In Harm’s Way for Truth

As this is written, there is no way to know the truth about the fate of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl, whom kidnappers abducted in Karachi, Pakistan, on Jan. 23. But then truth is something that people who threaten journalists fear.

Pearl’s kidnappers have kept changing the stories they use to rationalize their actions. First they accused Pearl of being a CIA agent. Later they said he worked for Israeli intelligence. Both claims are phony justifications for their crime.

Daniel Pearl is a journalist. As such, he does indeed gather information. But a reporter’s intentions couldn’t be more different from those of a spy. Spies are secretive. Journalists use print, radio, television or the Internet to broadcast information as widely as possible, to share what they have found with the world.

Danny, as his colleagues call him, went to Pakistan to find out what was really going on and to tell the world what he found. His pregnant wife, Mariane, said he had been learning Urdu to better understand the people whose stories he felt a need to tell.

Good people and groups with righteous causes know that journalists are their best hope for getting the word out and--if others agree with their message or empathize with their plight--for garnering support. They know that threatening, kidnapping or killing these surrogates for the wider public is counterproductive.

What people around the globe also need to realize--and what self-conscious practitioners of the trade are often reluctant to say--is that the most essential characteristic for correspondents is courage. They go to each assignment knowing what these kidnappers apparently do not: that a newspaper cannot and would not exchange prisoners for a journalist. That the United States government will not negotiate such a deal--as the Islamic extremists who in 1985 kidnapped Terry Anderson, the Associated Press bureau chief in Lebanon, found out over the seven years they held him.

If the people who kidnapped Pearl had talked to him instead, the world might have had a chance to evaluate their grievances and ideals. Now they’ll be judged solely--and harshly--for their shortsighted criminality. Their one last hope for sympathy is tied to Pearl’s safe release.