Claudia Rosett’s Modest Proposal
Over at Pajamas Media, investigative reporting legend Claudia Rosett — she broke the oil-for-food scandal — has a proposal for Laura Ling and Euna Lee’s book/movie rights, which I heartily endorse:
Though in light of the talk now circulating about a payola of book and movie deals, I have another suggestion. It would be entirely fitting for Laura Ling and Euna Lee to donate whatever money they make from their story to some of the private charitable organizations whose staff — often at considerable sacrifice — dedicate themselves to genuinely helping the North Korean refugees whom these two women set out to write about. [The Rosett Report]
Claudia also says some very kind things about this blog in her post. Thank you, Claudia. That was very nice of you to say.
Maybe, if Claudia had spent the bulk of her journalistic career working for the Non-Profit Times, her idea of a 100% donation of Ling-Lee proceeds would make sense. But in the spirit of Wall Street and everything it stands for, 10% is more like it:
http://liberatenorthkorea.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/the-64000-won-question/
Richard, you’re not making any cents…
What a noncentsicle comment…
Anyway, the connection you make between Claudia Rosett and Ling/Lee is a real stretch.
First, the “Rosett Report” is her blog, but I believe Rosett has a long record of writing about human rights in North Korea.
Rosett is a columnist, meaning that she could write about anything she wants. However, she chooses to write about North Korean human rights – an unglamorous, career-ending subject to an uninterested public.
Second, Rosett isn’t potentially responsible for releasing the locations of refugees and activists. The penalty if caught is harsh imprisonment under starvation-level rations, torture, perhaps execution. Ling and Lee are responsible for tens, hundreds, and perhaps thousands (if activists and refugees are coerced under torture to reveal other locations of the underground network). And they stand to profit from their story, when all of this could have been avoided if they hadn’t gone to the border. You can do a story on North Korean refugees and sex trafficking victims without going to the border (especially when an activist, Chun Ki Won, advised you not to). There is the entire region of north east China. There are 14,000 refugees who have resettled in South Korea. This was reckless.
Do you see that there is a massive difference between getting paid for doing your job and profiting off of a story, which may have cost hundreds of lives?
Aside from the issue of who gets the profits, movies and books about Laura and Euna could help millions of people to learn more about North Korea and to care about the oppression of its people.
Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if Laura and Euna donate generously to North Korean aid organizations, especially those that help defectors.
nkmatters: My point was simply that for someone like Rosett, separated by one degree from the nerve center of American capitalism (Wall Street), her math is laughably fuzzy. It’s a capitalistic society, everyone left-right-and-center derives profit from things like this (in many cases in the wake of far less noble situations), and unless you are an independently wealthy person, the notion of donating ALL book profits is preposterous.
As Mi Hwa infers, Ling-Ling may very well have already factored in a charitable aspect to their spin-off activities.
Ling Ling…wrong number.
A movie based on their story could help school a lot of people on North Korea, as long as you tell what most likely happened to the people they’d interviewed before they were caught, the people who could not longer cross at that porous part of the border, etc., etc.
I think Euna Lee should write about whatever Laura Ling doesn’t write in her co-authored book with her sister who had little to do with this whole affair.