Apr 1, 2009 05:45 PM
7,475
Enter your username and password.
New York, 12:18 PM
Tue Feb 9
56 posts in the last 24 hours
Funny thing: two journalists who were reportedly working for Current TV are currently facing ten years in prison in North Korea. So why doesn't Current, you know, report something about it?
A tipster sent us the following note:
Wanted to write you an email to follow up on your story the other day concerning the Current TV journalists detained in North Korea. After I read your story, I went to current.com to see what news I could find on their site. Amazingly, on March 30th, eight days after the news event occurred, I couldn't find one posting on Current's own site. So, I made my own, and within a few hours, the post disappeared. I wrote the current staff, and did not receive a reply as to why my post had disappeared.
Today, I searched again and found a story titled "Amnesty International Calls for Release of Detained US Journalists". I messaged the poster of this story, citing my censorship concerns. I kept the story open in my browser for about 20 minutes, and then refreshed the page, only to receive a 404 — page not found error. Here's the original link to the story: [Here]
Moments later, I received a reply from the poster of that story. Here is his reply:
Every story that I've posted about this issue gets this message : "This item is under review, so it has been temporarily hidden." I've posted many links to this story, and they all get "hidden." My stuff hasn't actually been deleted, just hidden from all other users. Current will not let this story appear on its website, or reply to me as to why. Silence is all I've gotten from Current on this issue. Thanks for trying to get the story out.
It'd be great if someone would call them out on censoring their own story.
Sure enough, searching for "North Korea" on Current.com turns up not one mention of the detained journalists. What's the deal yo?
Send an email to Hamilton Nolan, the author of this post, at Hamilton@gawker.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
Start a new discussion