Journalistic Experimentation and Creative Diplomacy

The family of detained journalist Laura Ling is sharing information on Twitter, which is, in itself, part of the key to unlocking the puzzle of journalism's evolution. Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been detained in North Korea since March 17, and their best bet might just be creative diplomacy. (Click here for official information, current status and back story).

Journalism can be fatal

Yesterday at the Incentive to Innovate conference, I clapped when Arianna Huffington noted, from the dais, that the debate about saving newspapers is much less important than saving journalism. The battle to free Euna Lee and Laura Ling has become unmistakably emblematic of the growing hostility from and toward North Korea, but it is also a chance to take stock of a field that has gained unprecedented new power: journalism.

Risking one’s life for freedom is a prized American value, and journalists, like soldiers, are often on the front lines of this battle. This is The United States of America. We might argue about the details, but our free press is a necessity in order for us to maintain our overarching national identity at home and abroad.

734 journalists have been killed on duty since 1992 (among them, tragically, is Dan Eldon, who was murdered by a mob in Somalia in 1993 along with three colleagues. My career as a journalist was inspired by Dan Eldon. Invisible Children, boingboinged today was also originally inspired by Dan’s work and life).

Of the dead journalists, 72% were murdered (others died in crossfire or other instances). Political groups are suspected to have executed 32% of the killings, with government officials at 18% and military suspects at 5.9%. Journalism is an extremely dangerous job for those, like Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who work to uncover dangerous truths about the current status of the human condition.

Can journalism be safer and more effective?

While heartbreaking clemency pleas from Lee and Ling’s families and the petitions circulated by global citizens continue to gain momentum, a larger problem that affects the entire industry must be tackled at the same time: how can we make journalism more effective and at the same time, safer?

The debate about the medium in which news is delivered isn't nearly as critical as protecting the lives of the people who are dedicated to documenting the truth.

We can’t give up on the full consequences of what it means to have a free press, any more than the fear of death, capture or injury on the battlefield will ever stop soldiers from enlisting, but we can respond smartly to geopolitical challenges on the path to documenting dangerous realities with a mix of increasingly sophisticated techniques that will soon involve augmented realities and telepresence (lest the industry get comfortable with the notion that the current switch from print to digital is the only hurdle).

Digital interactions strengthen real human bonds

Check out the author of the Liberate Laura site, Richard Horgan:

On April 26th, Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times foreign correspondent Nicholas Kristof tweeted (@NYTimesKristof) that there was “No Twitter page – yet” for Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the Current TV journalists detained since March 17th by a deluded North Korean regime. Los Angeles freelance entertainment journalist Richard Horgan (@filmstew) read this tweet and, motivated by both a personal interest in the case and a Twitter acquaintance with Ling, decided to take up Kristof on the Twitter challenge. Thus, @LiberateLaura was born and with the help of some generous Twitter page followers, this companion WordPress blog.

Last week, I met Wired writer Alexis Madrigal in the Vinegar Hill neighborhood in Brooklyn, where we discussed the fact that membership in the digital culture has given us access to our global tribe--those individuals who are, based on unique and utterly indefinable personal metrics--closest to one's own way of seeing the world.

Conversely, we now have access to those with radically differing views, which is just as valuable, because it creates an opportunity for conflict mitigation, humanizing of the other, before violence is created by ignorance and fear. To accomplish this, equal thought needs to be given to the philosophical development of new skills that make the most of the tools that will become increasingly ubiquitous in the creation of an ongoing human drama--the ultimate mixed-media, mixed-reality program. Which brings us to the Governator.

Kim Jong-Il crazy about Hollywood movies?

In addition to keeping a tight watch on events and links, Liberate Laura publisher Horgan offers his own opinions on how to free Ling and Lee, such as sending in the Governator to take action for reasons that actually made sense instantly, as improbable as that seems:

True, the Governor of California does not have extensive foreign relations or diplomacy experience. Nor am I trying to suggest capitalizing on any echo of the fictitious scenarios he once made $20 million enacting (though how I wish he could travel back in time to March 16th and counsel Lee, Ling and their cameraman Mitch Koss to abort their next-day trip to the border).

No, the reasons @schwarzenegger might prove a uniquely valuable choice are three-fold:

1) As sitting Governor of one of the world’s top economies, he has the requisite stature;

2) Because he is a “fresh face” choice, he also represents possibly in the eyes of the North Koreans a more emblematic reflection of the seriousness of the U.S. government;

Kim Jong-il is (still, presumably) crazy for Hollywood movies.

Why might this work?

I recently attended a meeting at which a major plan for creating a new public diplomacy outreach strategy was discussed. Josh Fouts, the former founding director of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, is the Chief Global Strategist at DIP, and we spend a significant amount of time working on this subject, which is evolving in many of the same ways as journalism.

A famous photograph of Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet amid a crowd of Egyptian children was projected and we wondered: Who do we have in the United States that can pack that kind of star quality, charisma and meaning into a critical foreign diplomacy task for ultimate success?

I know he's busy with a budget crisis and all, but I can't help thinking that Arnold has always been cut out for a lofty profile. There's just something about him; a mystique that can move mountains.

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, because I can’t stop thinking about Laura Ling and Euna Lee, wondering what they must be dealing with at the moment and admiring the courage it took to accept this assignment at all. Their conviction is a warning shot in the field, and the implications of the disturbance will be far-reaching. The time of great journalistic experimentation and diplomatic creativity has begun.