Twenty-five years of Danny's legacy

Supports young journalists investigating prejudice and hate. One 2013 investigation grew into Eve Fairbanks’s The Inheritors, winner of the 2023 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award.

For sixteen years, the fellowship brought mid-career journalists from South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa to spend six months in U.S. newsrooms such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Fellows wrote for the audiences Danny wrote for, then carried what they learned back to readers at home.

From 2006 to 2008, the Daniel Pearl Editorial Fellowships brought five editors from Pakistan, Syria, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates to the United States. Run with ICFJ’s International Journalism Exchange, the program gave them a firsthand look at how editorial decisions are made in a free press, sharpened their writing and editing skills, and built lasting ties with American journalists, editors, and newsrooms.

Daniel Pearl Youth News was an international program for high school and secondary school students. Through a four-part training course, it helped young journalists develop their writing skills. It also taught them why media literacy and unbiased reporting matter, whether they were writing the news or reading it.

The training course and mentoring by professional journalists emphasized ethics, integrity, and truth in reporting, the cornerstones of a reporter’s credibility. After completing the course, students became certified Daniel Pearl Reporters and could post their articles on the Youth News website. In keeping with the Foundation’s mission, their first story was on the broad topic of tolerance.

On the twentieth anniversary of the day the world learned of Danny’s death, the Foundation gave $20,000 to Journalists for Human Rights’ evacuation effort in Afghanistan. Four people the Taliban takeover had put in immediate danger — investigative journalists, women’s rights defenders, and civil-society workers — were brought to safety and named the Daniel Pearl Evacuees.

“We could not save Danny from his tragic death at the hands of extremists, though so many tried. Driven by his legacy, we are happy to support JHR in their effort to save journalists from a similar fate.” — Tamara Pearl, Danny’s sister

PEARL World Youth News, developed with iEARN, combined journalism training, volunteer mentors and a reporter-certification process built on ethics and integrity. A YouthNOISE writing campaign drew more than 500 teen submissions; the Foundation also sponsored a Seeds of Peace camper and media internships for Israeli and Palestinian alumni.

23 lectures through 2002–26, including Thomas Friedman, Christiane Amanpour, Samantha Power, Bob Woodward, Jake Tapper, Garry Kasparov and Steven Pinker.

Speakers have included Christiane Amanpour, Wolf Blitzer, Bernard-Henri Lévy and Senator Joseph Lieberman. The 2026 lecture featured Judea Pearl.

The Daniel Pearl Dialogue for Muslim-Jewish Understanding was a series of personal yet public conversations between Daniel Pearl’s father, Professor Judea Pearl, President of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, and Dr. Akbar Ahmed, Chair of Islamic Studies at American University. The program grew out of Professors Ahmed and Pearl’s shared concern about the deterioration of relationships between Muslim and Jewish communities around the world, and their strong belief that reconciliation between these two Abrahamic faiths can be achieved through frank and respectful dialogue. The discussions ranged from theological issues and historical perceptions to current events.

In 2006, Professors Pearl and Ahmed received The Purpose Prize for the Dialogue.