Sudan earlier that year. The story was vintage Danny. It was also vintage Journal—a determined effort, under taxing, difficult-to-report circumstances, to get well beyond the U.S. government’s explanation of why they sent cruise missiles to blow up a Sudanese factory that allegedly figured in to Osama Bin Laden’s terror aspirations. The result was a measured piece that pointed out that U.S. intelligence largely relied upon a Sudanese dissident with a political ax to grind, plus a single incriminating soil sample taken near the plant. That sample was far from conclusive evidence that the plant was the chemical weapons lab the U.S. had decided it was. Indeed, Danny was able to get American intelligence sources to admit that, in the wake an earlier terrorist bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, they needed to get retaliatory targets “fast.” Like many incidents of its kind in the murky war on terror, the ultimate truth about the El Shifa factory may never be known, a point the story took pains to note up high. Danny’s piece wasn’t an effort to discredit the U.S. government’s anti-terrorism efforts or to exonerate or indict terrorists. It was simply Danny following the time-honored journalistic tradition of asking all sides hard questions about a matter of vital international interest. The other thing worth mentioning is how easy Danny was to work with. Editing a story of this nature can be a contentious process—good reporters necessarily become advocates of their own stories, especially in a case like this one where Danny had invested a huge amount of time and energy reporting from places generically hostile to his intentions. Editors necessarily play the skeptics. And, given the controversial nature of the subject matter, there were editors above me at the Journal who were also weighing in on this piece with their own tough questions. It had become what in-house we call a group grope—and these are never pleasant for reporters. But Danny was the kind of reporter who never turned editing into a battle. Again, he wasn’t a pushover, but if there were points to be argued, he argued them reasonably. He recognized good questions when he saw them and went to work quickly to track down answers if they already weren’t in his notebook. He cared more about the story than his ego. So when, after a long hard editing slog, the story finally ran, Danny went out his way to thank me. But, of course, the story still reflected about 90% of Danny’s original effort—it was just Danny being generous. Danny wasn’t a politician or a cause. He was a flesh and blood human being murdered by barbarians seeking to turn back the clock on the world and on civilization. Danny had a wife and a son on the way; he had a family who loved him; he had a great career and the admiration and respect of friends and peers. Danny was an optimist in love with life. His torturers offer the world hate and death and repression. —Ken Wells HOME

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Text Box: Links: The Daniel Pearl Foundation A Mighty Heart Mariane Pearl’s moving and clear-eyed account of her life with Danny, the kidnapping and its aftermath.