Internship program to honor slain journalist Daniel Pearl :11/02

NEWS RELEASE

11/19/02

CONTACT: James R. Bettinger, director, Knight Fellowship program, (650) 725-1189.

Internship program to honor slain journalist Daniel Pearl

Stanford University has established a foreign correspondence journalism internship to commemorate the work and ideals of Daniel Pearl, the Stanford graduate and Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan earlier this year.

The Daniel Pearl Memorial Journalism Internship will be awarded annually to an outstanding Stanford student journalist whose qualifications and career goals exemplify Pearl's work. The person selected will work in a foreign bureau of a major U.S. newspaper. In the first few years of the new internship, the partner newspaper will be the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal will pay the intern's salary; funds for travel and associated costs will come from Stanford's Daniel Pearl Memorial Fund, which was begun with an anonymous donation after Pearl's death became public. The fund has now grown to $100,000.

"Our family is very pleased that Stanford has chosen to honor Danny with this international journalism internship," said Stanford alumna Michelle Pearl, Daniel Pearl's sister and vice president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation. "Danny's own internship experience played a pivotal role in shaping his career path. Through this program, new generations of sharp, inspired journalists will follow in Danny's footsteps and continue his quest for truth and understanding."

Added Paul Steiger, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal: "We hope that this internship will inspire young reporters to seek out the kinds of stories that made Danny Pearl's work so distinctive."

James Bettinger, director of the Knight journalism fellowships and professor (teaching) of communication, said applicants for the internship will be judged not only on their journalistic abilities and potential but on the degree to which they exemplify the work and ideals of Pearl: a commitment to explaining different cultures to each other, an emphasis on the stories of ordinary people rather than those in positions of power and a focus on the dignity of individuals.

"We wanted to create an internship that finds the next wave of Daniel Pearls and gives them a chance to work overseas early in their career," said Bettinger, who chaired the Pearl Memorial Fund Committee.

Pearl, a 1985 graduate of Stanford's Department of Communication, was kidnapped in Karachi on Jan. 23, 2002, while working on a story. A month later, his captors released a videotape of his slaying. He was 38.

At the time of his death, Pearl's wife, Mariane, was pregnant with their first child, Adam Pearl, who was born in May 2002. Pearl also was survived by his parents, Judea and Ruth, and two sisters, Michelle and Tamara.

The internship will be open to Stanford undergraduate and graduate students, with preference given to undergraduates. The deadline for applications is Jan. 15, 2003; details about the application process are available from the Department of Communication.

-30-