HONG KONG: Journalists live by their wits, but also by a couple of tenants, a sort of professional dogma. Even if we do not truly believe them, they are trumpeted as sacrosanct, and legitimized simply due to their longevity. The most classic among them might be the biggest canard of all: The pen is mightier than the sword. It deserves some new consideration. As I write these words, the life of an American journalist in Pakistan hangs in the balance.

Newspapers buy ink by the barrel and reporters can write to fill the columns. Words are cheap. Likewise, guns and bullets are cheap. It takes little effort to pull a trigger. It is almost the same motion as snapping the shutter of a camera to take a picture, or clicking the mouse of a computer. How to save the life of Danny Pearl, the 38-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped a week ago from Karachi?

His captors say they will kill him imminently unless the US releases the Pakistanis held among the Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners detained at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba, and treated as “unlawful combatants” rather prisoners of war. The group placed a 24-hour ultimatum on their demands and had even used the Internet to email photographs of Pearl in captivity. I can continue to write. And the pen does not seem more potent than the pistol.

But the actions of the kidnappers, the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, is quizzical, even fundamentally inconsistent. They do not seem to realize that the root of their demands, that the US assure the prisoners legal rights, is supported by many in the US media, and even in the Bush administration. The difference is the approach used to achieve these goals, not the goals themselves. Pundits on the Potomac use pens, the kidnappers use guns.

Yet what makes the group’s approach so inconsistent is that it encompasses both passe and modern forms of terrorism. The kidnappers threaten to kill their captive (the classic conclusion of yesteryear’s terrorist), yet they also use the more modern trappings of the Internet and menacing photos to publicize their catch.

Their objective is not to harm Danny Pearl per se, but to gain attention for their cause. That gives cause for hope. It is clear that the modern approach is more effective. If Danny Pearl loses his life, the group will have to struggle for additional attention, competing against the onslaught of all the other items on the news agenda, as well as, of course, the advertisements.That should be enough to make the clever kidnapper realize his position is only strong as long as the captive is alive. The group is powerful as long as they are able to send images of Pearl around the world.

In an information society, it is the propaganda war that counts. The battlefield is the media. The bunkers are public opinion. Success is measured in changing attitudes, and from that, eventually, policy. That is why Pearl’s kidnappers are trying to play the game both ways, on the propaganda front, as well as classic violence. Yet this is the modern, media world of terrorism: If Pearl is harmed, they will lose, too.

The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty only caught the attention of the world when it resorted to the contemporary approach of Hotmail-PR. The pictures where more effective than the pistol. If the group is astute, it will seek victory by keeping Danny Pearl happy and healthy, and well photographed to maintain the exposure of their cause. Perhaps the group will even let Pearl write articles for Wall Street Journal readers from his captivity. It is a fitting irony: They will have realized that the pen can be mightier than the sword.