How NOT to cover a story

ralphrepo · Aug 23, 2009

For all you journalism majors out there, here is an example of how NOT to be a reporter:

Photo source: http://justjared.buzznet.com/2009/08/05/laura-ling-euna-lee-return-home/comment-page-5/#comments

In a rush? For a quick synopsis, just read the red highlighted lines.

August 22, 2009
In South Korea, Freed U.S. Journalists Come Under Harsh Criticism

By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two American journalists released after nearly five months in North Korean custody, have been widely portrayed at home as victims of unduly harsh punishment by a repressive government for simply doing their job. But here in South Korea, human rights advocates, bloggers and Christian pastors are accusing them of needlessly endangering the very people they tried to cover: North Korean refugees and the activists who help them.

The accusations stem from a central fear repeated in newspapers and blogs here: that the notes and videotapes the journalists gathered in China before their ill-fated venture to the border fell into the hands of the authorities, potentially compromising the identities of refugees and activists dedicated to spiriting people out of the North. The Rev. Lee Chan-woo, a South Korean pastor, said the police raided his home in China on March 19, four days after the journalists visited and filmed a secret site where he looked after children of North Korean refugee women. He said that he was then deported in early April and that his five secret homes for refugees were shut down. The children, he said, were dispersed to family members in China, who could not afford to take care of them. “The Chinese cited scenes from films confiscated from the journalists when they interrogated me,” said Mr. Lee, 70. As evidence of the ordeal, he provided documents he said the Chinese police gave him after the raid. “The reporters visited our place with a noble cause,” he added. “I did my best to help them. But I wonder how they could be so careless in handling their tapes and notebooks. They should have known that if they were caught, they would suffer for sure, but also many others would be hurt because of them.”

The Rev. Chun Ki-won, the chief pastor of the Durihana Mission that Mr. Lee works with, said that two of the women interviewed by the American journalists fled China after being told about the arrests, frightened of being repatriated to North Korea and put in labor camps. Another interviewee was still on the run in China, he said. “We could not find out whether they filmed any other refugees we don’t know of,” Mr. Chun said. “If that’s the case, we have to find them, provided it’s not too late already. But the American reporters are not talking to us.”

Many elements of Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee’s reporting trip remain shrouded in mystery. Neither their employer, Current TV, nor the journalists have revealed details of their work or the circumstances under which they were captured.

Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee were arrested by North Korean soldiers on March 17, while their cameraman, Mitch Koss, and their guide were reported to have been detained by the Chinese authorities after fleeing. Brent Marcus, a spokesman for Current TV, said, “We’re concerned about the situation that has evolved with Lee Chan-woo and the Durihana Mission.” But he said “many of the details” in the pastors’ accounts were “not correct.” When Ms. Lee and Ms. Ling have recovered enough to tell their story, he said, it will differ from the pastors’ versions. E-mail messages to Ms. Lee and a representative who has been handling public relations for the reporters’ families were not answered. According to Durihana, the Current TV crew met with Mr. Chun, the chief pastor, in Seoul on March 13, asking for help covering the plight of North Korean refugees in China. Mr. Chun said he put them in touch with Mr. Lee and a Korean guide in China. On March 15, the crew met Mr. Lee in Yanji, a Chinese town near the northeastern border with North Korea, he said, but seeming lapses in security bothered him. For one, he said,

...they called his home telephone in Yanji — a serious breach of protocol for activists who operate under the constant fear of being monitored by the Chinese police.

The activists, missionaries and smugglers who help shuttle people out of North Korea have moved about 20,000 North Korean refugees through China, mostly to South Korea. Some operate with a political agenda to undermine the North Korean government, and some are driven by religious passion to convert North Koreans to Christianity. Mr. Lee said the American crew asked to visit one of five secret homes where he looked after 20 children, ages 5 to 13. They were the children of North Korean women who had been lured by human traffickers with promises of food and then sold to Chinese men, he said.

Mr. Lee said he first asked the journalists not to film the children. When they assured him that they would obscure parts of the footage, like faces, Mr. Lee said he relaxed a bit. But he said he did not know until later that the crew asked children to face the camera and speak to their mothers, whom they had not seen for a long time. “After they left,” he said, “the children told me excitedly about being filmed.” The cameraman, Mr. Koss, declined to answer specific questions about the trip until Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee had spoken first. Still, he said, he was amazed by “how many untrue stories have been published in the last five months” and how “when there is silence, fantasy answers to fill in empty spaces.” But here in South Korea, where the dangers of the China-North Korea border zone are well known, the American journalists’ venture has been criticized by many as foolhardy. “We can assume that the journalists’ guide compromised every source,” said Joo Sung-ha, a North Korean defector who works in Seoul as a newspaper reporter. In his blog, Mr. Joo has berated the American reporters, urging them to “shed their martyrdom image.” In a separate interview, Mr. Joo said he was also “disgusted” by the way “some American media are giving them some kind of hero’s welcome home.” “Since their return,” he added, “they haven’t said a peep about the fate of the people they have endangered, though unintentionally.”

One human rights official in Seoul, who makes frequent excursions to China to interview North Korean refugees and whose work requires anonymity, complained: “I had to suspend my own trips and work in China because of the tension” created by the episode. Mr. Chun, the chief pastor, also raised concerns that the events might discourage future reporting on refugees. “Getting arrested and repatriated to the North is almost an everyday event for these poor refugees,” he said. “The difference is that they don’t get the kind of attention the American journalists did.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/world/asia/22journalists.html?em
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Recall that Laura Ling and Euna Lee, US reporters, had apparently crossed the border from China into the DPRK without authorization, in violation of both North Korean border sovereignty AND the US State Department's long standing prohibition against any US citizen travel to the DPRK without US government approval. Not only did their actions embarrass the US, but gave the DPRK political ammunition that it could never otherwise get; a former US president doing a photo op with Kim Jong Il. Now it seems that their stupidity gave the DPRK something even more important; actual actionable intelligence that was used to thwart and suppress activists that were helping North Korean people flee. The more that I read about the two, the more I say they both should have been made to serve their 12 year sentences.

Ironically, drug dealers are often convicted after police arrest them and go through their PDAs (or smartphones like Blackberry), which usually lists all their drug deals, phone numbers, and other logistics of their criminal organization. Like most reporters, I'm assuming that both Ling and Lee had PDAs crammed with all their story notes, background info, contact numbers, et cetera. That is everything that the DPRK needed to perform raids on the underground activists in China and within the DPRK. And they did this for what? To get a better story on the suffering of North Koreans? Well, they themselves have now become the story by making North Koreans suffer ever more. It was their pure arrogance; that they felt they were above the law because they were reporters, that compelled them to step into the DPRK. I hope Journeyman, which is fairly professional, fires them for their grossly unprofessional behavior and misconduct.

*** Sidebar *** I had previously posted about them when their story first broke. At the time it was thought that DPRK border troops had illegally crossed into China and snatched them. Then it became clear that they were actually in the wrong. They broke the law.

master_g · Aug 23, 2009

silly people, well they got caught and got let off luckily for them, they wont be pulling that off again.

krazyaznboi · Aug 23, 2009

I actually never supported for their release. I wanted them to serve their sentence, and I don't think thats bad enough

EvilTofu · Aug 23, 2009

I have mixed feelings about it...

ralphrepo · Aug 23, 2009

eviltofu said: ↑

I have mixed feelings about it...
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They had their hearts in the right place, but had their head up their ass. This is a perfect example of how well meaning, but otherwise ignorant and unthinking people can really screw things up for everyone.

It was a perfectly selfish act on their part, to think that they can go after a big story and not care about the ramifications. Had they really thought this out from the beginning, and realized that they could have been arrested and then interrogated, with the probability being high that all their possessions would be searched; they should have prepared an otherwise blank PDA with one number in it; to the US embassy in Seoul. The story also pointed out that several North Korean refugees hiding in China, upon hearing of the capture of the reporters, immediately fled. Even they knew what was up; the reporters who they had talked to got compromised, so they too then, needed to run for their lives. See? It's not so hard to understand.

And now, it seems that everyone around them is clamming up; that is, giving them all time to come up with an excuse. The cameraman who is saying that he is allowing them to speak first? Answer? He's taking the fifth; he doesn't want to say anything self incriminating. And the two women? They have the vapors (female hysteria); ie, they're too in shock from their ordeal to speak right now. handoff1

fearless_fx · Aug 23, 2009

Idiots.

I wonder how many good people are going to be placed into detention camps in North Korea now because of their actions.

negiqboyz · Aug 23, 2009

I frankly didn't follow on this story much because I thought these people were stupid in the first place for risking their lives simply trying to break a BIG story. Now that I read up on it; I think these reporters got what they deserved. Like Ralph said, their selfishness put others people's lives in jeopardy. I think the US gov shouldn't have butt into this case knowing the facts. When you break the laws, you should be purnished; simple as that. Getting off easy because you are an American is just wrong; sent the wrong message to the world too. I guess working for Al Gore got them the leverage to launch all the publicity they need to get home in one piece and disregard the rest of the consequences others are facing over there now.

Flames · Aug 23, 2009

Great job reporters you just caused a lot more people to suffer

Dav · Aug 23, 2009

i'm all for their release, but they got off the hook too easily. sucks that other people will be paying the price.

Akki · Aug 24, 2009

12 year sentence would have been an extremely long term to serve... but it does make sense of what a fool they have made of themselves and their representing country.

How NOT to cover a story

ralphrepo Well-Known Member

master_g .

krazyaznboi Well-Known Member

EvilTofu 吃|✿|0(｡◕‿◕｡)0|✿|吃

ralphrepo Well-Known Member

fearless_fx Eugooglizer

negiqboyz Well-Known Member

Flames Out of Date User

Dav Well-Known Member

Akki ...