EPICANTHUS

With their families and supporters basking in the afterglow of their release last week by Pyongyang, the judgment and professionalism of the Current TV reporters captured on North Korean soil March 17 is being criticized on both sides of the Pacific.

Now that Americans Laura Ling and Euna Lee are free and in seclusion in their Los Angeles-area homes, South Korean human rights activists are speaking out for the first time, saying that the actions of the two Current TV reporters may have jeopardized their efforts to help refugees trying to leave North Korea.

Meanwhile, a veteran, award-winning American journalist says Current’s decision to cross into North Korea was “foolish.”

Reportedly, Ling, Lee and producer Mitchell Koss traveled from Los Angeles to northeastern China to work on a story about the trafficking of North Korean women in the frontier area between the two countries. But when caught, Ling and Lee carried videocassettes and the names and phone numbers of their contacts that could be used by North Korean authorities to identify and round up both refugees and aid workers.

Tim Peters, an American who has assisted North Korean refugees in Northeast China for years as director of the Christian-based Family Care Foundation, is not happy with the Current TV reporters, and he made his views public during a recent radio interview with Jason Strother, a reporter for the PRI/BBC-produced The World.

LISTEN to Strother’s segment on The World:

Peters, who was the subject a TIME magazine cover story titled Seoul Saver in May 2006, told Strother that journalists who come into the border areas for a few days looking for a good scoop often try to use missionaries as fixers, not realizing the risks they are putting the refugees in.

“For journalists to kind of parachute into that area and think that North Korean refugees are going to be eager to talk is really a bit naive,” Peters told The World.

Peters said that it is hard to know if Pyongyang has put to use any of the materials found in Ling and Lee’s possession. But other activists and aid workers report that North Korea began cracking down on cross-border traffic after the reporters’ arrest.

“What is clear about reporting on China or North Korean refugees,” Peters added, “is that journalists, activists and defectors can never be too sure who to trust.”

One American journalist concurred with the Christian activist Peters.

Speaking under the condition of anonymity, the award-winning investigative reporter who has filed stories from both North Korea and China, told Epicanthus he thought the Current TV project was a poorly planned disaster waiting to happen.

“If (Mitch) Koss is really this incredibly knowledgeable foreign correspondent that he’s made out to be, he would have known it was foolish to let these inexperienced reporters cross into North Korea,” he said.

“But more important than that—the footage. The footage was the most critical thing. You always have to take measures to safeguard the footage. The captured footage doomed those refugees who were interviewed.

“My crew would be scared shitless until our footage was safely aboard a plane at Yanji Airport.”

On the possibility that Koss, Ling and Lee were set up by their guide:

“We worked with the same guy Current was using as a fixer, the Rev. Chun (Ki-won). I don’t think he’s the cleanest character in the world. Could he have introduced them to a guide who wasn’t properly vetted? Definitely possible. Some people we talked to weren’t sure if Chun doesn’t play for the other team.”

Ling, 32, vice president of Current’s elite Vanguard Journalism unit, and Lee, 37, a video editor/translator on her first assignment, have admitted they were videotaping inside North Korean territory when seized by border guards. Vanguard executive producer Koss, 56, was reportedly with Ling and Lee but managed to escape back across the Chinese border along with an ethnic Korean guide identified as Kim Seung-cheol.

Lee and Ling were held for 142 days at a guest house near the North Korean capital before being released Aug. 4 to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who flew to Pyongyang on a private jet to negotiate their release.

—babamoto