The other side of the microphone

(Photo by Shana Lynch)

A reporter from Voice of America’s Korean news service interviewed me today.

It was my second radio interview in the past few months and the hundredth time or so that I’ve been asked questions about North Koreans and North Korea. I really enjoy these Q&A sessions. Yet it still feels strange for me to be on the other side of the microphone. For eight-and-a-half years I’ve always been the one asking the questions!

Being interviewed and questioned so many times has made me realize how hard it is to come up with a truly unique question. People tend to ask me the same things over and over: “What do North Korean refugees think of Kim Jong-Il?” “What challenges does the South Korean government face if there is unification with North Korea?” “How did you communicate with the North Korean refugees?”

Every once in a while a gem of an inquiry pops up and makes me reflect. This happened after I gave a lecture in New York earlier this month. “It sounds like you feel very passionately about North Korean refugees and North Korea,” began a bespectacled gentleman who had introduced himself to me before the lecture. “How involved do you see yourself getting with human rights groups or other groups related to this cause? Do you see yourself becoming more of an activist?”

It was like this man saw into my head, saw all the thoughts I’d been thinking privately since the beginning of the summer.

As American journalists we learn that we’re supposed to be objective – detached yet caring observers. Becoming involved or becoming an activist means losing that objectivity. Lately I’ve been thinking about losing a tiny bit of that objectivity. I am not quite ready to make the jump. However, the budding thoughts are blooming. Should I or shouldn’t I? I may start very small by attending a yearly North Korean human rights conference. I avoided it in the past because I didn’t want to compromise my objective journalist status. We’ll see where that leads.