Warning: What follows may throw you into a xenophobic panic and scare you out of having any level of fun next time you travel abroad.

1. Do Not Use Drugs Nobody ever follows this one, despite the lessons of Brokedown Palace. Even if you're careful and know the rules, being in an altered state of mind reads differently abroad. Some attribute Amanda Knox's bizarre interactions with Italian police to being stoned, while others say the use of marijuana tipped the circumstantial evidence:

In Britain and Italy, "Foxy Knoxy" was portrayed as an angel-faced "she-devil", a promiscuous pot-smoker who went shopping for underwear with her boyfriend straight after Meredith Kercher's murder and did cartwheels during questioning by detectives.

I can't think of any reason to turn cartwheels during cop questioning other than being stoned, so I'm going to assume that's what happened here. Point being: if it's your dream to smoke weed on the same Rishikesh hillside that the Beatles did? Do your best not to be near the scenes of any vicious felony murders.

2. Know that Pranks Are Always Lost in Translation Four American military brats on Tokyo's Yokota Air Base were arrested this weekend for the attempted murder of a woman whose motorbike hit a trip line strung across a road. In a nation where base-related crime is a "delicate issue"—and where "boys will be boys" was a most unwelcome strain of discourse when three servicemen raped a schoolgirl in 1995—a bunch of American kids nearly killing someone won't be taken lightly. Ditto the infamous tale of Michael Fay, the American teen whose street vandalism resulting in a "moistened rattan cane" flogging.

3. Never Underestimate How Prude the Rest of the World Is Even in Italy, the nation that gave us amore and invented the sonnet, Foxy Knoxy's "sexual appetite" was central to her case. First she "leapt to notoriety in the days after the murder, kissing and cuddling [boyfriend and convicted accomplice] Mr Sollecito in front of the lenses of the cameras." Then prosecutors concocted a story about a ritualistic satanic orgy that got tossed out of court. Knox ultimately may have been convicted based on forensic evidence, but there's still a vocal Team Knox arguing that the sexual smear campaign did her in.

4. Learn This Sentence in the Native Dialect "I am an American, I want to call my embassy." If you get arrested, start saying it and don't stop until until you hear an American accent on the other end of the phone. You'll feel like a douchebag, but when you're not drinking bilgewater from a gutter in a Turkish prison, you'll be glad you did. It's your best chance at a lifeline, since even the pettiest local officials don't want to deal with a diplomatic mess.

5. Don't Start Shit In some countries, being accused of a crime is enough to warrant imprisonment. Case in point: This harrowing account from an American who spent three grueling weeks in a Japanese prison without bail or a trial, following a drunken altercation with a cabbie and ill-prepared self-report to the police:

I was pretty tired and drunk so I didn't have much patience... I also noticed that he didn't have his car navigation system switched on so I yelled at him to use it and called him a f*cking idiot (well, the equivalent) in Japanese. I didn't give him much chance to turn it on, as I soon reached over and started pushing the buttons to switch it on myself, all the while yelling at him that he was an f*king idiot....

I decided in my drunken mind to stop him from calling the cops and I reached over and grabbed the phone from him. He of course started screaming robbery and completely went nuts...

The next day when I came to my senses, I decided to go to the cops and sort it out. ... However, when I got to the police station, I found out that the driver had told them a very different story. ... In Japan it turns out that you are 100% guilty until proven otherwise and I kind of went to the cops without having thought through the potential outcomes.

He was interrogated repeatedly. His lawyer spoke no English. By day 15 he "really started getting desperate" and watched as his prison mates gave false confessions. He loses weight, eats terrible food, and is generally terrified. Point being: Don't start shit, and if you do, find someone who can explain what's going on before you throw yourself at the mercy of an unfamiliar system.

6. Don't Go Places You're Not Allowed There are legitimate reasons for going places where you are not allowed. (Like killing Nazis in Inglourious Basterds) But if you don't want to get arrested, don't do it, because even if you run away and apologize profusely, your foreign captors may not care. From journalists-turned-North Korean hostages Euna Lee and Laura Ling's account of their capture:

Feeling nervous about where we were, we quickly turned back toward China. Midway across the ice, we heard yelling. We looked back and saw two North Korean soldiers with rifles running toward us. Instinctively, we ran.

We were firmly back inside China when the soldiers apprehended us. Producer Mitch Koss and our guide were both able to outrun the border guards. We were not. We tried with all our might to cling to bushes, ground, anything that would keep us on Chinese soil, but we were no match for the determined soldiers. They violently dragged us back across the ice to North Korea and marched us to a nearby army base, where we were detained.

Sure, he saved a pair of truth-seeking reporters from the hellish nightmare that is a lifetime of hard labor in a dictatorial communist nation—but, c'mon.

Americans love happy endings, and they got a big one on Aug. 4, 2009 ... Witnessing it was a gift I'll always treasure. Soon they walked off the plane into the embrace of their families, their country, and good people all over the world-now that's a happy ending. We should make more of them.

Also, Bill is wrong, because The Miracle on the Hudson was clearly the happiest ending of the decade, not least because it had both kinds of happy endings.

And whereas Laura Ling's book proposal sounds like, excuse us, some craptastic "Sisters are so wonderful" Barnes & Noble checkout line gift special pegged to the fact that her sister works for Oprah, Euna Lee's book will actually focus on her insane (but heartwarming) North Korean imprisonment. Which was big news, you may recall!

Keith Kelly says Lee got "a six-figure deal to write her memoir of the imprisonment, tentatively entitled, 'The World Is Bigger Now: A Memoir of Faith, Family and Freedom,'" while the Lings are still "shopping" theirs. Burn notice! The lesson here is, if you ever find yourself caught up in a dramatic case of international crime/ kidnapping, write your book about that rather than trying to use it as a peg for your thoughts on The Meaning of Love, because you are not as interesting as your circumstances, no matter what Oprah says.
[Pic: Getty]

• As predicted, the DA dropped the charges against Shawne Merriman alleging that he'd physically abused Tila Tequila late one night last week. Because, really, when was the last time someone with the surname "Tequila" was a credible witness? Guilty until proven Herradura, at least. Meanwhile, Merriman continues on his jolly way back to the first week of the NFL season, where he will take place in a delicate sport populated by upstanding young men whose clean-cut reputation for this kind of thing moves further along. Oh, and lesson for all of you: don't go crazy on Twitter next time you get cops involved. Because it just means you're guilty or lying. [NYDN]
  
  
• Oh, and it sounds like Merriman proposed to have a foursome with him, Tequila (Tila), and two other women, who he had over at his house when Ms. Tequila showed up. At the time, Tila went batshit like any girlfriend reasonably would, and Merriman had to restrain her, and there's a one week gossip cycle. Next. [NYP]
  
  
• She also thinks it's a conspiracy on behalf of the city of San Diego to keep Merriman on the field. Yes. Because when I think "glue that holds the San Diego Chargers" together, I definitely think of Shawn Merriman. And by that, I mean: no. [E!]
  
  
• Heh. Anna Wintour totally got stalked by fans, and maybe, some people we know on Fashion's Night Out. She's bona fide! Apparently, she kept her cool when someone screamed at her about fur and also ran in heels down the street with her team chasing her, while fans tagged along. She lost it when trying to sign a shirt—a t-shirt?!?—with a sharpie. She got pissed at her staff, but really, she should be far more concerned that she comes after an item about someone with the surname Tequila. [Page Six]
  
  
• Aw. Bill Clinton had dinner with Chelsea and Laura Ling, who he rescued by swinging into North Korea, punching Kim Jong-Il in the face, grabbing onto a vine and Euna Lee, and swinging onto safe territory. Remember that? [Page Six]
  
  
• Charlie Sheen still thinks 9/11 was masterminded by George W. Bush and other evil forces. The funny thing is, if 9/11 was an inside job, the same people who are responsible for Two and a Half Men probably have something to do with it. Evil comes in all forms. Also, Charlie Sheen, WTF are you doing hanging out with a bunch of Salinger back-pocketing conspiracy theorists? Is this what happens when you've domestically abused every possible spouse in Hollywood? Dude, go to brunch at The Griddle or something. Like, get outside, you've got the money. Seriously. [NYDN]
  
  
• Mischa Barton told The View that intense pain from a wisdom teeth operation paired with mild painkiller use basically landed her in a psych ward. Basically, best excuse for going off your meds, like, ev-ar. Also: Marissa Cooper lives. [NYDN]
  
  
• Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler—and again, when did this guy become a movie star?—are maybe dating or maybe not, and the daily news has more speculation, but Christ, you need to see the photo that accompanies this Daily News story about it. Too much. Seriously. Too much. Also, if we're going to hear blind speculation on the nature of a relationship we really don't care about over and over again like this, the Post and the Daily News should at least put out betting lines on it. I wouldn't feel too bad making money over this. [NYDN]
  
  
• Mayor Bloomberg has Lady Gaga fever. He probably knows about the penis. [NYDN]
  
  
• Professional Today Show drunk Hoda Kotb went to Coney Island and found out there were no dressing rooms when training for her first triathlon out there. She ended up changing in her towncar. Try this one in a cab, someone. You'll end up with your face smeared into a partition and a blood-thirsty driver trying to peel you off of it. The state of private transportation in New York right now is sordid at best. [NYP]
  
  
• Jay-Z had a concert last night, and basically brought everyone in the rap business, New York, and The Electric Company out on stage with him. [NYDN]
  
  
• Speaking of "Run This Town," celebrity hooker Ashley Dupre was on the scene with Russel Simmons last night at a screening of the ultimate Save The Dolphins documentary "The Cove" last night. She's apparently doing yoga with Russell Simmons, who is, well, doing yoga with Ashley Dupre. [NYP]
  
  
• Tom Brady and Gisele might spring New England's Great Hope from Gisele's loins sometime before the playoffs, which would be great, because it might take Brady out of a late-season game that could inevitably help push ahead other fantasy owners who don't have him. Like me. Meanwhile, since Boston's ACLS chances are fucked, this is basically all they have to look forward to. Brady's kid's going to have the best childcare in the world. [NYDN]

Not surprisingly, the ladies are using employer Current TV to channel their ordeal into an explanatory narrative. While the duo do address the importance of their initial story, call out their guide for being a total turncoat and express their deepest hopes their case didn't endanger any border-dwelling activists, the most captivating interesting part, obviously, is their recollection of the capture. From Current's website:

When we set out, we had no intention of leaving China, but when our guide beckoned for us to follow him beyond the middle of the river, we did, eventually arriving at the riverbank on the North Korean side....

Feeling nervous about where we were, we quickly turned back toward China. Midway across the ice, we heard yelling. We looked back and saw two North Korean soldiers with rifles running toward us. Instinctively, we ran.

We were firmly back inside China when the soldiers apprehended us. Producer Mitch Koss and our guide were both able to outrun the border guards. We were not. We tried with all our might to cling to bushes, ground, anything that would keep us on Chinese soil, but we were no match for the determined soldiers. They violently dragged us back across the ice to North Korea and marched us to a nearby army base, where we were detained.

Those of you who are looking for details on their "rigorous" interrogation, sorry, the ladies aren't giving that up so easily. That's why God invented book deals.

Activists in South Korea and China who help North Korean refugees flee their shitty country say that when Ling and Lee were arrested, the entire refugee-saving program was compromised. One South Korean pastor who had helped guide Ling and Lee on their reporting trip says that just days after their arrest, the police came knocking, and confronted him with video footage that the Current reporters had taken of his operation. He tells the NYT:

The Rev. Lee Chan-woo, a South Korean pastor, said the police raided his home in China on March 19, four days after the journalists visited and filmed a secret site where he looked after children of North Korean refugee women. He said that he was then deported in early April and that his five secret homes for refugees were shut down. The children, he said, were dispersed to family members in China, who could not afford to take care of them.

The organization in question, called Durihana, is pissed. They say Ling and Lee were reckless, and that Current didn't follow up with the group quickly enough to keep tabs on what was happening after the reporters' arrest.

Understandable, but not fair. You can hardly blame Ling and Lee for having their records snatched after they were arrested. Could they have been more careful? Maybe. But they wanted to get a story in North Korea, and that involves risk. There's no getting around it. And just as the reporters take risks to get the story, organizations speaking to the reporters voluntarily take risks by speaking to the media. The reward is getting the message out about North Korean refugees; the risk is having what happened happen.

Had Ling and Lee not been imprisoned in North Korea, they surely would have done everything they could to ensure the privacy of the refugee group. But they had this problem: they were imprisoned in North Korea.

If you want to blame someone, blame Kim Jong-Il, for being a crazy evil bastard. Perhaps a kind soul will toss Durihana a book contract, too, to salve the wounds.

Sure, Laura Ling could have written her own book about her harrowing ordeal in a North Korean prison. But that would never make Oprah. Speakeasy reports:

Ms. Ling, together with her sister, Lisa Ling, a special correspondent for "The Oprah Winfrey Show," is offering a book that will examine the meaning of sisterhood and journalistic ideals. The issue of Laura Ling's captivity will be discussed, but in a larger context.

Fellow recently freed journo Euna Lee, who does not have a famous sister, can maybe write a book about dogs or something? People love dogs.

• Don't Deserve to Be Kidnapped: Being arrested for trying to smuggle heroin out of Thailand, for example, will not make you as sympathetic a figure as being kidnapped by extremists in pursuit of truth.
• Make Your Rescue as Dramatic as Possible: David Rohde actually escaped, from a Taliban prison! Ling and Lee were rescued by "Big" Bill Clinton, on an airplane! These are the types of high-profile rescues that make for exciting news stories. Being turned over quietly to a low-level embassy employee after quiet negotiations does little to get your name in the headlines. To the extent you can, keep your situation dramatically charged. If necessary, act as a double agent to make sure the whole thing doesn't go too smoothly.
• Pray For a Slow News Cycle: Ling and Lee were front page news for days—mostly because they had the good fortune to be rescued in the midst of the hot, boring, summer, when reporters will drag out any semi-respectable story as long as possible to fill the gaping news hole. Compare their fate to that of Ezterhas Rocococo, the E! journalist freed by the Tamil Tigers after seven years imprisonment. Why haven't you heard much about his story? Because he was set free on September 11, 2001. And because we made him up.
• Practice Your Humble Homecoming: You can't come back like some raving lunatic who went crazy on the inside. You also can't come back like some huge asshole always being the guy at the reporters' bar saying "Yea that Bloomberg press conference sounds crazy, reminds me of when I was eating bugs with an AK two inches from my ear in a bamboo cage, back in '06." You have to fake being humble. "I just want to get back to work," etc. Patently false, but still.
• Book, TV, Movie: That's the order. The book deal gets you the TV promos and then—hopefully—the movie. So write your book with Angelina Jolie's tastes in mind.
• Get the Fuck Outta Journalism: This is the endgame. What did you think it was? Pulitzer? Do you know how much a Pulitzer pays? Not much, my friend. You have to ride this kidnapping thing all the way up the ladder. Think about it: "From Helpless to Hollywood: My Journey From an Al Quaeda Prison Cell to Hollywood Squares." The next book writes itself.

From the (North) Korean Central News Agency, your only unbiased counterimperialist source of official DPRK propaganda:

3/21: "Two Americans were detained on March 17 while illegally intruding into the territory of the DPRK by crossing the DPRK-China border." Was apparently true!

6/16: KCNA Detailed Report on Truth about Crimes Committed by American Journalists: "at dawn of March 17 unidentified two men and two women covertly crossed the River Tuman to intrude into its bank of the DPRK side in Kangan-ri, Onsong County, North Hamgyong Province. The two women were arrested on the spot." Also maybe true, who knows? Fast forward to...

8/5: "Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it...The measure taken to release the American journalists is a manifestation of the DPRK's humanitarian and peaceloving policy."

Kim Jong-Il cannot tell a lie.
[Pic: Getty]

According to the AP, Clinton flew to North Korea on Bing's private jet. Since it's currently illegal for American planes to fly to North Korea, Bing had to work for four or five days with the FAA to get the flight plan approved.

Bing, you will recall, is the Democratic donor and Friend of Bill who knocked up Elizabeth Hurley and Kirk Kerkorian's wife, but demanded paternity tests before he would own up to it.

This is sounding more and more like a Bond film: An oversexed former government operative liberates two beautiful young Asian-American women from a cartoonish nuclear-armed villain with the help of a playboy movie producer. What happened on that plane?

And forget about the extent to which this episode was engineered by Kim Jong Il's to boost his image—are we witnessing the rehabilitation of Bill's gang of aging, model-banging billionaires into an alliance of gentleman crime fighters? What's next—will Jeffrey Epstein use his math skills to disarm Ahmadinejad's Doomsday Machine?

It's unclear why, exactly, the government of the United States of America would need to rely on Bing's largesse for the repatriation of two of its citizens—though Obama has been making CEOs pay their own way at White House luncheons, so maybe it's a cost-cutting thing. In fact, we think the AP's headline, "Wealthy Hollywood producer paid for NKorea flight," may overstate the case. According to the owner of the company that manages the plane for Bing, the flights costs haven't been tallied yet. The State Department may well end up reimbursing Bing for his expenses.

The full story has never been told. Current TV and its staff kept a vigilant silence in the interest of protecting Ling and Lee's safety, and the press avoided aggressive coverage over the same concerns.

But some issues have bubbled to the surface. A Los Angeles-area blogger named Babamoto has taken two in-depth looks at Mitchell Koss, the Current TV producer and cameraman who managed to flee back to China at the border crossing where Ling and Lee were captured.

Koss, Babamo writes on Epicanthus.net, shephered the journalism careers of emotive CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and of View co-host Lisa Ling from their early 20s. Lisa Ling's sister Laura and fellow reporter Euna Lee would have fit neatly into Koss' stable of "young, attractive and aggressive... 'revolutionary punks.'"

But Babamo implies their aggression and risk-taking in North Korea might have been unnecessary:

Along with the obligatory gunfire, bomb blasts, drug labs and poisonous reptiles, there are homages to poverty, squalor, hunger and human suffering...Many times, Koss seems to put [reporters] in harm's way just for the heck of it on stories that had been covered before by others.

Ling and Lee's prior work certainly contained its share of fireworks. And the North Korean refugee story had been done before — by BBC, Frontline, CNN's Christiane Amanpour and National Geographic, among others, according to Babamoto. Current's Korean derring-do came as the troubled TV network was trying, against Wall Street sentiment, to mount an IPO (it was canceled shortly after Ling and Lee's capture).

Like others at Current TV, Koss has until now remained silent on the incident. Now that his reporters are free, he could shed light on the purpose of their reporting, as well as answer questions about where they were, exactly, when they were caught, and how he thinks it came to pass.

According to research by the Korea-focused website ROK Drop and its commenters, there are seven bridges between North Korea and China where the reporters might have been captured, assuming they were in fact nabbed on the Tumen River

It's not clear why they would have been on such a bridge; speculation has centered on whether the translator they'd hired in China was in cahoots with the North Koreans and misled the reporters about their location or whether they were shooting footage on what they presumed to be the Chinese side of the bridge when North Korea soldiers rushed them. One ROK Drop commenter even noted it's possible to bribe one's way across the border, but since cameras usually aren't allowed it's not clear why two journalists and a cameraman/producer would attempt this.

Only Current TV knows what's happened. Now that its journalists are, thankfully, safe, it can tell what it knows — or let others go digging for it.

(Pics via Epicanthus.net and ROK Drop)

It's a heartening bit of good journalism news.

(Photos: AP)

Reuters has the breaking news. You have to give Kim Jong-Il credit. As soon as the psycho dictatorial monster heard that his troops had snatched two US reporters last March, he knew he could leverage it into the appearance of respectability. Today, he did. Crazily.

• Original rumors were that Al Gore would be sent over to North Korea to fetch back Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who worked for Gore's Current TV. But Kim managed to get ol' Bill Clinton himself. Fuck a "vice" president.
• Clinton reportedly met with Ling and Lee, and it was "very emotional." We bet. For them, it's possible salvation. For him, hey, some other Americans in this fucked up country! More importantly: there seem to be serious hopes that the women will be coming back to America tomorrow.
• The White House is keeping its mouth shut, except to say what a private, nongovernmental mission Clinton is on. One report said that Clinton relayed a message from Obama to Kim, which the White House denied. Who knows. They can give the crazy man whatever soothing pablum he wants till Ling and Lee are out, then deny it all. This is essentially a hostage negotiation.
• Watch out, North Koreans can be tricky!
• 
  
• Toothbrush-mustachioed xenophobe John Bolton is not happy about Clinton's trip. Huh. Don't you look like an asshole now, John Bolton? Oh yes—here you are on Fox News, just now, sounding like an asshole.

CNN, citing "a source with detailed knowledge of the former president's movements," (Insert your own joke here.) said tonight that Bill Clinton is traveling to North Korea to negotiate the release of Ling and Lee. Clinton's visit to the rogue totalitarian country comes at a time when North Korea's done just about everything in their power to piss of the United States, its Asian neighbors and the world at large, with batshit-crazy missile launches and outlandish threats to develop an arsenal of nuclear weapons to annihilate their enemies. It's also been widely rumored that North Korea's cuckoo despot ruler, Kim Jong Il, is presently gravely ill. The last American cabinet official to visit North Korea, coincidentally, was former Clinton Secretary of State Madeline Albright.

On the face of things it seems that the United States of America probably has no better bullet in its diplomatic gun than Bill Clinton for handling situations like such as these, so sending him in seems to make all kinds of sense. However, it's hard not to think that if he's successful, he'll once again steal the spotlight from his long-suffering Number Twos, Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, but hey, whatever it takes, right? Maybe Bill can take Kim Jong Il for a spin on Ron Burkle's sex-jet, "Air Fuck One," to close the deal? Again, whatever it takes.

UPDATE: Clinton has landed in North Korea.

Clinton is dealing with North Korean ruler Kin Jong Il, a sick, vengeful, homicidal nutjob of an autocrat. His underlings have accused Ling and Lee of crossing their border and faking video of human rights abuses; they've also extracted a confession from the no-doubt terrified reporters.

For now, the woman are reportedly "well" in a guest house in Pyongyang, a sign that the North Koreans still wants to negotiate their future. Clinton's comments are as much of an accommodation as the U.S. is likely to give the country. In response to a probably-planted question at a State Department employee "town hall," Clinton all but apologized on behalf of the journalists, a bid, surely, to win their safe return.

The informal context gives the U.S. just enough wiggle room to say this isn't an official national position:

"The two journalists and their families have expressed great remorse
for this incident, and I think everyone is very sorry that it
happened," Mrs. Clinton said Friday morning during a wide-ranging
question-and-answer session with State Department employees. "What we
hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty
through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their
families as soon as possible."

Yes, whatever, we're so very sorry, just send these innocent — sorry, heroic — women home already.

[NY Times]

The official Korean Central News Agency said the TV journalists at their trial had admitted criminal acts.

It said they were "prompted by the political motive to isolate and stifle" the North's system "by faking up moving images aimed at falsifying its human rights performance and hurling slanders and calumnies at it."

As if hurling slanders weren't imperialist enough, they had to start tossing calumnies as well! They couldn't do it from afar; they had to sneak into the people's paradise, "for the purpose of making animation files to be used for an anti-DPRK (North Korea) smear campaign over its human rights issue." Animation files, as you know, require espionage. Just as reporting on human rights violations is equivalent to a smear campaign.

Other stories from the Korean Central News Agency today:

• Japanese Reactionaries Accused of Agitating Reinvasion of Korea
• Kim Jong Il's Exploits Praised
• Reason Why He Left Stick in Car

You don't see us reporting live from North Korea. That's not just because we are lazy internet hacks inferior in all ways to grizzled "real" journalists; it's also because "real" journalists work for big organizations like, say, the New York Times, which bristle with lawyers and diplomatic connections to get you out of trouble in a perilous foreign environment, whereas we just have one lawyer here who is way too busy defending our right to make slanderous jokes to help us out if we get arrested in North Korea, or kidnapped in Colombia, or whatnot.

In this way you see that the internet makes foreign reporting unsafe! Because all those big "real" news organization are actually going broke, thanks to the internet, and all the reporting is migrating over to shoestring-budgeted online operations like, for example, Current (which is actually bigger than most!), which are fine when it comes to getting news out over the internet, but are not so well prepared to trot out teams of lawyers and private security guards to keep its correspondents safe, cost be damned.

So here we are: the old outlets that used to sponsor all these daring foreign correspondents are increasingly unable to, because their businesses have been totally gutted by clever little lithe internet operations, which are clever and lithe precisely because they're far too stripped-down to ever spend hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars sponsoring dangerous foreign reporting, which is really an extremely high cost-per-word proposition, and not that widely read, besides. So foolish brave reporters take it upon themselves to do this exciting reporting anyhow, with little safety net, and then we get a situation like the North Korean one today.

Sure, it's tempting to "blame the internet." But if you people clicked more on stories about North Korea than stories about, say, Megan Fox, then maybe foreign reporting would still be profitable enough for even tiny news outlets to hire good foreign handlers.

That's not to say big papers get to be holier-than-thou on this issue—reporters for the biggest media outlets in the world are just as likely as anyone to have their people kidnapped or arrested. More likely, at the moment! But that's changing. Which means the need for a Journalism-Saving Delta Force is now greater than ever. If they put Megan Fox on it, it'll pay for itself.
[NYT. Pic: AP]

Well—Laura Ling is the journalist. She has more than 90 videos under her name on Current's website. Below are two: a report on her visit to a tribe in the Amazon rainforest three years ago, and her latest video, about crime in Juarez. Judging by her assignments—Haiti, Mexico, the seedy side of Vegas—she had an exciting job.

Euna Lee, though, was an editor, who "was taking her first trip on an overseas assignment for the company when she was arrested." Awful luck. The final image of this post is a screen grab of her one and only video on Current's website: a clip of her holding up a Dr. Pepper.

Calling it a "grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing," the Central Court of North Korea convicted and sentenced the two reporters in a trial that began last Thursday. The U.S. State Department said that outside observers were not allowed to witness the trial's proceedings.

Friends and family of Ling and Lee insist that their border crossing was accidental and have been publicly pleading with the North Koreans for mercy in recent days. Reports CNN:

"When the girls left the United States, they never intended to cross into North Korean soil. And if they did at any point, we apologize," Lisa Ling, Laura Ling's sister, said on "Anderson Cooper 360" on Wednesday.

"And we know that they are very, very sorry. And we ask that you show mercy today," added Lisa Ling, a special correspondent for CNN.

Despite the limited communication, the families say they've heard enough to know the women are "terrified" and "extremely scared."

Current TV employees, including company Chairman Al Gore, had been ordered by their legal team to remain quiet about the situation with Ling and Lee, a stance that they held fast to both individually and as a company, despite some public outcry.

Obviously, this whole thing is a situation fraught with horrendous peril, not only for Ling and Lee, but for the United States in general. One can't escape the feeling that the convictions of Ling and Lee are less about North Korean law and more just another example of provocation by a renegade country led by a mad man. What Kim Jong Il and North Korea hope to gain by this situation is anyone's guess, but one can only imagine what sort of horrors take place inside a North Korean labor camp, and we certainly feel that it's time for the former two-term vice president of the United States to break his silence and start throwing his weight around to crack some serious skulls if he has to in order to get Ling and Lee freed. The Current TV strategy of silence has not worked up to this point and will only continue to reflect poorly on them and Gore going forward.

In the meantime, our thoughts are with Laura Ling and Euna Lee and their traumatized families.

Reporters Get 12-Year Terms in N. Korea [CNN]
Pic via Getty