Current TV to go pro

Now that Keith Olbermann is on board at Current TV, where he'll host a show and lead the political coverage, the Al Gore-owned channel wants to hire more professional staff and reinvent itself as a mix of MSNBC and the Discovery Channel. TV Newser

'Home and free'

The plane carrying former President Bill Clinton and freed journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling touched down at 5:30 a.m. in Burbank early this morning, touching off an emotional reunion.

From the New York Times:

“Thirty hours ago, Euna Lee and I were prisoners in North Korea,” Ms. Ling said in brief remarks to reporters, blinking back tears. “We feared that at any moment we could be prisoners in a hard labor camp. Then suddenly we were told that we were going to a meeting.”

“We were taken to a location and when we walked through the doors, we saw standing before us President Bill Clinton,” she said, recounting the final moments of her ordeal. “We were shocked, but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end. And now we stand here home and free.”

NYT, LAT, WaPo

If journalism loses its value, do journalists lose theirs as well?

James Rainey at the LA Times makes note of an interesting response to the news that two U.S. journalists had been sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for allegedly crossing the border into North Korea.

Rainey writes:

... a small but determined backlash took form, from a minority who say that reporters who go where they are not supposed to go get what they deserve. That's unsettling, but not surprising given a more insidious sentiment loose in the land: that journalists haven't earned and don't deserve any special privileges.

It's a populist nostrum that seeps into my e-mail basket and oozes from blogs and mainstream media websites with some regularity.

Although my blog is too small to be representative of a national trend, it stuck me that the only comment I received after Current TV reporter Euna Lee and Laura Ling were jailed came from someone who felt they deserved to be punished:

I believe the reporters broke the law and should pay the price. I have family members in the military and think this type of recklessness puts our military in harm’s way just so the reports (sic) can make some money.

Al Scal Guam USA

Clearly someone who's never seen a reporter's paycheck

As Rainy says, "The case of Ling and Lee provides the most recent reminder that some people passionately defend our freedoms, except when it becomes clear they won't come free." I'll let you work out the double meaning, but let's hope that the people who do sympathize with the two journalists take the time to consider why they went to China.

To that end, the Washington Post has a story today about the trafficking of women from North Korea to China that seems to be similar to what Lee and Ling were reporting on.

Trial day for two detained journalists

The trial of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the Current TV journalists captured and jailed by the North Korean government on charges of illegal entry and unspecified "hostile" act, was scheduled to begin today. They face five years or more of hard labor if convicted. The New York Times reports:

In a brief dispatch early Thursday, the North’s official news organ, the Korean Central News Agency, said that the trial would begin at 3 p.m. (2 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday) in Pyongyang Central Court, the highest court of North Korea. But by Thursday evening, there was no word on whether the trial had begun.

Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee were on a reporting assignment from Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company co-founded by Al Gore, the former vice president, when they were detained by North Korean soldiers on the border between North Korea and China on March 17. The reporters were working on a report about North Korean refugees — women and children — who had fled their impoverished country in hopes of finding food in China. The circumstances surrounding the detention of the two journalists remain unclear.

North Korea to try jailed journalists

North Korean officials said today that Current TV journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling will be put on trial June 4. The two journalists are accused of entering the country illegally and with "hostile intent." Reuters

More jailed journalists

The case of jailed journalist Roxana Saberi has made headlines around the world, but two other journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, jailed in a different "axis of evil" country, have hardly received the same level of attention. Alan Mutter explains why. (Read the Associated Press story.)