Mariane Pearl’s mighty heart

Where in the world is Mariane Pearl?

All summer we were inundated with images of Angelina-as-Mariane with her faux brown eyes and tousled curls, sporting a Parisian accent and shouting “maybe nobody finds him!” in the trailer for A Mighty Heart.  We heard Angie gush in admiration over her new pal and we read countless articles limned by father-in-law Judea Pearl espousing the message of his son’s brutal death. Here at The Journal, we’ve hosted two Daniel Pearl fellows, a journalist from Egypt and another from Syria… Yet in all the hullabaloo over the film, nary a word about the Wall Street journalist’s widow, who is quite frankly, responsible for why most of us care about Daniel Pearl in the first place.

After finally seeing the film this weekend, I couldn’t help but wonder: where is Mariane now and what is she doing?

Then I googled. Then I was blown away.

I found her in the pages of Glamour magazine (of all places!). After reading 12 articles, I couldn’t pin her down. Because Mariane Pearl is everywhere: reporting on sex slavery in Cambodia, the first female President of an African nation in Liberia, learning about corrupt politicians in Mexico, outcast unwed mothers in Morocco, meeting female political activists in Cuba and an AIDS orphan-turned-doctor in Uganda. The list goes on and on. The places she’s visited traverse the globe and the people she’s met are changing the world.

When she began this yearlong reporting adventure aptly titled, “Global Diary” Mariane Pearl wrote:

In this new monthly column, I plan to explore a question that a child could easily ask and an adult could hardly answer: Who changes the world, and how? Senator Robert F. Kennedy once said, “It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.” I hope to meet women who, by challenging their own fate, are shaping our world and helping to write the history of our generation.

Her journalism reveals that she is anything but a defeated spirit. Remarkably, the trauma of her husband’s death has had the reverse effect – she is more passionate than ever! The tragedy seems to have reinforced the mission she and her husband were on together: two humble journalists traveling the world in pursuit of truth, in pursuit of making a difference.

Read Mariane Pearl’s “Global Diary.”