The artillery shelling of the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong on Nov. 23 has captured the attention of the world – then set it on edge. In a media-saturated era like our own, we have no end of resources for staying current with the continuing, and increased, conflict between North and South on the Korean peninsula. But a surfeit can be overwhelming sometimes, especially when it is difficult to tell which sources are reputable.
So, we’ve put together a list of reliable sources for news on this event. We’ve compared notes as to what we’ve used to get the news and have asked readers via Twitter.
: Herman is Voice of America’s reporter on the scene. From the first shell dropping, Herman has used Twitter as a news channel, keeping followers notified on a sometimes minute-by-minute basis. He also links to articles as they appear.
@ChosunIlbo. Chosun Ilbo English Edition is arguably the best-known English language newspaper in Korea. Given that it is an English version of the Korean paper, they have the boots on the ground to get the stories as they happen. They also have an up-close understanding of the politics and cultural issues behind the conflict.
@LiberateLaura. Richard Horgan initially began his Twitter account as a way to agitate for the freedom of journalist Laura Ling and colleague Eunice Lee from their detention in North Korea. Since they’ve been released, he has become “a chronicler of the Hermit Kingdom” and the account his chronicle.
@newsjean. Jean Lee is AP’s bureau chief in Seoul. Fingers on the pulse of a nation, or at least on all the AP squids’ mobile numbers.
Flickr. Users have posted thousands of photos of Yeonpyeong since the shelling started.
YouTube. News organizations and individuals have loaded, and continue to load, everything from live footage of the shelling and the response to commentary.
. LA is the largest Korean city outside of Korea proper. Their reporters cover Korea even when nothing particularly dramatic is occurring. So, they have a deep background and, despite a long couple of years, a wide reach.
Yonhap News Agency. Yonhap provides web, RSS, Twitter and mobile access to the latest Korean news.
The Marmot’s Hole. A multiple-author blog run by writers in Korea. A great resource for both aggregation of news resources and analysis. Surprisingly exhaustive in its coverage of the shelling.
Brookings Institution. This DC-based think tank’s North Korea topic page links to all its Fellows’ writings and other media on North Korea. The latest, created a day after the shelling, is a video Q&A with Koreas expert Michael O’Hanlon, titled, “North Korea’s Aggression an Opportunity to Act.”
North Korean flag photo by Gilad Rom
