Ishimaru Jiru of the Japan-based Asia Press International (right) and Choi Jin I (left)
Posted on 11/21/2007 4:17:08 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Secret journalists report on North
November 21, 2007
The grainy video featured old women in clothes that hung from their thin frames scrounging for bottles in a market in Pyongyang that they planned to sell to recyclers.
Images like these have been seen before but this footage shown at a press conference in Seoul yesterday is different, according to a Tokyo-based journalist, because it was shot by the first independent reporters to ever work inside North Korea.
Ishimaru Jiru, of the Japan-based Asia Press International, said his group is also launching the first-ever magazine to print independent journalism by North Koreans and about North Koreans. Called Limjingang, the bi-monthly magazine will be launched this month and distributed in both North and South Korea. It will also be translated into English and Japanese, Jiru said.
“Despite all of the limitations, we will go around every area of North Korea, and we strongly believe in reporting the truth,” he said.
Jiru, who speaks Korean, said he has visited the North Korea-China border more than 50 times and interviewed about 600 defectors. He said the project started out of frustration that he could not report what was happening inside North Korea.
“We wanted to find out what North Koreans thought, what they were doing inside North Korea and what their lives were like,” he said yesterday through an interpreter at the Foreign Correspondents Club. “I came to think we needed someone inside.”
Jiru put the word out and found a North Korean defector in China willing to risk his life to surreptiously shoot video and interview people inside his home country. “Because of the risks, I waited for someone to volunteer,” Jiru said. In 2002, he met a man who calls himself Lee Jun. Jiru explained his idea and Lee returned home to think about it.“The main goal for this reporter was to institute journalism in North Korea,” Jiru said.
Jiru taught his recruit about ethics, and the importance of accuracy. He told him not to accept bribes and he trained Lee on the equipment.
“In 2004, though he wasn’t completely ready, he filmed a marketplace [inside North Korea],” Jiru said. “At first, things weren't perfect. The reports were vague. But as time went by, he became a very good reporter.” Lee has recruited five other clandestine reporters, Jiru said, and they get help from 10 more inside North Korea. Jiru has given them 30 cameras to use. Since these reporters could face imprisonment or worse if they are captured, they sometimes conduct interviews without telling the interviewees what they are doing, Jiru said.
He said he meets with the reporters when they cross back into China. Jiru said his group is very careful about what information is released, although they have gathered “a very large amount” in the past three years. He said the North Koreans wanted to start the magazine to bring news to their own people. “It’s also important to let the North Koreans know what is going on in the outside world,” he said.
The magazine will include stories ranging from the general views of North Koreans to their thoughts about Kim Il Sung to crises such as the extensive flooding last August.
“Since the North Korean media is controlled by the government, there isn’t a way for the North Korean people to express themselves,” said Choi Jin I, a North Korean who defected to the South in 1999 and is working with the magazine. “I believe this will be the seed.” Choi said the magazine will be written in Korean, but it might not be recognizable to Southerners. “We will use the exact grammar that North Korean people use,” she said. The version that gets distributed in North Korea will also be edited a second time for security reasons.
Ping!
This takes a great deal of courage. I wonder how many more communist atrocities we will learn of when NK finally implodes.
You’ve had a lot of great postings (i.e., articles) today.
Thank you for posting this.
My heart aches more for North Korea than for any other people in the world. Remembering what they deal with daily (at least the little we know about) keeps my comfortable American life with its non-problems firmly in perspective. Thanks for posting.
Ping.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.