Because of the newspaper’s weekday publication schedule, Sunday was a workday for the Monitor staff. Team Jill returned to the newsroom earlier than usual, sleep deprived but running on adrenaline. Ingwerson attempted to carry out his managing editor duties, but was constantly sidetracked. The team alternated meetings every hour or two for updates with stretches of phone calls, a pattern that continued throughout the day.

Ingwerson kept looking at previous cases for tips. He had already calculated that it was an advantage to Carroll that, unlike Pearl, she was not a renowned journalist. Hoping to learn more, Monitor Washington Bureau Chief David Cook called Gerald F. Seib, his counterpart at the Wall Street Journal , and asked him to walk through the Pearl case. Seib confirmed something the Monitor already knew: Work every avenue—governmental and non-governmental—for Carroll’s release. Cook and other Monitor staff also got a copy of the memoir written by Pearl’s wife, Mariane. ^[14] Leafing through it, Cook noted useful details about the depth and intensity of the Journal ’s efforts to free Pearl. The paper, for example, had persuaded US Secretary of State Colin Powell to pressure Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to pledge his support and resources to find Pearl. Should it prove necessary, the Monitor might consider a similar appeal.

For the time being, however, it was proving a challenge to keep Carroll’s abduction out of the headlines. Sunday evening, Ingwerson received a phone call from ABC. The television networks held a weekly Iraq security meeting by phone, and ABC was inviting Ingwerson to join their conference call to explain why they should continue to sit on the story. During the meeting, Ingwerson asked for more time, and the networks acquiesced. But the next morning, the executive editor of the Associated Press called Ingwerson to let him know that the story wasn’t going to hold for much longer. She gave Ingwerson an hour. The embargo phase was over.

Watch Ingwerson discuss lifting the blackout