By Take this for what it is worth since it is coming from a British tabloid, but I can’t say I am not surprised if it isn’t true. I would be even more surprised if Ling and Lee didn’t accept these offers:
As of last night, the bidding war for the first interview with the two heroines had reportedly reached ‘the mid six figures’. Book publisher HarperCollins is said to have offered a cool $1million for a ‘warts and all’ account of their life during 140 days ‘behind enemy lines’.
A movie deal will surely follow. Laura’s Scottish husband Iain Clayton, a 35-year-old mathematician turned financial analyst, told The Mail on Sunday from the steps of their modest ranch-style home in the less than salubrious suburb of North Hollywood: ‘I’m afraid I can’t say anything. No one is allowed to talk. We are in the process of doing deals and I don’t want to mess anything up. Everything is being handled by our media adviser.’ [Mail on Sunday via One Free Korea]
Make sure to read the rest because this article provides a whole lot more details about the Ling and Lee incident, which will be interesting to see in the coming weeks if these details are true or not.
Also worth checking via One Free Korea again is that the journalists may have been lured into North Korea by their guide as well as a crackdown by Chinese authorities on the underground railroad helping North Korean refugees in China, which may be related to the Laura Ling tapes seized by the North Koreans.
8:52 am on August 11th, 2009 1
Well, it would be interesting to read more of their side, but that they’ll get paid millions for being stupid and compromising their country is disgusting. I can’t wish anything resembling good luck to these two.
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9:49 am on August 11th, 2009 2
Lisa Ling said Laura would write an editorial detailing how she got caught at the North Korea border. I hope Laura’s current exhaustion isn’t because she’s up all night chatting with publishers in Europe. Tomorrow marks the one week anniversary of her homecoming, let’s give her a couple more days after that and a deadline of August 14. I don’t want to wait another weekend to have the question of whose idea it was to cross the border finally answered. After all, there are more important things at the end of August like NFL preseason football and fantasy drafts.
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11:07 am on August 11th, 2009 3
I agree with Brian in number 1. Once again, our society decides to reward stupidity.
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12:32 pm on August 11th, 2009 4
People are kicking these two pretty hard. I can understand some of it, but the joy in doing so has gotten carried away…
For example, they are being crucified in part for getting caught with film and other contact info of refugees and others who are likely being hunted down by North Korean and Chinese authorities.
What will be the result if all this condemnation convinces others to give up any thought of reporting on the refugee situation?
Silence. There is not much quality multi-media material that comes out about the refugee crisis. The only people doing much reading of the testimonials online collected from interviews are people already familiar and concerned about the situation – and they ain’t many…
Those documentaries or extended video news items that come out about once very two years or so – and that only within the past 8 years or so —- are the best shot at gaining international attention that deserves to be grabbed concerning this issue.
The women were stupid for crossing the border, and that bad move did lead to the confiscated material being used against the people who gave them interviews or were filmed…
…but that can happen to ANYBODY filming in the area. In most of the documentaries that go to the border area, they say that they have to keep moving and can’t stay in the area for long, because there is a risk the Chinese authorities will stop them.
I don’t want to see all this Korea-related site bashing of these two lead to less reporting from the area. We get so little to start with…
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February 3rd, 2010 at 5:49 pm
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3:28 pm on August 11th, 2009 5
Hollywood vomits out humorless comedians and talentless actors. Music is computer-produced with a cookie-cutter formula.
CEOs who drive their companies into the ground walk away with millions.
Companies which produce poor products and worthless services have their hands out for government cash when they fail.
Those who lived beyond their means now expect those who managed their lives responsibly to pay for their mistakes.
Amateur, yet politically-connected, reporters who act irresponsibly have the government spending vast sums of money, wasting political capital and mobilizing top officials to bend over backwards to neutralize their mistakes. And then they are offered a career boost and millions of dollars while better quality journalists go unnoticed.
What has happened to my beloved country?
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August 11th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Your country has turned into a pile of crap JAFO. Once the dollar devalues China will rule the world!
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4:52 pm on August 11th, 2009 6
I recommend giving Laura Ling a new name…how about Dinga Ling?
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6:44 pm on August 11th, 2009 7
If they’re so concerned on the plight of north korean refugees, let them get their million dollar book deal…but have ALL the money they recieve go to the NK refugee fund, instead of their own pockets.. Time to put your money where your mouth is…
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February 3rd, 2010 at 5:51 pm
So right 100% right!
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7:06 pm on August 11th, 2009 8
That’s great – the U.S. govt should sue to pay back taxpayers for all the time/overtime analysts spend on this, whatever it costs to send Bill et al. over, and what it cost to pay off Kim. Won’t happen, just venting.
I’d try the same thing, but bald guys are more likely to end up like Jenkins (~40 years of paradise).
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7:14 pm on August 11th, 2009 9
It’s not like some U.S. interests weren’t served by the mission.
Even thought the sights were mostly ritual, I’m sure there was some value in being able to make direct observations of Kim’s health and the amount of control he seemed to possess.
I suspect Clinton’s report will be very useful.
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7:17 pm on August 11th, 2009 10
You think that wasn’t already known?
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7:19 pm on August 11th, 2009 11
I’m guessing the U.S. already had that info; all these journalists did was become pawns in a much larger game, pawns that cost the U.S.
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August 12th, 2009 at 2:14 am
The US did not have that information because Kim Jong-il was not meeting with any foreign delegations recently. The Bill Clinton meeting debriefing has US intelligence analysts revising their reports on Kim Jong-il’s control of North Korea.
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August 12th, 2009 at 4:48 am
That’s a rather naive way of assessing what the U.S. knows or doesn’t know.
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August 12th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Intelligence reliability increases through the aggregation of sources. The more trusted, direct, first-hand observations you have, the better.
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August 12th, 2009 at 11:54 am
That’s a different thing that knowing or not knowing.
I’ll stand by the opinion that the (likely) verification of health status/control is relativity unimportant overall.
There is always cost in dealing with North Korea, and we likely don’t know the true one yet, may not for years.
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:47 am
What on earth could we learn by meeting with KJI? The number of small children it takes to fill a stadium, hold up signs, and become human pixels? The shelf life of Russian caviar? The ideal age to teach goosestepping? Give me a break. Any meeting with KJI is pure propoganda that reveals absolutely nothing beyond what they want to tell us…. which is zilch.
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9:28 am on August 12th, 2009 12
Maybe they will spend those millions to rebuild the underground network to help Nkorean!!
Because if the Chinese cracked down on those people with the help of the tapes.. it really suck..
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12:49 pm on August 14th, 2009 13
this is another propaganda!
them two spy bitches can’t do shit!
and how comes that clinton did go to free them? clinton ain’t president of usa no more so no politic influences! and technically, is usa not an enemy of north korea? and they release us spies just like that? there’s some conspiracy theory going on!
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3:19 am on September 2nd, 2009 14
Ling and Long talk to LA times.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oe-lingleeweb2-2009sep02,0,6204216.story
ahem… (hat tip)… ahem..
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5:07 am on September 2nd, 2009 15
They’ll appear on Oprah on September 11.
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6:09 am on September 2nd, 2009 16
This article is full of money quotes to anybody other than the audience it was intended for. If I just had more time. Here are a few quickies.
“There were no signs marking the international border, no fences, no barbed wire.”
No, you stupid cows, there was a big, wide, frozen, white river that, had you cared to listen, spoke for itself.
“After arriving home, we were disoriented, overwhelmed and not ready to talk about the experience.”
Read: We had to get our stories straight so it looked as if everybody else was to blame.
Go back and read my posts. Did I not call it or what!
Now it’s off to a paid appearance on Oprah for a femino-commie circlejerk where one part of the screechy liberal media strokes another part in an orgy of manufactured “news” and, like soap powder or tampons, these two cows will be household names to 50 million under-educated yet voting and consuming American housewives who have no idea where Korea is in the world, or what it all means, but just can’t understand how these two sweet things were so unlucky to get caught up with such bad people.
I don’t know if it will ever come out… but my feeling is that their story of running back to China and being taken from Chinese soil is a lie… as is their denial of being told not to go to the river.
This decade sure has been marked by people becoming famous and rewarded for everything other than ability.
I can’t wait for it to be over.
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September 2nd, 2009 at 9:46 am
My favorite is the observation that there were no signs to show the border…. as if there should be a huge sign in English saying “WELCOME!” and “COME BACK AGAIN!” on the backside.
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7:40 am on September 2nd, 2009 17
Here’s the LA Times article on them from earlier today:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oe-lingleeweb2-2009sep02,0,6204216.story
IMHO, these ladies are a pair of lightweights. Despite their very defensive words in the piece, they did absolutely nothing to “shine light” on a dark place and forced their country to compromise its principles by further legitimizing a bunch of thugs.
Nice going, ladies.
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10:13 am on September 2nd, 2009 18
Um… LORD OF E2 nailed it nickerbocker.
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12:14 pm on September 2nd, 2009 19
Chickenhead…your assessment is PERFECT!
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