Anna Fifield | |
---|---|
![]() Fifield in 2018 | |
Born | Hastings, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand | 14 March 1976
Occupation(s) | Journalist, correspondent |
Employer | The Washington Post |
Anna Fifield (born 14 March 1976) is the Asia-Pacific editor at The Washington Post . Previously she was the editor of The Dominion Post based in Wellington, New Zealand and the Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post where she focused her attention on news and issues of Japan, North Korea, and South Korea. She has been to North Korea a dozen times.
Raised in Hastings, Fifield got her start writing for the Rotorua Daily Post and the NZPA wire service. [1] [2] In 2001 at the age of 25 she headed to London and secured a job at the Financial Times, where she worked for 13 years, mainly as a foreign correspondent.
She was US Political Correspondent in Washington, D.C. between 2009 and 2013, and was previously Middle East correspondent in Beirut and Tehran, and Korea Correspondent in Seoul. She was Tokyo bureau chief for The Washington Post from 2014 to 2018, and became the Beijing bureau chief. [3] Fifield has reported from more than 20 countries, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and North Korea. Over 20 years she covered the first nuclear test by North Korea in 2006, the disputed Iranian presidential election of 2009, and the 2012 US presidential election. [2]
In reporting on North Korea, she highlighted the difficulties faced by ordinary North Koreans, especially in the Kim Jong-un era. In 2017, she interviewed more than 25 recent escapees from North Korea, producing a major report that was published in both English and Korean. [4] This was the first time The Washington Post had published in Korean. [5] She also secured the only interview with Kim Jong-un's aunt, who had been living in the United States since 1998. [6] She wrote about young North Korean escapees making a new life for themselves in South Korea, offering a different narrative from the usual portrayal of North Koreans as helpless victims. [7] Fifield became the first person to ever go live on Facebook from North Korea in 2016. [8] She covered the story of deceased University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier, who was released from imprisonment in North Korea through diplomatic efforts by the Department of State in the Trump Administration.
Interviewing numerous people who have met Kim Jong-un, Fifield has sought to show through reporting that he is not a cartoon villain or a joke, but a ruthless dictator operating strategically, even if that strategy involves killing his own uncle and half-brother in order to stay in power. Fifield's book The Great Successor: The Perfectly Divine Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un, was published in June 2019, and has since been translated into 24 languages. [9] [2]
She was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism (August 2013 through May 2014) at Harvard University, where she studied how change happens in closed societies. [10] [11] In 2018, she was awarded the Shorenstein Journalism Award from Stanford University for excellence in reporting on Asia. [2] "Fifield exemplifies how crucial it is to get the complexities of Asia right and the profound role of journalism in shaping public and decision maker approaches to our counterparts in the region," the university said. [12]
After covering the coronavirus epidemic, Fifield returned to New Zealand in 2020, and in July became the editor of The Dominion Post and Stuff's Wellington newsroom. [2] She took up her position on 5 October 2020 and left it in December 2022. [13] [14]
In 2022, Fifield announced that she was returning to the Washington Post as its Asia/Pacific correspondent. [15]
Relations between North Korea and the United States have been historically tense and hostile. The two countries have no formal diplomatic relations. Instead, they have adopted an indirect diplomatic arrangement using neutral intermediaries. The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang is the US protecting power and provides limited consular services to U.S. citizens. North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), does not have an embassy in Washington, DC, but is represented in the United States through its mission to the United Nations in New York City which serves as North Korea's de facto embassy.
The Post is a metropolitan daily newspaper published in Wellington, New Zealand. It is owned by media business Stuff Ltd, formerly the New Zealand branch of Australian media company Fairfax Media. Weekday issues are now in tabloid format, and its Saturday edition is in broadsheet format.
Kim Jong-nam was the eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. From roughly 1994 to 2001, he was considered the heir apparent to his father. He was thought to have fallen out of favour after embarrassing the regime in 2001 with a failed attempt to visit Tokyo Disneyland with a false passport, although Kim himself said his loss of favour had been due to advocating reform.
Kim Jong Un is a North Korean politician who has been supreme leader of North Korea since 2011 and the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) since 2012. He is the third son of Kim Jong Il, who was North Korea's second supreme leader from 1994 to 2011, and Ko Yong Hui. He is a grandson of Kim Il Sung, who was the founder and first supreme leader of North Korea from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994.
North Korea ranks among some of the most extreme censorship in the world, with the government able to take strict control over communications. North Korea sits at the bottom of Reporters Without Borders' 2023 Press Freedom Index, ranking 180 out of the 180 countries investigated.
Daily NK is an online newspaper based in Seoul, South Korea, where it reports on various aspects of North Korean society from information obtained from inside and outside of North Korea via a network of informants. North Korea is ranked 179 out of 180 in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index, which is compiled by Reporters Without Borders.
Suki Kim is a Korean American journalist and writer. She is the author of two books: the award-winning novel The Interpreter and a book of investigative journalism, Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite. Kim is the only writer ever to have lived undercover in North Korea to conduct immersive journalism. Kim is currently a contributing editor at The New Republic.
Ri Chun-hee is a North Korean news presenter for North Korean broadcaster Korean Central Television. She is most notable for her characteristic emotional and sometimes vitriolic tone, described as "passionate", "vaguely menacing", and "aggressive". She announced her retirement in 2012, but still occasionally presents the news of major developments.
Ri Sol-ju is the current First Lady of North Korea as the wife of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.
Kim Yo Jong is a North Korean politician and diplomat serving as the Deputy Department Director of the Publicity and Information Department of the Workers' Party of Korea, or WPK. She also served as an alternate member of the Politburo of the Workers' Party of Korea from 2017 to 2019, and again from 2020 to 2021. Since September 2021, she has served as a member of State Affairs Commission of North Korea, the only woman on the panel.
The Kim family, also known as the Kim dynasty or the Mount Paektu bloodline in the ideological discourse of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), is a three-generation lineage of North Korean leadership, descending from the country's founder and first leader, Kim Il Sung. The patriarch came to rule the north in 1948, after the end of Japanese rule split the region in 1945. He began the Korean War in 1950, in a failed attempt to reunify the Korean Peninsula. In the 1980s, Kim Il Sung developed a cult of personality closely tied to the North Korean state philosophy of Juche. Following his death in 1994, Kim Il Sung's role as supreme leader was passed on to his son Kim Jong Il, and then to his grandson Kim Jong Un. All three men have served as leaders of the WPK and have exercised absolute control over North Korea since the state's establishment in 1948.
Media coverage of North Korea is hampered by an extreme lack of reliable information, coupled with an abundant number of sensationalist falsehoods. There are a number of reasons for this lack of information and incorrect stories.
In the year 2016, North Korea conducted two nuclear tests: one in January and the other in September. Additionally, the country conducted several missile tests. As consequence, the United Nations Security Council adopted three resolutions against North Korea.
The 7th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), the ruling party of North Korea, was held on 6–9 May 2016.
On 13 February 2017, Kim Jong-nam, the older half-brother of the incumbent leader of North Korea Kim Jong Un, was assassinated at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia. He had been living abroad since his exile from North Korea in 2003.
The 2018 North Korea–United States Singapore Summit, commonly known as the Singapore Summit, was a summit meeting between North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, held at the Capella Hotel, Sentosa, Singapore, on June 12, 2018. It was the first-ever meeting between leaders of North Korea and the United States. They signed a joint statement, agreeing to security guarantees for North Korea, new peaceful relations, the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, recovery of soldiers' remains, and follow-up negotiations between high-level officials. Both leaders also met separately with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
Choe Son-hui is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of North Korea. Previously the First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, she was appointed Minister on 11 June 2022, becoming the first woman to hold the position and is one of few North Korean women holding a high-level office.
Mun Jong-nam was a North Korean diplomat and official, who served as North Korea’s Ambassador to Syria. He also served abroad in Thailand and Italy.
David Louis Sneddon, is an American university student who disappeared in Yunnan Province, China after traveling alone through Tiger Leaping Gorge. Over 12 years later, on August 31, 2016, the Abductee's Family Union of South Korea claimed that it had gathered intelligence demonstrating Sneddon had been abducted by North Korean agents and taken to North Korea where he became the personal English language tutor to Kim Jong-un.
Sung-Yoon Lee is a scholar, policy advisor, and author specialized on North Korea and East Asia. His written opus has focussed on exposing the wrongdoings of the North Korean regime and advancing policies to curb it. He has contributed to media outlets, published academic papers and a book, and written statements as part of his expert witness advice to the U.S. Congress. His writing style has been described as exuberant, vivid, and sharp, with a meticulous and insightful analysis.