After North Korea: Why Reporters Take Risks (VIDEO)

Originally published on Youthradio.org, the premier source for youth generated news throughout the globe.

By: Denise Tejada

This week we've been following North Korea's sentencing of Current TV reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling to 12 years of hard labor with intense interest.

As journalists, this story strikes close to home. On top of that, there's the curious silence of Current TV- whose only official reaction, so far, to both the capture and sentencing of their reporters has been "No Comment". On Tuesday we spoke with journalist Josh Wolf- who holds the record, at 226 days,  for the longest prison stay by a reporter in the United States for protecting source materials- about his own investigation into why Current has been staying mum.

Josh's willingness to serve time, and Lee and Ling's very presence on North Korea's border to tell the story of human trafficking, speaks to the nature of reporters. Call it daring or just plain crazy: putting yourself at risk to tell a story isn't exactly "normal". So we went to visit Josh in San Francisco to talk to him about why reporters put themselves in dangerous situations.

If citizen journalism is your thing, you'll want to check out this interview with Karina Vargas: the citizen journalist whose footage of the Oscar Grant shooting played a key role in the development of that story.

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