Mia Lee’s Gone
September 18, 2009
- News Anchor Mia Lee Leaves KCAL-TV, instantriverside.com
- More on Porn Star Anchor Mia Lee, awfulplasticsurgery.com
- Mia Lee & Jackie Johnson: The Curviest News on TV? YouTube
Is Your Baby Racist?
September 18, 2009
Singer and now photog Priscilla Ahn captured this shot of this Newsweek cover dated Sept. 5 somewhere from the road on her Blackberry 8900.
Date An Asian
September 15, 2009
Jen Kwok is a California-born finance manager-turned-comedian now living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Some say this Chinese American funny girl is ready for her close-up.
- A Certain Jen Ne Sais Kwok, jenkwok.com
- Jen Kwok Interview, asiancemagazine.com
- Those Four Irresistible Strings, New York Times
Serena Williams vs. Lineswoman @ US Open
September 15, 2009
Kim Jong-il Follows Beckham on Facebook?
September 14, 2009
PYONGYANG, DPRK.—North Korea’s Dear Leader Kim Jong-il reportedly was enraged when he saw a photo of L.A. Galaxy soccer star David Beckham posing with journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee after Kim had pardoned them just three weeks earlier, according to Asian News International.
Sources deep within the Hermit Kingdom say the 68-year-old Kim is now intent on defeating Beckham and the English team if his North Korean national squad should meet them in next year’s World Cup and has promised his players cash bonuses and a party to end all parties if they beat the Brits.
- Becks Incurs Wrath of NKorea’s Kim Jong-il, Gaea Times
- David Beckham: He’s No Bill Clinton, but… Eonline
- NKorea Prepping 3rd Nuke Test, AFP
U.S. Open (Food) Winners
September 10, 2009
Somehow, It’s Always the Fixer Who Dies
September 10, 2009
News item:
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) – NATO troops freed a kidnapped British reporter for the New York Times in northern Afghanistan on Wednesday, but his Afghan colleague, a British soldier and at least one civilian were killed in the rescue. Times reporters Stephen Farrell and Mohammad Sultan Munadi were abducted while attempting to visit the scene of a NATO air strike that killed scores of Afghans in the north of the country.
When a journalist doesn’t fit in racially, when he/she doesn’t speak the language, know the culture or lay of the land, they turn to fixers—streetwise and resourceful locals with the willingness to serve as a tool for a tool. Sultan 
Munadi was such a fixer. His death yesterday has driven some to ponder the risks taken by these indispensable on-the-scene facilitators, these willing assets on the ground who often face the wrath of their own people and meet violent ends to help foreign journalists get their stories. The fixer parses the story and does prep and all the legwork, and the so-called journalist gets the credit.
David Rohde, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times correspondent held captive for seven months in Afghanistan by the Taliban, eulogized Munadi as a “gentle stalwart.”
Wrote Rohde: “The death of Mr. Munadi illustrated two grim truths of the war in Afghanistan: vastly more Afghans than foreigners have died battling the Taliban, and foreign journalists are only as good as the Afghan reporters who work with them.”
George Packer, an essayist for the New Yorker and a critic of the opposition to the Iraq War by the “doctrinaire left,” describes his feeling after learning of Munadi’s death and Farrell’s rescue as “a sinking sense of unsurprise.”
“They serve as our walking history books, political analysts,” writes Times correspondent Barry Bearak, “managers of logistics, taking equal the risks without equal the glory or pay.”
- It’s Always the Fixer Who Dies, George Packer, The New Yorker
- Sultan Munadi: A Gentle Stalwart, David Rohde, The New York Times
- Hell? No, I Won’t Go, Sultan M. Munadi, The New York Times
via Xeni Jardin, boingboing
David Choe: Work in Progress
September 5, 2009
The Power of Hip-hop: Tupac in Kazakhstan
September 5, 2009
Peggy Wang: Buzzfeed Editor, Geek Queen
September 5, 2009
- Today’s Web Crush—Peggy Wang: Blogger, Musician, asylum.com
- Peggy Loves Goatse, Buzzfeed
Reader Reaction to Ling-Lee Op-Ed Mixed
September 2, 2009
Reaction is mixed to the Op-Ed article by Current TV journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling which detailed events leading to their 140-day imprisonment in North Korea, with readers leaving many comments critical of the reporters’ actions on the Los Angeles Times and Current TV websites.
Anatomy of An International Incident: Reporters Issue Account of Events Leading to NKorean Imprisonment
September 2, 2009
Nearly a month after their release from North Korean custody, Current TV reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling issued their first public account of events that led to their 140-day custody in North Korea. A sometimes rambling 1900-word, co-bylined story appeared first on the Los Angeles Times and Current TV websites Tuesday evening and later in the Opinion section of the Wednesday edition of the Times and other publications.
The biggest revelation in the piece is that Lee and Ling say that after briefly entering North Korea, they had run back across the Chinese border and were “violently dragged” back to North Korea by border guards. The article also responds to criticism of their journalistic professionalism and ethics.
In their Op-Ed piece, Lee and Ling wrote:
- They willingly followed a Korean-Chinese guide across the frozen Tumen River into North Korea.
- They spent less than a minute in North Korea and were headed back to China when they encountered armed North Korean border guards.
- “We were firmly back inside China when the soldiers apprehended us. Producer Mitch Koss and our guide were both able to outrun the border guards.”
- Their guide seemed “cautious and responsible.”
- Lee and Ling say they were surprised that their main contact Rev. Chun Ki-won spoke with reporters after their arrest.
- “Chun claimed that he had warned us not to go to the river,” but Lee and Ling say “he never suggested we shouldn’t go.”
- “We carefully followed Chun’s directions so as to not endanger anyone in this underground world.”
- Lee and Ling tried to swallow their notes and destroy their videotapes.
- They underwent rigorous, daily interrogations.
- Lee and Ling say the Op-Ed piece is “all we are prepared to talk about — the psychological wounds of imprisonment are slow to heal.”
- Lee is now listed as a producer for Current TV’s elite Vanguard Journalism unit. Ling is vice president of Vanguard.
Read Hostages of the Hermit Kingdom by Euna Lee and Laura Ling.
