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Where EAST meets the Northwest

CURRENT TROUBLES. Two women walk past the headquarters of Current TV in San Francisco. The plight of two of Current TV’s reporters — Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, who were imprisoned after being arrested on the North Korean border — has put the independent cable channel at the center of the news and raised questions about reporting tactics of new media. Ling and Lee were sentenced by the top North Korean court in early June to 12 years of hard labor for crossing into the country and engaging in what officials called a politically fuelled smear campaign. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

From The Asian Reporter, V19, #25 (June 30, 2009), page 8.

By Juliana Barbassa

Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO — With backing from Al Gore, Current TV was launched four years ago as a mix of traditional journalism and viewer-produced content meant to create an open exchange with its audience.

But the plight of its reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee, imprisoned after being arrested on the North Korean border, has put the independent cable channel at the center of the news and raised questions about reporting tactics of new media.

While U.S. officials and family members have publicly called for the release of the women, Current TV has remained resolutely silent. The media outlet has not commented or reported on the situation and has even taken the unusual step of deleting messages of support posted to its website.

Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, were sentenced by the top North Korean court in early June to 12 years of hard labor for crossing into the country and engaging in what officials called a politically fuelled smear campaign.

Media observers said Current TV’s decision not to air anything related to the situation could be justified when dealing with an unpredictable country such as North Korea.

Strategies of media companies differ when their journalists are endangered; some rally publicly in their defense while others keep it out of the headlines, pursuing back-channel negotiations to resolve the situation, said Tala Dowlatshahi, New York director of the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders.

Dowlatshahi warned against blaming the journalists or Current TV’s "backpack journalism" approach, which outfits reporters with portable, easy-to-use technology that allows movement through dangerous territory.

"To say that this type of guerrilla journalism is putting journalists in more risk than traditional journalism is not the issue," Dowlatshahi said. "The issue is these women are not criminals, they’re journalists, and they were not given proper legal treatment."

The changing media environment has created more opportunities for journalists affiliated with new outlets, and for anyone with a computer, to cover the news around the world. As the lines are blurred, the protections afforded reporters might weaken, said Bob Steele, a journalism values scholar at The Poynter Institute.

"The protections for journalists can be jeopardized given these changing roles, these looser affiliations," said Steele. "If a journalist is not working directly for a news organization, or one that is not a longtime, traditional news organization, there might be a heightened risk. There might be questions about whether they’re really journalists."

Steele pointed out that Lee and Ling’s situation might have been complicated by Al Gore’s stake in Current as a former government official.

"In his case, you have some competing loyalties playing out," said Steele.

Current, which was launched in 2005, uses a model that showcases content created by their target audience of 18-to-34-year-olds next to longer, traditional news pieces produced by its Vanguard journalism unit, where Lee and Ling worked.

The result is random fare that ranges from stories such as Vanguard’s in-depth look at the violence and poverty pushing Somalis to flee their country to a user-produced piece showing addicts shooting up heroin at a safe-injection site in Vancouver, Canada.

Nielsen Media Research said the channel’s ratings are released only to Current TV at the company’s request. But SEC filings indicate it has yet to become a household name on the level of cable channels Comedy Central and MTV.

Still, the arrest of Ling and Lee has cast a light on an emerging style of reporting popular with start-up news organizations that want to tell stories in different ways.

Its approach is in many ways indicative of the direction media is going — covering international news using smaller, independent crews with new technology, said Bob Calo, a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and a former producer at ABC News and NBC News.

"There’s an element of risk when you have a small crew and you’re travelling low profile, yes, but that’s true for any journalist," Calo said. "It’s typical of anyone embracing a digital model, an open kind of journalism."

The harsh sentences for Ling and Lee brought pleas for compassion from family members and friends and calls for government talks by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The families have not publicly discussed Current TV’s silence, but they have thanked Gore for his response.

"He’s doing everything he can to secure their release," Ling’s sister, TV journalist Lisa Ling, said on ABC’s "Good Morning America."

Former colleagues describe Laura Ling, one of the company’s first employees and now a vice president, as dedicated to its mission of bringing untold stories from around the world to a young audience. Ling started her journalism career in 1999 at Channel One, a network for young adults, and has travelled extensively for work, reporting from locations including Cuba, the Philippines, and the West Bank.

Lee, who was raised in South Korea, graduated from San Francisco’s Academy of Art University and worked as a film editor before joining Current.

Ariana Reguzzoni, who was a producer in the Vanguard unit, said the division’s use of both trained journalists and content providers in foreign countries to cover international stories is something that hadn’t been tried before on a similar scale.

"My philosophy was, this is great. We’re going to hear some voices we don’t really hear from, and we might be able to share that story with a younger demographic who might not be listening to the BBC or reading The AP," she said.

Ling, ambitious and determined, fit well with Current TV’s approach, Reguzzoni said.

"She’s really passionate about journalism and documentary," she said. "She travelled a lot and was willing to take risks for her job."