By J.R. Breen
Contributing Writer
Just six years ago, the staff at the Daily NK found it hard to be taken seriously as providers of reliable news, an attitude that lingers in some quarters to this day.
But when the online newspaper, founded in 2004, broke news of the chaotic currency revaluation in North Korea toward the end of last year, its stock appeared to rise somewhat.
The story, based on accounts from its team of reporters who operate in the North Korea border region in northeastern China, made international headlines, bringing the organization into sharp focus.
``Since 2004, the Daily NK has released several exclusives to the world,'' Kwon Eun-kyoung, the English editor at the paper said.
The Daily NK is one of several agencies operating on the fringes, effectively paying stringers ― freelance journalists ― in the area and behind the thick curtain of secrecy shrouding the communist nation.
Good Friends and Radio Free Korea are just two of the others contributing to the mass of information spirited out.
The Daily NK says that their mission is to ultimately empower the North Korean people.
``The main purpose we want to achieve in the end is giving back the country to the North Korea people, through democratization and improvement of (the) human rights situation,'' Kwon said.
One way that the online newspaper manages to gather information is by meeting with traveling North Koreans. Betraying the popular image of North Korea's rigid borders, North Koreans citizens with family in China are permitted to cross into the neighboring country for up to a year, according to Kwon.
``Such kinds of people do business between North Korea and China,'' she said. ``We can meet these people regularly (over) a long period.''
Another method of getting information is through cell phones.
``We can call North Korean people through a Chinese cell phone system along the China-North Korea border,'' Kwon said. ``We work with some traders and visitors to North Korea. We call them at a fixed time.
``Defector reporters have their reliable acquaintances in North Korea, so they call them in the same way.''
Some critics argue they get the information wrong as often as they get it right, muddying efforts to interpret the North's latest machinations.
Kwon says she's aware of the criticism leveled at the work organizations like the Daily NK provide, but insists they do their best to cross-check every item they receive.
``I have heard such criticisms,'' Kwon said. ``We don't use what defectors or North Korean people say as it is. We are always crosschecking stories we get through more than three other sources and if the story is proved as fact, we use it.
``Our history of meeting North Korean people and our knowledge of North Korea is quite professional. Some of us know as much as the North Korean elite know,'' she said. ``Therefore, North Korean people's lies or exaggerated stories are easily distinguished by us. For example, when other NGOs in charge of food aid insisted that North Korean people were on the brink of starvation last year, we were able to deny the fact.''
And Kwon claims that it is not only Korean people who benefit, but the world as a whole.
``The Daily NK has been spreading NK information to the world let alone Korean people. The purpose of these activities is to help related countries' administrations make proper and correct policies on North Korea,'' Kwon said. ``We try to spread fair and correct analysis on North Korean issues to the international and domestic experts, who write significant papers, which, sometimes, are used as materials for policy making.''
The Daily NK was founded in 2004 however, it began life as NKnet (Democracy Network for North Korean Human Rights and Democracy), a South Korea-based NGO.
Established in 1999 under the same pretense as the Daily NK, the founders were a combination of former socialist activists and pro-North Korean factions, who, in realizing they had been misguided by North Korean propaganda, turned against the North in an effort to bring justice to the country.
Kwon says that such a medium as the Daily NK is needed in order to shed light on North Korean injustice.
``At the beginning, early in the 2000s, only a minority of people believed what we asserted, while the majority treated us as radical right-wing and extreme conservatives who wanted to damage North Korea itself.''
As a result of the Daily NK's recent scoops, such as the North Korean currency redenomination story, it has begun to gather global recognition, with coverage from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.