Rimjingang Takes Covert Journalism to the Next Level

The first English language edition of Rimjingang is about to come out. It will be a dead-tree quarterly, and thus far, Rimjingang has very little presence on YouTube. These are strange things to observe in a publication whose survival depends — literally — on its technological sophistication at hiding memory cards and playing cat-and-mouse with the regime’s cell phone trackers:

The quarterly Rimjingang has been available in Korean and Japanese since 2008. The English edition will be published about twice a year from now on, chief editor Jiro Ishimaru said at a recent meeting in New York University, adding that digital editions in various formats will be available from 2011, including one from Apple Inc.’s iBook store. [Mainichi Shimbun]

Rimjingang is nonetheless a revolutionary publication in a way that transcends the common and cliche use of that word, for Rimjingang may well be the first confirmed case of an expressly dissident organization with a centralized command structure that has operated in North Korea since 1953. The correspondents are motivated by what Ishimaru calls “a strong will to let the outside world know the reality in North Korea and inspire a desire to improve the situation there,” though they disclaim a desire of overthrow the regime. Similar motives probably also dwell in the North Korean sources of such invaluable web sites as the Daily NK, Open News, and Good Friends; however, none of those organizations relies primarily on correspondents who infiltrate in and out of North Korea with the specific objective of acquiring information for a foreign audience.

They’re given instruction in operating cameras, using PCs and how to use cell phones so they don’t attract the attention of authorities. Then, every few months, they meet with AsiaPress representatives just over the border in China to hand over their images.

One of the most remarkable things we’re already learning from Rimjingang is how much the market can provide, and how fast its logistical potential is growing.

“When we started training journalists in 2003 or 2004, getting cameras into North Korea was a real problem,” said Jiro Ishimaru, chief editor of the news agency, at a Tokyo news conference on Monday. “Nowadays, within North Korea you are able to have your pick of Sony, Panasonic or Samsung cameras.” [Martyn Williams, IT World]

Williams reports that there are six covert correspondents; the Mainichi reports that there are eight, and that they live double lives as drivers, factory workers, or mothers. They could fairly be described as nonviolent insurgents. All fled North Korea, received training as journalists outside the country, and returned home. If caught, death is the least of the punishments they face, so none of the correspondents knows the identity of the others.

It will not surprise regular North Korea watchers that the imagery shows North Korea beyond Pyongyang as an angry, corrupt, anarchic place, rather than the rigid, robotic utopia that most journalists are shown by their minders in and around Pyongyang.

In another clip also captured by Kim, a North Korean woman argues with a police man. Asked for a bribe, she screams at him and pushes him. “This cop is an idiot,” she shouts.

You can read more here, at the Daily NK, and here, at NPR.