New York Times columnist David Brooks will deliver the sixth annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 26, at UCLA.

 

Pearl was a prominent Wall Street Journal journalist covering the war on terrorism when he was kidnapped and brutally murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002.

 

Pearl's father, Judea Pearl, a computer science professor at UCLA, and other members of his family established the Daniel Pearl Foundation to promote and continue Daniel's mission of fostering cross-cultural understanding throughout the world.

 

Brooks' lecture will address issues of journalism, world culture and politics.

 

"David Brooks was our first choice," said Judea Pearl, "because of the broad range of topics he tackles in his analyses, from pop culture to national politics to foreign relations - an intellectual richness that characterized our son's writings as well. When you start reading any of Brooks' articles, you can be assured you will gain fresh new insight, no matter what the subject is."

 

The Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture Series, established at UCLA in 2002 and expanded to Stanford University in 2006, features scholars, journalists and policymakers who have contributed original analyses or constructive approaches to problems of international concern. Previous presenters have included Ted Koppel, Larry King, Thomas Friedman, Christiane Amanpour, Jeff Greenfield, Daniel Schorr and Bernard-Henri Lévy.

 

Brooks is an op-ed columnist for the New York Times and has been a senior editor at the Weekly Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly, and a reporter and op-ed editor at the Wall Street Journal. He is currently a commentator on "The Newshour with Jim Lehrer." Brooks is the author of "Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There" and "On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense" and the editor of the 1996 anthology "Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing."

 

Other current projects of the the Daniel Pearl Foundation include an interfaith forum of Muslim and Jewish youngsters in Pakistan, journalism fellowships that allow foreign reporters to work in U.S. newsrooms, youth-oriented journalism programs and the Daniel Pearl World Music Days, a worldwide event promoting cultural understanding through music performances.

 

The Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture Series at UCLA is sponsored by UCLA's Burkle Center for International Relations, the Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA and the Daniel Pearl Foundation.

 

"Daniel Pearl's story and his tragedy are unfortunately not unusual," said Burkle Center director Kal Raustiala. "Journalists are in danger all over the world, yet it is journalists who give us the critical facts and context we need to understand events as they unfold. The Burkle Center is honored to co-sponsor this lecture. We see this as a way to reach a new generation of students who are interested in both his story and what he stood for."

 

Brooks' lecture will be held at the UCLA Anderson School of Management's Korn Convocation Hall. He will be introduced by UCLA Chancellor Gene Block.

 

Media should R.S.V.P. for the event and arrange parking by calling Elizabeth Kivowitz at (310) 206-1458.

 

The general public should R.S.V.P. at burkle@international.ucla.edu.