Program archives

Toby Smith, an Albuquerque resident and long time New Mexico journalist, lived and worked in Seoul, South Korea from June 2001 through June 2003, where he launched and edited an English-language newspaper, the JoongAng Daily, which was an insert for the International Herald Tribune in Korea. During his two years in Seoul, Mr. Smith trained a staff of 25 Korean reporters, editors, and designers in the ways of Western journalism. Mr. Smith came to know the culture, history, and political life in Korea, including some of what goes on, or is thought to go on, in South Korea's bizarre neighbor to the north. North Korea may be the most secretive country on earth, and also the most frightening. You cannot truly understand North Korea, or understand what South Korea feels about the North, without trying to understand the North's cultic leader, Kim Jong-il. He is the key to peace on the peninsula, and ultimately perhaps, in the world. Should we then fear Kim? No. Can we live with him? Yes. Can we live without him? No.

Mr. Smith was a Fulbright scholar in Romania, and he lectured on journalism for two years at the University of Bucharest. He has written stories about Romania for National Geographic Traveler, the International Herald Tribune, and as an Eastern Europe correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. He was copy editor for the International Herald Tribune for almost a year. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times, and he has published nine books. Smith is a graduate of the University of Missouri, has an MA from New York University, and studied at Harvard under a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship. He also taught at Ohio State University.