RESEARCH

Shorenstein Fellow Uses Internet to Keep Tabs on Events in North Korea

“North Korea is one of the ‘axis of evil’ members,” journalist Rebecca MacKinnon reminds anyone who will listen. Still, she points out, the media doesn’t cover what’s happening on the ground in
this troubled and potentially volatile country.

“There is a problem with access,” she says, acknowledging North Korea’s ability to keep most American journalists out of the country. But covering North Korea is also difficult “because this isn’t a sexy day-to-day story. There are no people running around with guns and turbans and blowing things up.”

MacKinnon, currently a fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy and a former CNN bureau chief in China and Japan, is at the Kennedy School this semester examining whether new technology and new media can be used to create better journalism. She decided that one way to help shed light on current events in North Korea was to set up an Internet blog (an abbreviation of Web log) at www.nkzone.org.

Blogs, frequently updated Web sites with posts organized in reverse chronological order, provide commentary on a variety of subjects or link to news found elsewhere on the Web. MacKinnon’s blog, like others, also provides a platform for contributors to weigh in with their own commentary and to correct or question the statements of the person running the blog. She chose to work on this project during her fellowship because she believes that people want to have a “conversation” with the media they’re consuming. They don’t want to just sit there and watch the news, she says, when the broadcaster wants them to see it.

MacKinnon, who has traveled to North Korea five times, isn’t focused right now on making money with her blog, which is visited mostly by people in the United States. “I’m not focused on a business model at this point,” she says. Instead, she’s hopeful that she’ll receive foundation funding to maintain the site.

What she’s learned so far is that she can’t expect people to contribute to or visit her blog on a regular basis. For a while she experimented with trying to get bloggers to report on events,
but that didn’t really work out. Since setting up the Web site in February, MacKinnon has had to generate most of its content herself.

Still, she’s convinced that a lot of what she learned working at CNN still rings true. “People definitely like the off-the-wall stuff,” says MacKinnon, when asked about her February 11 posting of photos by Canadian artist Irwin Oostindie that presented what some considered a glowing view of life in North Korea. Her blog also featured an interview with human rights activist Norbert Vollertson, who condemned the North Korean government for its human rights abuses.

After her interview with Vollertson, she received an e-mail from Alejandro Cao de Benos, a representative from North Korea’s government, who told her she’s not welcome to return to North Korea.

What continues to keep her passionate about her blog, which gets about 700 page views a day, is her belief that the United States should be paying much more attention to events in North Korea.
“What happens in North Korea and elsewhere in northeast Asia — and whether there’s war or peace in that region — will impact us tremendously,” she says.