Homepage Fifty Years On
Homepage
Homepage
• Current viewpoint
• Archive

 

 

Commentary from David Meara
Canon David Meara

• SEND ARTICLE
   TO FRIEND



Recent Viewpoints

The HFE Bill: a battle science won & religion lost

When do you think human life begins?
A Glass Half Full?
Harvest of the Printed Word
  
St Bride's Clergy Viewpoint Archives

Daniel Pearl

February 11, 2002

Last week (March 5th) St Bride's hosted a memorial service for Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal correspondent abducted and murdered in Pakistan. His death had deeply shocked and disgusted all decent-minded people around the world, and our hearts go out in sympathy to his pregnant widow Mariane, and all his colleagues.

Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl
His death is a reminder that evil still stalks our world, and that in today's violent conflicts it is often the reporters and cameramen who are most at risk. More journalists were killed in Afghanistan than American military personnel. Journalism today is dangerous work, but it is vital and important work, seeking to bring the facts and immediacy of a situation to those who live far from it, and to build bridges of understanding in a complex age and a divided world.

Less than a week after Daniel's memorial service we hosted a service of celebration for three hundred years of daily newspapers, at which HRH the Prince of Wales gave the address. At that service those journalists present acknowledged their calling to report facts fearlessly, to speak up for the weak and the marginalised, to be a bastion of free speech in an embattled world.

The Bible gives us the promise that "we shall know the truth and the truth shall make us free". If Daniel Pearl's death is not to be in vain, it should strengthen the resolve of all newsgatherers not to be deterred from exploring the truth about events in the world, because it is only by fearlessly confronting the facts that we shall be able to solve our problems and begin to live together in the world God created and loves.