The Pearl Project

Gaylord students spent their Valentine's day learning about the investigative journalistic perspective into the assassination of Daniel Pearl and the Pearl Project. The presentation was lead by former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Q. Nomani, and Barbara Feinman Todd, the associate dean of journalism at Georgetown university. 

Nomani was a close friend and colleague of Pearl's from his days at the Wall Street Journal. She described him as being, "the guy everybody liked, every girl had a crush on, and every guy wanted to catch a beer with." She told the story of how daniel was lead into his captives arms as being very similar to when she was in Afganistan. 

The Pearl Project was a project at Georgetown University and the Center for Public Integrity that investigated Pearls murder that occurred in 2002. It included graduate and undergraduate students from a number of Georgetown majors. Students investigated the questions of who really killed pearl, and why they killed him. 

"We used a 6 cell format," Nomani said, "and we started with the 4 men that were charged for his murder." When they concluded their investigation almost 3 1/2 years later, 27 men were identified as having some involvement with Pearl's disappearance and murder. 

"On January 23, 2002, Daniel went off for an interview," Nomani quoted almost from memory. Pearl was in search of the true name and identity of Richard Reed, the shoe-bomber who was suspected as being a major facilitator for the terrorist attacks on 911. "He was lead straight into the arms of Omar Sheik, the mastermind behind his assassination," Nomani said. Through Amjad Hussain Farooqi, a man involved in trapping Pearl, Sheik was connected to the other men that were identified as being apart of the murder of Pearl. 

The Pearl Project was modeled after the Arizona Project, an investigative reporting project into the murder of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles. "To be successful we needed dedication and money, we had the first we just didn't have any money," said Todd. Nearly $363,000 was given by the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism, a non profit organization aimed at keeping investigative journalism alive.