Detention of journalists puts strain on media firm

[June 18, 2009]  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- With backing from Al Gore, Current TV was launched four years ago as a mix of traditional journalism and viewer-produced content meant to create an open exchange with its audience.

But the plight of its reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee, imprisoned while on assignment in North Korea, has put the independent cable venture at the center of the news and challenged its culture of transparency.

While U.S. officials and family members have publicly called for the release of the women, Current TV has remained resolutely silent.

The media outlet has not commented or reported on the situation and has even taken the unusual step of deleting messages of support posted to its Web site.

Ling and Lee were accused of crossing from China into North Korea and sentenced by the top North Korean court last week to 12 years of hard labor for engaging in what the country called a politically fueled smear campaign.

Media observers said the cautious approach by Current TV could be justified when dealing with an unpredictable country such as North Korea.

Strategies of media companies differ when their journalists are endangered; some rally publicly in their defense, while others pursue back-channel negotiations, said Tala Dowlatshahi, New York director of the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders.

Dowlatshahi warned against blaming the journalists or Current TV's "backpack journalism" approach, which outfits reporters with portable, easy-to-use technology that allows movement through dangerous territory.

Ling and Lee were seasoned reporters doing their jobs, she said.

"To say that this type of guerrilla journalism is putting journalists in more risk than traditional journalism is not the issue," Dowlatshahi said. "The issue is these women are not criminals, they're journalists, and they were not given proper legal treatment."

Current TV is backed by several high-profile investors, including financier Richard Blum, Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy and former MTV and AOL executive Bob Pittman.

It has 401 employees spread among its headquarters in San Francisco and its offices in London, Los Angeles and New York.

Billed as a mash-up of television and the Internet, its content is intended to appeal to 18-to-34-year-olds. Yet it had not turned a profit as of March 2008, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Current TV's approach is in many ways indicative of the direction media is going -- covering international news using smaller, independent crews with new technology, said Bob Calo, a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and a former producer at ABC News and NBC News.

"There an element of risk when you have a small crew and you're traveling low-profile, yes, but that's true for any journalist," Calo said. "It's typical of anyone embracing a digital model, an open kind of journalism."

The harsh sentences for Ling and Lee brought pleas for compassion from family members and friends and calls for government talks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The families have not publicly discussed Current TV's silence, but they have thanked Gore for his response.

"We talk to him regularly, and he is incredibly worried," Ling's sister, TV journalist Lisa Ling, said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "He's doing everything he can to secure their release."

Former colleagues describe Laura Ling, one of the company's first employees, as dedicated to its mission of bringing untold stories from around the world to a young audience.

Ariana Reguzzoni was a producer in Current's "vanguard journalism" unit, where Ling is vice president.

The department covers international stories by relying on trained journalists and content providers in foreign countries -- something that hadn't been tried before on a similar scale, Reguzzoni said.

"My philosophy was, this is great. We're going to hear some voices we don't really hear from, and we might be able to share that story with a younger demographic who might not be listening to the BBC, or reading the AP," she said.

Ling, ambitious and determined, fit well with Current TV's approach, Reguzzoni said.

"She's really passionate about journalism and documentary," she said. "She traveled a lot and was willing to take risks for her job."

[Associated Press; By JULIANA BARBASSA]

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