Elsewhere Interweb

I see how you would be skeptical about whether the efforts of this woman (Mariane Pearl) would help or harm the state of global terrorism and I would attribute it to the unavoidable pathos you emphasize. Terrorism results in innocent deaths and has religious and socio-economic issues all mixed in. Plus, there's the personal aspect--the assault on ideals--that provokes the darkest parts of our consciousness when attacked.

I would argue that Pearl would have a tremendous responsibility when writing about her husband's death: to not provoke counter-productive hatred. I strongly believe that terrorists should be brought to justice, but it's easy to decide that all Muslims are terrorists (naturally not true), all terrorists are Muslim (not Timothy McVeigh) and that killing them all will make the problem go away (almost all terrorist groups are born out of the socio-economic issues mentioned earlier, so killing them all is a band-aid at best, never-ending genocide at worst).

Unfortunately, Pearl could report with all the nuance in the world regarding terrorism and it might still be counter-intuitive. The problem: audience. Prejudices such as what I mentioned are irrational ideas that aren't easily won over. Sometimes, I wonder if efforts like that of Pearl actually bring about any change.