Tomorrow (19 May) Current TV will broadcast a special episode in its Vanguard series featuring an interview with Laura Ling, the Current journalist who was arrested and held in North Korea last year with producer Euna Lee while working on a human trafficking program.
The programme will air at at 10pm/9pm (CDT/CST). Here’s a trailer:
Current TV, the cable channel backed by former US vice president Al Gore, is to cut 80 full-time positions as part of a restructuring.
Jobs will be lost in Current’s Los Angeles, San Francisco and London offices. But Current says the cuts are not down to cost-cutting, but part of a ‘reallocation of resources’ and change to its programming, including more long-form programmes and bought-in content.
A late call for correspondents and producers with ideas for UK-based, investigative, current affairs pieces – Current TV is looking for your pitches for its Sheffield Pitch 2009 event.
The deadline is tomorrow, but if you’re interested and can turn something around quickly here are the criteria:
Some questions from Current:
Pitches should be submitted using this form. Six finalists will be selected to attend a session at the Sheffield Documentary Festival on November 5 with the winner receiving £5,000 to make their programme for airing in 2010.
There are plenty of examples of the type of programmes Current is after – specifically its for the channel’s Vanguard output, which focuses on current affairs and investigative reporting.
Last night, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two US journalists who had been sentenced to 12 years hard labour in North Korea, were said to be heading home on Bill Clinton’s private jet, reports the Independent. Full story at this link.
Laura Ling, one of two Current TV journalists currently being held in North Korea, has admitted to breaking the law in a phonecall to her sister.
Ling told her sibling Lisa that the pair needed help from the US government to in fighting for amnesty.
Two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, have been sentenced to 12 years of hard labour in North Korea ‘in a case widely seen as a test of how far the isolated Communist state was willing to take its confrontation with the United States,’ the New York Times reports.
“Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee were on a reporting assignment from Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company co-founded by Al Gore, the former vice president, when they were detained by the soldiers.”
The two US journalists arrested while working for Current TV, will face trial in North Korea on June 4, according to North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency, the BBC reports.
Current TV reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were detained by North Korean authorities, will stand trial, the country’s state-run news service has reported.
The pair were originally taken into custody on March 17, for allegedly intending to commit ‘hostile acts’.
Alan Mutter asks, why has there been so little coverage of the detention of Current TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee by their own news organisation?
While NPR has pledged to highlight the case of its contributor, the jailed US-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi, other cases are not aided by media attention, according to Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Good explanation of APIs and how they can be used by third-party developers and as the foundations for media partnerships.
Trust your users and realise that they’re smarter than you think, adds CurrentTV’s Robin Sloan.