Suki Kim responds to critics of her decision to go undercover

It’s ironic to read how the people at PUST–who’ve suppressed their religious, political, and moral beliefs to accommodate and assist the world’s most oppressive regime, and also, to suppress the truth about it–have challenged Suki Kim’s ethical decisions. But some of those criticisms might be more valid coming from other sources, so Kim addresses them on her web site. I can’t disagree with Kim’s justification that overt journalism has failed us.

There is a long tradition of “undercover” journalism—pretending to be something one is not in order to be accepted by a community and uncover truths that would otherwise remain hidden. In some cases, this is the only way to gain access to a place. North Korea, described only recently by the BBC as “one of the world’s most secretive societies,” is such a place. [….]

I did not break any promises. I applied to work at PUST under my real name. I was not asked to sign and did not sign any kind of confidentiality agreement, nor did I ever promise not to write about PUST.

Meanwhile, in the six decades since Korea was divided, millions have died from persecution and hunger.  Today’s North Korea is a gulag posing as a nation, keeping its people hostage under the Great Leader’s maniacal and barbaric control, depriving them of the very last bit of humanity. So what are our alternatives? How much longer are we going to sit back and watch? To me, it is silence that is indefensible.  [Suki Kim]

All valid points, but it also occurs to me that had Ms. Kim been caught, I’d probably be railing against her now, which doesn’t seem completely fair somehow. While I think Ms. Kim has told us important things about North Korea—and especially important things about the ethical compromises that some foreigners have made with its regime—I still wouldn’t advise anyone to try anything like this again.

I’d greatly prefer it if the journalists who are there now (and yes, I mean the AP) made more of an effort to report the news from North Korea objectively, rejecting the regime’s financial entanglements and editorial constraints. Failing that, they would do better to fund, equip, train, and tap into existing guerrilla journalism.

I doubt, of course, that we really know the whole story about PUST, either–who its faculty are, what they’re really doing there, who they’re teaching what to, how much money the regime makes from them, and what skills those young elites are really learning. That’s why I’ll keep my mind open just a sliver until one day, when James Kim reveals just what they were really doing there all along.