New York Times: North Korea and U.S.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/world/asia/24journalists.html?_r=1&hp

In this article, two Asian-American reporters are detained in North Korea and will ultimately be tried for 'criminal acts' committed while exposing North Korean refugees fleeing their own country because of starvation. I think a huge difference among most countries, ceratinly in this case North Korea and the U.S., is the restraint and freedoms of the press and of information that is accessible to the public.

I'm sure these reporters assumed, as I do, that journalism's core philosophies are acknowledged worldwide, but in this case it is obvious that certain governments will control information, usually negative, about the states of the countries very stringently.

Of course, this is more of a political act; one government challenging the superiority of another. I do believe it is important, though, to understand that different countries have completely separate ways of distributing information. Had these two reporters been elsewhere, the results might have been different, so awareness of your surroundings is key and could have resolved this problem that has now become a political pawn. (I also think this is interesting because they are Asian-American.)