Keeping a Secret   

The heritage of Daniel Pearl's parents

Those who followed the story of kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl repeatedly saw his editor and his pregnant wife quoted in newspapers and interviewed on television.

But the public never saw his parents or two sisters.

That wasn't an oversight but rather part of an intensive, behind-the-scenes strategy to ensure that the kidnappers never knew of Pearl's parents' Israeli heritage.

"We asked the media to put the safety of Danny Pearl ahead of competitive pressure," says Steven Goldstein, vice president of Dow Jones, the Journal's parent company. "People were very understanding when I explained why putting out that information could put Danny at even greater risk."

Pearl's father, Judea, was born in Israel and his mother, Ruth, was born in Iraq but came with her parents to Israel when she was a child. They immigrated to the United States in the late 1950s and now carry dual Israeli/U.S. citizenship. Daniel Pearl was born in the United States.

Right after Pearl's kidnapping, journalists rushed to the senior Pearls' Los Angeles-area home, hoping to snag an interview with the reporter's parents. But the parents never came out.

It was up to Goldstein, who says he received about 500 e-mails and 200 phone calls a day, mostly from the media, to say that the Pearls were simply not going to grant interviews--and to explain why. "I didn't make unsolicited phone calls, but we raised the issue when people said they wanted to interview the parents," he says. "I'd say they were not available, and many people accepted that."

But some didn't.

"When he told me, I asked, 'Well, why?' " recalls Marcy McGinnis, CBS' senior vice president of news coverage. When informed that the parents were Jewish and Israeli, McGinnis says, "We pulled back, and we asked our key affiliates to do so and told them they wouldn't get beat."

McGinnis says she was so afraid of being the cause of a leak herself about Pearl's parents' heritage that she only relayed the information to two people--the president of CBS News and the head of the Los Angeles affiliate.

McGinnis emphasizes that Goldstein never asked her not to report the information, "but I made that choice--we were not going to be a part of Danny's death."

Although she says journalists probably felt some affinity for Pearl because he was a reporter, "I think we would have done it for anyone."

Questions have been raised about whether the media did, in fact, care more about protecting Pearl because he was in the news business. But Av Westin, a former ABC news executive and author of the Freedom Forum-published book "Best Practices for Television Journalists," notes that it is not unusual for the media to withhold potentially harmful information in kidnapping or hostage situations.

Westin says there are a number of cases in which television stations and the police have reached agreements on how to cover hostage situations. He cites instances--which he also writes about in his boo--in which TV stations agreed to voluntarily refrain from broadcasting the location of officers, their possible tactics or the hostages' identities. The police frequently offer something in exchange, he says, such as allowing a pool reporter or photographer into a cordoned-off area.

Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, agrees that the Pearl situation was not unique. "It is not unusual in wartime or in other situations, such as a hostage situation, that you sit on information," he says. Jordan says after Goldstein made it clear that the Pearls would not grant an interview, "I told our people not to pursue it."

However, a security analyst appearing on CNN did make reference to the fact that Pearl's parents were Israeli. Goldstein quickly contacted Jordan about it and the item was pulled--and it did not run internationally.

"I was as alarmed as [Goldstein] was," Jordan says. "I spent a lot of time in Pakistan. I know that information could have been harmful."

Goldstein says he believed his part of the deal was to be as accessible as possible. "I never wanted [journalists] to say, 'Dow Jones was not available,' " he says.

In this case, most experts agree, it would be difficult to find an ethical problem in the media's decision to keep quiet. "The ethics of journalism are stretched frequently for less good reasons than this," Westin says.

Fred Brown, co-chairman of the Society of Professional Journalists' ethics committee, also says the media were right in holding back. "There are times we take the attitude in the media that if we know it, we should tell it," he says, "but usually the circumstances aren't so dire."

Goldstein says his fear was that one media outlet would break the news and everyone would follow. But that never happened.

"We did the best we could to get Danny Pearl home," he says. "We did everything in our power and in the end, sadly, he didn't come home. But I really believe the media operated in a very fair and responsible manner."