Roughly one year after he was slain by Pakistani extremists, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (“The Man They Called Danny,” May/June) has been honored with an award named for the country’s first martyr to freedom of the press.
In November, Colby College selected Pearl, ’85, as its 2002 recipient of the Lovejoy Award, one of the country’s oldest and most esteemed honors for journalists. The award memorializes Elijah Parish Lovejoy, an abolitionist editor who died defending his press from a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Ill., in 1837. Pearl’s sister Tamara Pearl accepted the honor at the ceremony in Waterville, Maine.
Pearl, the 50th recipient, joins a roster of past Lovejoy winners that includes virtually every top name in American journalism. Otis Chandler, ’50, former editor and publisher of the Los Angeles Times, earned the award in 1966. The late John S. Knight, editorial chairman of Knight newspapers and whose foundation permanently endowed Stanford’s Knight fellowships in journalism, was the 1969 honoree.
“Daniel Pearl’s commitment to his profession, the drive and determination that were hallmarks of his work, and his unquestionable courage are inspirational to any journalist,” said Matthew Storin, former editor of the Boston Globe and chair of the selection committee. “I only wish he were here to receive the honor.”
Also in November, Stanford announced the establishment of the Daniel Pearl Memorial Journalism Internship, to be awarded annually to an outstanding Stanford student journalist whose qualifications and career goals exemplify Pearl’s work. The student selected will work in a foreign bureau of a major U.S. newspaper. In the first few years of the new internship, that newspaper will be the Journal.
