Journalistic Integrity Thwarts the Thought Police

The Korean press earns heartfelt praise this week for showing courage in its convictions, and refusing to let itself be censored by the North Korean thought police. If only their government possessed the same clarity.

It all began with one of those tortuous, strictly monitored “reunions” the North permits between divided families — this one at Mt. Kumgang. A number of those present on the North Korean side were in fact abducted South Korean citizens, perhaps hoping for a last meeting with their family members before they or their loved ones die.

The crisis began when one South Korean reporter had the temerity to speak the truth and describe the abductees as what they were, to which the North Koreans characteristically objected. It nearly ended with the visiting South Korean relatives as the newest crop of hostages.

The imbroglio began when North Korean censors seized some videotapes and blocked the transmission of others to the South. They were angered in particular at two reports, by correspondents for the Seoul Broadcasting System and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation, referring to one of the North Korean participants in the reunions as a “kidnapped South Korean.” Tensions escalated, and Wednesday night the North Koreans refused to allow a group of 149 elderly South Koreans (not 99 as reported in yesterday’s edition) to return south after the first round of reunions unless the SBS reporter was also aboard.

When the North continued on that course, the reporters in the press pool all agreed to leave in protest, thereby denying the North and its friends in the anti-Unification Ministry their scripted spectacle and heaping on plenty of bad press instead.

(I’d be interested in knowing whether the pool included those working for such lefty publications as the Hankyoreh Sinmun. Let’s give credit where it’s due.)

And how did the South Korean governement stand up for the rights of its citizens?

The Unification Ministry stepped in, asking SBS to order the reporter to leave. SBS complied, and the buses finally left Mount Kumgang at 11:20 p.m.

On Tuesday, pool reporters complained that South Korean officials had urged them to comply with the North Korean demands that they not refer to “abducted” or “kidnapped” reunioin [sic] participants.

Yesterday morning, the remainder of the pool reporters caucused and decided to leave the resort.

Seoul’s unification minister, Lee Jong-seok, said yesterday he regretted the delay in allowing the buses to leave and the censorship of the South Korean reporting.

While it’s probably too much to ask that Lee actually grow a pair and stand up for principle, squeaking out his “regrets” is probably more than we’d have gotten from his predecessor, presidential hopeful Comrade Chung Dong-Young, otherwise known as North Korea’s Minister for Southern Affairs.
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