The Daniel Pearl Standard

By JUDEA PEARL

This week marks the sixth anniversary of the murder of my son Daniel
Pearl, a reporter for this newspaper. It is a fitting occasion to step
back and reflect on what this tragedy has taught us.

One of the things that saddens me most is that the press and media
have had an active, perhaps even major role in fermenting hate and
inhumanity. It was not religious fanaticism alone.

This was first brought to my attention by the Pakistani Consul General
who came to offer condolences at our home in California. When we spoke
about the anti-Semitic element in Danny's murder she said: "What can
you expect of these people who never saw a Jew in their lives and who
have been exposed, day and night, to televised images of Israeli
soldiers targeting and killing Palestinian children."

At the time, it was not clear whether she was trying to exonerate
Pakistan from responsibility for Danny's murder, or to pass on the
responsibility to European and Arab media for their persistent
de-humanization of Jews, Americans and Israelis. The answer was
unveiled in 2004, when a friend told me that photos of Muhammad Al
Dura were used as background in the video tape of Danny's murder.

Al Dura, readers may recall, is the 12-year-old Palestinian boy who
allegedly died from Israeli bullets in Gaza in September of 2001. As
we now know, the whole scene is very likely to have been a fraud,
choreographed by stringers and cameramen of France 2, the official
news channel of France. France 2 aired the tape repeatedly and
distributed it all over the world to anyone who needed an excuse to
ratchet up anger or violence, among them Danny's killers.

In one memorial service for Danny, a Catholic priest made an
interesting observation that, serving as a mediator of reality, the
modern journalist can be likened to the Biblical prophet. My first
reaction was that the comparison is too far-fetched. Yet on further
reflection I came to understand his point. Who serves today as the
moral compass of society, and, like the ancient prophets, risks his or
her life by exposing corruption, institutional injustice, terrorism
and fanaticism? The journalist.

But the Bible also offers us a foolproof test for discerning false
prophets from true ones. The test is not based on the nature of the
reported facts, but on the method and principles invoked in the
message. Translated into secular, modern vocabulary, the true
journalist will never compromise on universal principles of ethics and
humanity, and will never allow us to forget that all people, including
our adversaries, need be portrayed with dignity and respect as
children of one God.

Accordingly, to distinguish true from false journalism, just choose
any newspaper or TV channel and ask yourself when was the last time it
ran a picture of a child, a grandmother or any empathy-evoking scene
from the "other side" of a conflict.

I propose this simple test as the "Daniel Pearl standard of
responsible journalism."