The political equivalent of Chuck Norris...except less so

I am so happy for the families of Euna Lee and Laura Ling (for those that don’t know: that’s Lisa Ling’s sister! One time for being a child of Channel One news!). Americans are so lucky to have a free press. It’s something I value dearly. In that same vein, journalists who travel to places where the same freedoms don’t exist do so at high personal risk and I respect and value their efforts. Because of these brave souls, we have non-biased news coming from otherwise media-dark places.

Now that we have that out of the way, I can begin the critique of news coverage. (You knew the beginning of that post was too happy. You felt this coming.)

We all know the media loves Bill Clinton. They love Bill Clinton in an obsessive way. I am not here to disparage him or to belittle his accomplishments. If you overlook impeachment, which is hard for me to do, even in my little theoretical vacuum, he made good decisions during his presidency and served the country well. He certainly was not the worst president we’ve seen. But he’s not God. He doesn’t have special powers.

The media is portraying the North Korea development like this:

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Scene: Bill Clinton’s plane lands in Pyongyang. Bill exits plane and proceeds to Kim Jong Il’s place.

Bill: Hey, Kim! Lovely to see you!

Kim: Hello, William. I hate America.

Bill: Well, Kim, I think that’s an unfair sentiment, but I’m not here as a representative of the US government. I’m actually here to talk to you about two journalists that you’re holding. It would be GREAT if we could get them back.

Kim: Well, Bill, normally I am an angry man who likes to make an example of people, but since I like you, I guess you can have them. Just make sure that everyone knows it was you who persuaded me.

End scene.

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Maybe it’s my years as a Model United Nations kid (go ahead and laugh, I used to spend four days at a time pretending to be X country in X committee, it’s silly), maybe it’s my healthy interest in international goings on, or maybe it’s just the fact that I’m not so easily swayed by the media, BUT just to let everyone know…North Korea is one of the most strategic governments in existence. If anything, they were keeping these journalists as an extra trump card for the never-ending game they play with the US. It is more likely that Bill took this unofficial trip in an effort to talk about nuclear issues and before he landed North Korea had already decided to give up the reporters to avoid having to talk about nuclear weapons programs they may or may not be developing at alarming rates. As a bonus, they get to make statements about what great humanitarians they are and how they are an example to the rest of the world.

This is the same government that imprisoned these girls for illegally entering their country and a vague “grave crime” for TWELVE YEARS. And prison is a gulag in North Korea. Prisoners don’t have rights. Everywhere else in the world, an illegal border crossing would be a simple matter of deporting the offending journalists back to their countries. Except that North Korea wouldn’t want anything these journalists discovered getting out into the international media.

I could go on and on, but I’ll stop myself here and just say this:

Maybe I’m too cynical. Maybe he did convince them to let the girls go. But I just want to be able to expect more from the media and not be continuously disappointed by their coverage of just the party line. You would think that in a case like this, where investigative journalism was threatened, they would optimize the national attention by including more than four sentences about US-North Korean relations. If you thought that, you would be wrong.