Reporters left in the dark

REPORTER'S LOG? Wu Jiao

The most important day for hundreds of foreign reporters coming to Pyongyang proved to be frustrating for most of us.

The reason was that we had been kept unaware of the sole big event we had come here for: The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's third satellite launch.

The United States and the Republic of Korea put the launch at 7:39 am local time, and US media reported the rocket firing soon after.

Yet those of us here received the news around 8 am, either via calls from editors back home, through information shared by colleagues here, or from the Internet.

The news was definitely not from the DPRK side.

For me, I sensed something different around 8 am when I saw a large number of foreign reporters as well as the dozens of DPRK guides - who have been escorting reporters everywhere during our stay in Pyongyang - begin to gather in the lobby of the Yanggakdo hotel, where we have been staying.

On instinct I rushed to check the Internet and got the news from US and ROK media that the DPRK had fired the satellite and "it might have failed".

Shocked as many of us were, we had nowhere else to turn for confirmation but to get together in the news center of the hotel, a 100-square-meter round room with seats equipped for Internet access and international calls.

It has been the place keeping us connected with the outside world during our stay in Pyongyang. It is also the place where we guessed we would watch the live broadcast of the satellite launch.

Within just 10 minutes or so, more and more reporters rushed in, carrying interview equipment and looking unprepared.

We assumed there would be a press briefing in the news center to tell us something about the launch.

Everybody was holding their breath and didn't eat breakfast. Yet as time passed, there was no news and no one came.

We kept furiously refreshing Internet pages until we saw Korean Central TV reporting around noon that the DPRK had admitted that the launch failed.

That was the end of a whole morning of waiting, meaning that the hundreds of foreign reporters here who had come especially for the satellite launch missed most of the report.

Though most of us stayed hungry through breakfast, the experience kept us so dismayed that many of us were in no mood for lunch, either.

Undeterred by the failure of its third satellite launch, the DPRK held a huge gathering in spacious Mansudae Grand Monument square to witness the unveiling of two huge bronze statues of its late leaders, Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung, in the capital, Pyongyang. With current leader Kim Jong-un attending the ceremony, tens of thousands of DPRK people held artificial flowers and applauded.