Daniel Pearl Journalism Internship
Daniel Pearl |
Application Deadline: 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 2 Department of Communication Office, McClatchy Hall (Building 120) Room 110
Informational Meeting: 12 noon Wednesday, Oct. 21 Mendenhall Library, McClatchy Hall, Room 101A
The Daniel Pearl Memorial Journalism Internship is awarded annually to an outstanding Stanford student journalist, and commemorates the work of Daniel Pearl, a Stanford graduate who was kidnapped and murdered while working as a Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent in Pakistan in 2002.
The internship itself is in a foreign bureau of the Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal pays the salary of the intern, and the Daniel Pearl Memorial Fund provides an amount designed to cover travel, housing and other incidental costs associated with the internship. In 2009, the salary will be $700 a week and the amount from the Memorial Fund will be approximately $5,000.
2009 Daniel Pearl Intern chosen
A Stanford graduate student has been chosen as the 2009 Daniel Pearl Memorial Journalism Intern. Ketaki Gokhale is working toward a master’s degree in Communication, specializing in journalism, which she plans to finish in June 2009. She will work in a foreign bureau of the Wall Street Journal this summer.
In an essay written as part of the application process, Gokhale described reporting on the plight of Punjab farm workers who suffered because the Indian American farmers who employed them were either ignorant of pesticide safety regulations or ignored them. She continued, “In his life and work, Daniel Pearl was an exemplar of this impulse. Whether reporting from war-torn Kosovo or a child beauty pageant in the American South, Pearl would focus on the most ordinary of people, telling their stories in a way that lent them dignity and created understanding between disparate people.
Gokhale is from Marin County, and has worked at India-West newspaper in San Leandro, California, and New America Media, consortium of ethnic media based in San Francisco. She is a graduate of Brown University.
A committee of Communication Department faculty members evaluated applicants for the internship. The final decision was made by the Wall Street Journal. Pearl, a 1985 graduate of Stanford’s Department of Communication, was kidnapped in Karachi on January 23, 2002, while working on a story retracing the steps of "shoe bomber" Richard Reid. A month later, on Feb. 21, his captors released a videotape of his slaying. He was 38.
Click here to read Ketaki Gokhale's winning essay: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Risks.
Eligibility
The person selected should have extensive journalism experience, either as a student journalist, or as an intern at a newspaper, or a combination of both. The person will be selected on the basis of journalism qualifications and the degree to which he or she exemplifies the work of Daniel Pearl:
* A commitment to explaining different cultures to each other.
* An emphasis on the stories of ordinary people rather than those in positions of power.
* A focus in his or her writing on the dignity of individuals.
As part of the application for the Pearl Internship, applicants write an essay of about 500 words on how their work and career goals put into practice those principles.
The internship will normally be done during the summer following selection, although other times are possible. Those eligible for the internship include Stanford undergraduate and graduate students, including those completing a degree just before the internship. Preference is given to undergraduate applicants.
After the internship, the person selected returns to Stanford to meet with faculty and students and to discuss the experience.
There is no application form. Applicants send a cover letter, resume, a dozen of their best bylined clips and their essay to the Department of Communication, to the Attention of the Internship Coordinator.
A committee of the Stanford journalism faculty evaluates the applicants. The Wall Street Journal makes the final decision.
Daniel Pearl Interns