Now that U.S. journalists have been sentenced to hard labour in North Korea, should their employers start speaking out?
Hefty jail sentences for two U.S. journalists in North Korea intensifies the focus on their employer, Current TV, and the liberal outlet’s co-founder, former U.S. Vice president Al Gore, who have both maintained a policy of absolute silence around the incident. How vocal governments, news outlets and families should be in relation to such matters is the subject of ongoing debate—witness the treatment here in Canada of Melissa Fung, Robert Folwer and Louis Guay and freelancers Amanda Lindhout and Beverly Giesbrecht. For some, the silence in the case of Current TV and Gore is starting to get uncomfortable.