A Current employee has shed (a bit) more light on why Current has steadfastly refused to mention the fact that two of its reporters have been detained in North Korea for months. The legal department's "overzealous." But why?

The employee says the company ordered complete employee silence as soon as the reporters were captured, and it's stuck to that policy ever since. That seems to be the standard procedure for media operations with employees in peril.

The full note:

I'll confirm that we've been told not to talk to anyone about it. We
got an email the day it happened from our CTO saying not to talk to
any media types that were out on our sidewalk, and an email saying not
to discuss it in public forums/facebook/comments of blogs/etc. One
of our reporters said something on her facebook and I believe she was
told to delete it. We were also told not to show up at the vigils,
I'm not real sure what would be the problem in going to those, but
there you go.

We've got a fairly overzealous legal department so I'm guessing it
half stems from them. We've got a standing "don't talk to the media
about anything, refer them to our media liaison" order for the most
part that goes around so that aspect is nothing new... it's just that
the entire "hey, lets all ignore this whole situation entirely from
the top down" thing for a media company seems a bit weird.

We don't have any details on why we're not supposed to say anything
and if anyone tells you they do, they're lying. We just know we're
not supposed to... and with this economy I think most people are under
the impression that if a rough patch comes and more layoffs happen,
why give someone a reason to put you at the top of the list.

Nobody likes it, Laura was one of the nicest people that worked in the
SF office and I'm sure it's killing the people in LA even more.

[Pic: Getty]

Send an email to Hamilton Nolan, the author of this post, at Hamilton@gawker.com.