Laura Ling, left, and Euna Lee delivered a "thank you" message after their release last month. (Credit: Current TV) (Video)

"We Still Don’t Know if We Were Lured into a Trap"

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two American journalists released last month from 140 days’ imprisonment in North Korea, say in a firsthand account of their capture that, "To this day, we still don’t know if we were lured into a trap."

There had been speculation about which forum the two women would choose to unveil the details of their experience. Just two weeks ago, Broadcasting & Cable said an interview that their comments would be the "latest ‘get’ in the TV news business."

The journalists chose instead to write an op-ed for their employer, Current TV, whose backers include former vice president Al Gore, and to make it available to all, said Brent Marcus, Current’s public relations director. "It’s just how they felt comfortable doing it," he told Journal-isms after releasing the account Tuesday night.

The Los Angeles Times immediately announced that, "The lengthy Op-Ed article will be published on latimes.com tonight and in The Times Wednesday, Sept. 2nd print edition, as well as made available to other publications tomorrow via the LA Times-Washington Post news service."

Marcus said the op-ed was distributed widely. "We want people to be able to read it."

In the op-ed, Ling and Lee explain first why they were on the China-North Korea border, where they were arrested for crossing into North Korean territory.

"We had traveled to the area to document a grim story of human trafficking for Current TV," they write.

"During the previous week, we had met and interviewed several North Korean defectors, women who had fled poverty and repression in their homeland, only to find themselves living in a bleak limbo in China. Some had, out of desperation, found work in the online sex industry; others had been forced into arranged marriages. Now our guide, a Korean Chinese man who often worked for foreign journalists, had brought us to the Tumen River to document a well-used trafficking route and chronicle how the smuggling operations worked."

Then they describe how they were captured.

"There were no signs marking the international border, no fences, no barbed wire. But we knew our guide was taking us closer to the North Korean side of the river. As he walked, he began making deep, low hooting sounds, which we assumed was his way of making contact with North Korean border guards he knew. The previous night, he had called his associates in North Korea on a black cellphone he kept for that purpose, trying to arrange an interview for us. He was unsuccessful, but he could, he assured us, show us the no-man’s land along the river, where smugglers pay off guards to move human traffic from one country to another.

"When we set out, we had no intention of leaving China, but when our guide beckoned for us to follow him beyond the middle of the river, we did, eventually arriving at the riverbank on the North Korean side. He pointed out a small village in the distance where he told us that North Koreans waited in safe houses to be smuggled into China via a well-established network that has escorted tens of thousands across the porous border.

"Feeling nervous about where we were, we quickly turned back toward China. Midway across the ice, we heard yelling. We looked back and saw two North Korean soldiers with rifles running toward us. Instinctively, we ran.

"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. We were not. We tried with all our might to cling to bushes, ground, anything that would keep us on Chinese soil, but we were no match for the determined soldiers. They violently dragged us back across the ice to North Korea and marched us to a nearby army base, where we were detained. Over the next 140 days, we were moved to Pyongyang, isolated from one another, repeatedly interrogated and eventually put on trial and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor."

Later, they continue, "We didn’t spend more than a minute on North Korean soil before turning back, but it is a minute we deeply regret. To this day, we still don’t know if we were lured into a trap. In retrospect, the guide behaved oddly, changing our starting point on the river at the last moment and donning a Chinese police overcoat for the crossing, measures we assumed were security precautions. But it was ultimately our decision to follow him, and we continue to pay for that decision today with dark memories of our captivity."

The women also disclose some of what they found about human trafficking there.

"We believe that journalists have a responsibility to shine light in dark places," they explain, "to give voice to those who are too often silenced and ignored. One of us, Euna, is a devout Christian whose faith infused her interest in the story. The other, Laura, has reported on the exploitation of women around the world for years. We wanted to raise awareness about the harsh reality facing these North Korean defectors who, because of their illegal status in China, live in terror of being sent back to their homeland."

On Aug. 4, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il issued a special pardon to the two after former president Bill Clinton went to Pyonyang on a "private" mission. He left North Korea that day with the two journalists.

 

Essence Beats Circulation Declines

August 31, 2009

The January issue, which alternated covers, sold more than 450,000 copies.

Inauguration Special Staves Off Industry-Wide Drop

Essence was one of the few magazines to record an increase in circulation for the first six months of the year, according to figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The monthly targeting African American women recorded increases in both subscriptions and single-copy sales at a time when the recession caused newsstand sales to plummet elsewhere.

Overall, Essence circulation rose by 4 percent, according to figures it supplied to the bureau.

Another winner was People en Espa?±ol, which saw an increase in subscriptions, though it sustained a drop in newsstand sales.

Dana Baxter, a spokeswoman for Essence, which is owned by Time Inc., told Journal-isms, "The January issue (commemorating the Obama inaugural) was a top seller — which definitely contributed to the 1st half gains."

For the commemorative special issue, Essence split the January run between covers featuring President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama. Together, the issue sold more than 450,000 copies. Essence’s average single-copy sales for the first half of the year were 250,308, with subscriptions averaging 1,092,721,

The Inauguration Obamamania did not similarly help other magazines targeting people of color:

Ebony’s numbers were down 10.3 percent; Jet lost 6.2 percent; Black Enterprise was down six-tenths of 1 percent; Sister 2 Sister shrunk by 21 percent; Latina was down 3.5 percent and XXL saw a 13.5 percent decrease.

Valerie Merlin, vice president of consumer marketing for People en Espa?±ol, said via e-mail that her magazine "enjoyed its highest ever circulation in 1H09 with total circulation of 567,583, up 1% year over year. The continuing demand for the quality editorial of People En Espa?±ol was demonstrated by a sizeable increase in paid subscriptions ‚Äî up 6% year over year and making up 2/3 of People En Espa?±ol’s total circulation.

"Newsstand sales were affected by the industry-wide wholesaler disruption," with many wholesalers closing. "Despite this disruption and a challenging economic climate, we did have some strong sellers in the first half with the Ricky Martin February issue selling 141K copies and our Franchise Bellos issue . . . selling 128K copies," said Merlin, whose publication is also owned by Time Inc.

People en Espa?±ol’s "Los 50 Mas Bellos" (50 Most Beautiful People) issue is a best-seller each year, and the Martin issue featured the 36-year-old singer showing off his 4-month-olds, born by a surrogate mother in August.

Industry-wide, "Sales were off 12.36 percent, according to figures released this morning by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, from 41,403,050 during the first half of 2008 to 36,286,916 for the first six months of this year," Louisa Ada Seltzer reported Monday for Media Life Magazine.

"The dropoff was clearly a result of the ongoing recession, which has put the pinch on consumer spending.

"It came after an 11.12 percent decrease in newsstand sales during the second half of 2008. During the first half of 2008, sales slipped 6.34 percent.

"Still, overall circulation remained steadier, because subscriptions make up the bulk of magazine sales. Just 12 percent of total circulation comes from the newsstand."

• Associated Press: Circulation at leading US magazines for first half

Papers Said to Be Losing Workers Between 18 and 35

"Cost-cutting newspapers are losing many of their youngest reporters, editors and photographers at the same time publishers are trying to break some of their old habits and learn new tricks on the Internet," Michael Liedtke reported Monday for the Associated Press.

The survey, conducted by the Associated Press Managing Editors, garnered 95 respondents. It indicated that journalists of color were among the demographic groups least affected by the cutbacks, a finding at odds with a more wide-ranging annual survey by the American Society of News Editors.

That survey reported that American daily newspapers shed 5,900 newsroom jobs last year, and that the loss of 5,073 white journalists represented an 11.15 percent loss of that group.

"But the number of black journalists, who now comprise 5.17% of newsroom employees, fell by 13.55%, and the number of Asian Americans, who make up 3.14% of newsrooms, fell by 13.36%, Unity said. Hispanic journalists, 4.47% of newsrooms, fell by slightly less than the overall total at 11.0%. Native American journalists, who comprise just 0.6% of newsrooms, actually increased their numbers by 3.17%," as Mark Fitzgerald reported at the time in Editor & Publisher, referring to Unity: Journalists of Color.

Of the managing editors survey, "Most of the 95 editors responding to the August survey said their newsroom staffs had shrunk by more than 10 percent during the past year. And workers between 18 and 35 years old represented the largest age group affected by the layoffs, buyouts and attrition, the survey found," the AP story said.

"Most of the survey respondents said cultivating an ethnically diverse staff remains a high priority, even as their newsrooms shrink. . . . The more recent survey by the Associated Press Managing Editors didn’t seek to quantify the percentage of minorities currently working at newspapers. But diversity isn’t just about ethnicity, said Tom Kearney, managing editor of the Stowe Reporter, a weekly newspaper in Vermont.

"’Because Vermont is soooooo white, diversity doesn’t involve race as much as it does gender and background,’ Kearney wrote in his survey response.

"Men have been harder hit by the past year’s cutbacks than women, according to the newspaper editors who answered the APME survey."

• Barry Bergman, University of California-Berkeley: Neil Henry steers a new course at the J-School
• Martin Zimmerman, Los Angeles Times: For newspapers, outlook is not black and white
  

Obama’s Liberal Media Allies "Gone Wobbly on Him"

"A president is going to be smacked around from the moment he takes office and the uplifting rhetoric of campaign rallies meets the gritty reality of governing," Howard Kurtz wrote on Monday for the Washington Post.

"But the criticism of Barack Obama has turned strikingly personal as some of his liberal media allies have gone wobbly on him. After playing a cheerleading role during the campaign, some are bluntly questioning whether he’s up to the job.

". . . ‘I’m concerned as to whether, in trying to reach out to the middle, he is selling out his base,’ says Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page. ‘I find myself saying, "Where’s that well-oiled Obama machine we saw last year?" . . . Maybe he’s being a little too cool at this point."

"Arianna Huffington has lamented Obama’s ‘lack of leadership,’ asking: ‘How could someone with a renowned ability to inspire, communicate complex ideas, and connect with voters find himself in this position?’ Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen has noted ‘his distinct coolness, an above-the-fray mien that does not communicate empathy.’ The Post’s Eugene Robinson, writing about the White House seeming to retreat from a public health insurance option, wrote: ‘We didn’t elect Obama to be an expedient president. We elected him to be a great one.’

"Robinson says now: ‘I’d be lying if I didn’t say there was a feeling, an excitement that attended the advent of the Obama presidency, and I’m the first to say it infected me.’ But, he says, ‘I wanted to remind readers ‚Äî and if he reads the column, to remind him ‚Äî of what he said and what people voted for. . . . Any president, coming in at any time, in any context, is going to make decisions I might not like.’

". . . The day after Robinson won a Pulitzer Prize in April, Obama called to congratulate him, saying his columns were ‘thoughtful and fair.’ Except, the president added, for that morning’s piece on how he should have been tougher on Venezuelan leader Hugo Ch?°vez, which was ‘complete nonsense.’ The two had a spirited 10-minute discussion before Obama signed off by saying Robinson’s family must be proud of him.

"’This is not new for me,’ Robinson said of the mixed reaction."

Fox News Compares Helms, Kennedy Coverage

Where else would a journalist compare the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy with that of Sen. Jesse Helms?

On "Fox News Sunday."

"I also want to talk about the media coverage of Ted Kennedy since his death this week, not only the amount of it, which was extraordinary, but also the tone of it," host Chris Wallace told his roundtable of commentators.

"And I want to put up the first paragraph of the New York Times story on Ted Kennedy’s death. This was the first paragraph this week. ‘Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew acclaim and tragedy in near equal measure, and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died late Tuesday night."

"Now, here’s the first paragraph of the Times story on the passing of Jesse Helms last year. ‘Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina senator with the courtly manner and mossy drawl, who turned his hard- edged conservatism against civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art, died early Friday.’"

Wallace turned to Bill Sammon, Washington managing editor of Fox News.

"Bill Sammon, I’m sure some people will be offended that I’m even making the comparison between these two men, but that is a striking difference," he said.

SAMMON: "It is, and there’s two ways to rectify that obvious double standard. One would have been for the New York Times to find something nice to say about Jesse Helms substantively other than his mossy drawl.

"The other, if you’re going to go the ‚Äî and I think that’s the preferable way to do it, because you want to ‚Äî when someone dies, you want to find something nice to say. The other way, if they wanted to be fair, would ‚Äî they would have had to put something in the Ted Kennedy lead about Chappaquiddick, about his demagoguery of Robert Bork being, you know, a lunch counter America and back alley abortions and all that kind of thing. But they didn’t.

"So either way you do it, it’s unfair, and that was a striking example."

Wallace turned then to Juan Williams, the only African American on the panel.

"Juan, do you think that there’s a striking difference in the way those two men were sent off?"

WILLIAMS: "Well, I think you should be nice to people at the time of their death in general, no matter what their sins. But in fact, I think it was good journalism. I think, in fact, if you look at the public impact that Jesse Helms had on the country, it was to stand in opposition to civil rights and all — gay rights and all this. And if you look at the public impact of Ted Kennedy . . .

WALLACE: "But wasn’t he for something?

WILLIAMS: "Yeah, he was for stopping those things, and that’s what the lead said. I don’t have any problem with that. And in fact, Chappaquiddick has been mentioned prominently throughout this whole period.

SAMMON: "Not in that lead."

WILLIAMS: "Not in the lead, but in the story. It’s not like anybody’s hiding Ted Kennedy’s flaws. We know them."

As noted in this column when Helms died in July 2008, the media in fact refused to label Helms one of the last congressional racists. That and the continuing influence of his former aides meant that, in essence, Helms won his final filibuster.

• Cary Clack, San Antonio Express-News: Greatness has room for flaws
• Jason Fell, Folio: Time to Publish Commemorative Kennedy Issue, Book
• Suzan Harjo, indianz.com: Appreciation for Sen. Ted Kennedy
• Bob Herbert, New York Times: Look to the Rainbow
• Annette John-Hall, Philadelphia Inquirer: One more win for Kennedy’s legacy
• Laura W. Murphy, Afro-American Newspapers: Sen. Ted Kennedy from a Black Lobbyist‚Äôs Perspective
• Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: Kennedy’s special gift: Friendly politics
• James Ragland, Dallas Morning News: Sadly, Kennedy’s death brings out worst in some
• Chris Stearns, Indian Country Today: Indian Country Remembers Senator Edward Kennedy
• Mark Trahant, Indian Country Today: When a step aside was ‚Äòa godsend‚Äô
• Cynthia Tucker blog, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: John McCain could be the Senate‚Äôs new Ted Kennedy
• Adrian Walker, Boston Globe: The senator‚Äôs last mission

SPJ Meeting Attracts 660, Commits to Unity’s Efforts

The Society of Professional Journalists drew about 660 people to its centennial convention in Indianapolis last week, its leaders said, as its Diversity Committee made plans to work more closely with Unity: Journalists of Color.

SPJ’s could be the only journalism convention to have attracted more people than it did last year. SPJ’s had fallen to the 500s, new president Kevin Smith, an assistant professor of journalism at Fairmont State University, told Journal-isms. The organization had seen as many as 1,200 and 1,300 journalists in past years, and more recently had been in the 900 range, he said.

Outgoing president Dave Aeikens attributed this year’s increase to the group’s 100th anniversary. Also, "It helps us when we have chapters who help pay for a certain number of delegates and members to come," he said.

Pueng Vongs, a sports producer at mercurynews.com and chair of SPJ’s Diversity Committee, said SPJ took seriously its participation in the Unity Diversity Summit in Boston this month at the Asian American Journalists Association convention.

Because Asian American and black journalists saw greater percentages of their number leaving newspaper newsrooms in the latest census of the American Society of News Editors, she said, SPJ would support such organizations as CBS, CNN and the New York Times in their efforts to target those groups for newsroom training. SPJ also want to increase its online media training and support the Asian American Journalists Association’s Executive Leadership Program, she said.

The journalist of color organizations all saw decreases in convention this summer, which they attributed to the economy. The American Society of News Editors was among those that canceled its convention altogether.

• Jacqueline Palochko, the Working Press, student convention newspaper: Even after prison, Saberi offers optimism to students

"It’s All About Personal Responsibility"

To the news that NBC has hired former first daughter Jenna Hager, the daughter of former President George W. Bush, as a correspondent for "Today," Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald wrote:

"They should convene a panel for the next ‘Meet the Press’ with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it. They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it’s really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment. They can interview Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. about personal responsibility and the virtues of self-sufficiency. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from. There’s a virtually endless list of politically well-placed guests equally qualified to talk on such matters."

Short Takes

• In Latin America, "despite a decade defined by the rise of populist leaders who have promised to help the downtrodden, many judges continue to bow to the whims of the powerful in censoring journalists," Alexei Barrionuevo reported Sunday for the New York Times. "In recent months, journalists across the region have faced opposition not only from courts but also from the leaders of several countries, who have moved to restrict critical coverage and paint the news media as the enemy."
• "The U.S. military is canceling its contract with a controversial private firm that was producing background profiles of journalists seeking to cover the war that graded their past work as ‘positive,’ ‘negative’ or ‘neutral,’ Stars and Stripes has learned," Kevin Baron reported for Monday’s editions. "The announcement follows a week of revelations by Stars and Stripes in which military public affairs officers who served in Afghanistan said that as recently as 2008 they had used reporter profiles compiled by The Rendon Group, a private public relations firm in Washington, D.C., to decide whether to grant permission to embed with troops on the battlefield."
• "Longtime Denver-area radio broadcaster Thierry Smith died Monday night, his former employer, KKFN 104.3 FM ‘The Fan’ said Tuesday," the Denver Post reported. "Smith, who for years was the only African-American voice in the crowded Denver sports talk-show business, in 2000 was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Colorado Association of Black Journalists. Smith had multiple sclerosis, a disease that left him unable to walk."
• "NFL Hall of Famer Michael Irvin is the latest addition to the NFL Network roster. The five time Dallas Cowboys pro-bowler will be joining the cabler’s Sunday program ‘NFL GameDay’ starting September 13," Alex Weprin reported Monday for Broadcasting & Cable. "Irvin had been an analyst for ESPN from 2003-2007, and was also the host of his own Spike TV show ‘4th and Long’ earlier this year. He has also served as a guest analyst on NFL Network’s Pro Football Hall of Fame coverage."
• "The Committee to Protect Journalists deplores the conditions in which dozens of Iranian journalists are being held and is concerned about the health of many of them, particularly that of Ahmad Zaid-Abadi," the organization said on Friday. "The columnist, who worked for Rooz Online, a Farsi and English-language reformist news Web site, was arrested in mid-June after the contested presidential election."
• "Ethiopian authorities briefly detained a reporter for the Washington Post newspaper this week, before a top government official said she was free to go," Desalegn Sisay reported Friday for Afrik.com. "Stephanie McCrummen was held for 13 hours after arriving at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa Sunday. The sources say McCrummen was detained because she attempted to embark on a reporting assignment without permission from the Ethiopian government."