North Korea is still largely inaccessible to journalists, scholars, and policy makers. Even as media headlines announce the latest developments in the 6-party talks, predict continuing food shortages, or warn of accelerating nuclear threat, the international community receives little information about this reclusive country and its people.

Mike Chinoy has made fourteen reporting trips to North Korea since 1989 and was the only journalist to travel with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on his historic peace-making trip to Pyongyang in 1994. Chinoy will offer a veteran Asia reporter’s penetrating look behind the curtain of secrecy and misunderstanding that screens North Korea from outside view, address the challenge facing journalists who cover North Korea, and show his recent documentary film “North Korean Journeys.”

Award winning journalist Mike Chinoy joined CNN in 1983 as a correspondent based in the network’s London bureau, covering such stories as the Thatcher era in Britain, the 1984 assassination of Indian Prime Mininster Indira Gandhi, the 1986 “People Power” revolt in the Philippines. As CNN’s Beijing Bureau Chief for eight years and Hong Kong Bureau Chief for five years, he brought depth and perspective to reporting on China and the Asian region. Among the major stories he covered were Hong Kong’s handover to China, the overthrow of Indonesia’s President Suharto, the war in Afghanistan, and more recently the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia. In 1989 he received an Emmy Award, an Award for Cable Excellence, a Dupont Award, and a Peabody Award for his coverage of the Tiananmen Square crisis. He is the author of China Live: People Power and the Television Revolution.