In a culture where strident political statements are the norm on bumper stickers & T-shirts, and reality TV is the new sitcom, and news is available 24-7 through traditional media and citizen journalists, and the paparazzi rush around trailing everyone from A-list celebs to the Gosselin family, it’s hard to imagine living somewhere with a government-controlled press.  It’s harder to imagine a government that would consider two foreign journalists crossing a border and working on a refugee story to be a “grave crime” against the country.

Unfortunately that concept is the reality for reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who are now serving as the poster children of North Korea’s iron grip over anyone crossing its borders.  The journalists were working on a story for Al Gore’s CurrentTV, and apparently crossed a bridge from the Chinese border into North Korea.  Whatever really happened will stay with them for now, as both women were arrested for “hostile acts” and crossing the border, were put to a private trial, and were then sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp for the “grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing.”

It’s been said that all new Presidents face a test from a hostile nation, and North Korea seems to be the one that drew the long straw with President Obama.  First were the missile tests; now there’s the regrettable matter of two journalists that work for a former U.S. Vice President facing 12 years of hard labor for being arrested while doing their jobs.

Many think that North Korea is making a power play with the journalists in order to have a bargaining chip with the U.S. government – which is to say that this is about missile tests, not about two straying journalists.  So far, speculation names potential North Korean envoys as Bill Richardson (who has negotiated with North Korea before), Al Gore or Hillary Clinton, the latter of whom just spoke out against the North Korean military tests.

Obama, for his part, is “deeply concerned” about the journalists and, as per the missle tests, noted that “We are not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation.”