The Pearl Project: Georgetown Students and Professors Team to Seek Truth
August 19, 2010
“On Jan. 25, 2002, two days after my friend and Wall Street Journal colleague Danny Pearl left my home in Karachi, Pakistan, for an interview from which he didn't return, I stood in front of a dining room wall I'd covered in blank paper, a thick black Sharpie pen in my hand. I wrote one name in the middle, ‘DANNY,’ and drew a box around it…”
-Asra Nomani
Early in 2002, the world realized in horror that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl had been abducted and killed by Islamic radicals in Karachi, Pakistan. Asra Nomani, who teaches journalism at 
Georgetown, and a close friend and colleague of Pearl’s, took up the mantle of finding out what and why it happened. So began the Pearl Project at Georgetown.
Two veteran journalists spearhead the Pearl Project. Barbara Feinman Todd has taught at Georgetown for 18 years and has been a freelance writer and editor for more than 20. She has ghostwritten and contributed to numerous biographies and books by political leaders. Asra Nomani is an accomplished author of two books and a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, TIME magazine, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Together Feinman Todd and Nomani created the Pearl Project, a highly selective seminar that teaches Hoyas real reporting skills, while at the same time seeking to advance the Ignatian ideal of men and women for others by working to make the world a better and safer place. 
Since its inception, the students in The Pearl Project seminar have been continuing Nomani’s initial work of charting the people and places behind Pearl’s kidnapping and murder. Now, some three years later, Feinman Todd and Nomani are getting ready to share the findings in a 12-part publication. “This is taken from the work done in the class the first year and research by a small group of volunteers,” explained Feinman Todd. “A small group of volunteers stayed involved and continued the reporting after the class ended. Asra and I took all the material and boiled it down into a series.” Working with the Center for Public Integrity, a non-profit group devoted to investigative journalism about public issues, the findings will be shared with media outlets worldwide at the end of the year. As they work on publishing their findings, Feinman Todd and Nomani are also planning a new class.
“We’re gearing up for the next Pearl Project,” said Feinman Todd. “We have about 12 undergraduates accepted to the class, and we’ve asked them to propose a new journalists’ case.” Just as they did with the case of Daniel Pearl, students will focus on a journalist who has been killed or is in peril due to their work, and will seek to piece together the background and issues behind the case.
“There are a lot of students who are interested in journalism from a variety of majors,” said Feinman Todd. “Several of the undergrads [from the seminar] have gone on to journalism careers.”
One of those students who caught the journalism bug at Georgetown is 2008 College graduate Erin Delmore. She found the Pearl Project so inspiring she audited a second semester of the demanding class simply because she wanted to continue helping put together the story. She now works full time in the field of journalism. “[The Pearl Project] might have carved out my professional path more than anything else. After taking this class…I was solidly committed to news and started working at the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer right after graduation. I came onboard the Washingtonian magazine during the [2008 presidential] inauguration, and I think the editor snatched me up partly because of my Pearl Project experience. In fact, I've worked on a string of terrorism-related projects since then.”
While the Pearl Project has convinced several students to pursue journalism, that has not been Feinman Todd’s sole intention. She rather hopes to teach students the skills to think critically and seek the truth regardless of their post-graduate aspirations. “The purpose of the Pearl Project is not necessarily to recruit journalists, but I believe these analytical skills are valuable. A lot of our students go on to become lawyers, teachers, and other professionals—many skills are the same. The Pearl Project is a great experiential way to teach students these skills. They have some of these raw talents, and these classes give them the experience and practice."
-Gabrielle Matthews
The Pearl Project has been the subject of several articles in such pulications as Marie Claire magazine, USA Today, and the Washington Post.
Photos from right: Asra Nomani; left, Barbara Feinman Todd. Both photos courtesy of the Pearl Project. Home page image: Visiting students from Georgetown University's Qatar campus, (left to right) Haya Al-Noaimi and Fatima Bahja, taking notes during an evening Pearl Project meeting. Photo by Claire Callagy.
