Jihye Lee
BuzzFeed News, NBC Asian America
Freelance Journalist
Korea
Jihye Lee is multimedia journalist in South Korea, freelancing for NBC Asian America and BuzzFeed News covering both Koreas. She's recently interviewed a North Korean defector selling sausages for refugee smuggling projects in China, Southeast Asia. She is particularly interested in watching how social media is increasingly becoming a significant factor in journalism, especially in ways of vocalizing marginalized communities in the society. She has a master's degree from Columbia Journalism School, where she received the Mencher Reporting Award for her master’s project on karaoke bars in Flushing, NY -- recruiting Korean women for prostitution through an illegal taxi network of madams, internet ads, and Korean messenger app, KakaoTalk. She is currently a news presenter at the local English radio in Seoul hosting newscasts at the top of the hour every hour from 3-7PM KST. She's recently created a weekly news corner called “Trending Now,” covering viral content on local social media in Korea.
