Sentenced journalist and her sister’s undercover reporting in North Korea

June 8th, 2009 at 10:11am Georgette Braun

I haven’t seen any of the TV newscasts that Euna Lee or Laura Ling have done any reporting for. They are the two American journalists that North Korea just sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. The Associated Press said they were reporting on trafficking of North Korean women when they were charged after allegedly setting foot on North Korean soil.

But I was stunned a year or so ago when watching a report about North Korea that Ling’s sister, Lisa Ling, did for the National Geographic channel. The documentary revolves around a Nepalese doctor who brought his team and equipment into North Korea to perform cataract operations on blind North Koreans, and in the process, teach North Korean doctors the procedure. A news team posed as part of the medical team. I was unaware until I saw the show how intense the brutality, isolationism and ubiquitous worshop of leader Kim Jong Il. is in North Korea.

My eyes were opened similar to those of Keith Thode of Detroit sawa, based on his comments in this Amazon.com review: “It’s hard to imagine a society so repressed and isolated where you and your entire extended family can be placed in prison for life merely for questioning the ‘Dear Leader (Kim Jong Il).”

And, I too, wonder about the methods Lisa Ling and her crew used, as is Aloysius Oneill of Vienna, Va., in her comments: “Like some other reviewers, though, I am troubled by the pretenses under which the National Geographic crew and the Nepalese medical team may have gained entry to North Korea. If any of the various North Korean security services came to believe that local intermediaries of those American and Nepalese visitors were either duped or were engaging in any kind of subterfuge regarding the outsiders and their plans, those North Koreans — and their families — would be (or already are) in grave danger. Even unwittingly contributing to a story that would be seen as criticizing the Kim cult of personality could have severe consequences for North Korean medical personnel and others who helped the visitors. It would be reprehensible if National Geographic took chances with other people’s lives to get an eye-catching story.”

Did any of you see National Geographic’s “Inside North Korea”? What did you think about it?

Entry Filed under: north korea, politics