Weekly newspaper prints photos from Daniel Pearl execution video

By The Associated Press

06.06.02

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BOSTON — An alternative newspaper in Boston printed two photographs from slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's execution video in today's edition.

The 2-inch photos accompany an editorial in the Boston Phoenix in which the weekly defended linking to the video from its Web site. One of the photos shows Pearl's severed head juxtaposed with suspected Taliban and al-Qaida members being held at Guantanamo Bay.

Publisher Stephen Mindich said last night that he didn't think the photos were offensive and suggested that Pearl would have supported using them because he died trying to explain terrorism.

"The general public goes to films that are far more gory, and for no purpose other than to affect emotions," Mindich said. "This is the real world, an enormously important event; the picture speaks a thousand words."

A spokeswoman for the Pearl family referred to a statement made when CBS News ran non-graphic portions of the video, which called that decision "heartless" and "beyond comprehension."

"Danny believed that journalism was a tool to report the truth and foster understanding," the family statement said, "not perpetuate propaganda and sensationalize tragedy."

Pearl disappeared from Karachi, Pakistan, on Jan. 23 while working on a story about Islamic militants. The tape was delivered to U.S. officials on Feb. 21, and a portion was played last month in the trial of four Islamic militants charged with his death.

Marvin Kalb of Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Diplomacy criticized the use of the photos.

"He should be remembered, but remembered as he was, not as a torso without a head," Kalb said. "It's cruel, cruel to the family and unnecessary."

The Hartford (Conn.) yesterday reported various reactions to the Phoenix's earlier posting of the link to the Pearl video Web site.

Steven Goldstein, vice president of Dow Jones, which owns The Wall Street Journal, told the Courant, "We've said all along that we don't think there's any good purpose in showing this video.

"But," Goldstein continued, "we wouldn't presume to tell another media outlet what [it] should or should not do."

The Hartford newspaper also quoted Harper's Magazine publisher John R. MacArthur as saying, "I think it's a good idea. ... [Islamic terrorists] killed a reporter from a major American newspaper and nobody cares anymore. It's an outrage and [showing pictures is] a way to shock people into some kind of recognition."

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CBS News airs part of Daniel Pearl videotape
Family denounces broadcast; network says Americans need to see what Arab world is seeing.  05.15.02