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Jean H. Lee is a journalist and foreign policy analyst renowned for her expertise in covering North Korea and Northeast Asian affairs. She is co-host of the award-winning Lazarus Heist podcast for the BBC World Service and a former Pyongyang bureau chief for the Associated Press news agency.
Jean began reporting on the ground in North Korea in 2008. In 2011, she became the first American journalist to join the Pyongyang foreign press corps in North Korea. In 2012, she opened AP’s Pyongyang bureau, the first and only US news bureau in North Korea. Her work in North Korea from 2008 to 2017 included nearly three years working alongside North Korean staff and colleagues in Pyongyang on assignments that took her across the closed nation to visit farms, factories, schools, military academies, and homes in the course of her exclusive coverage.
In 2015, Jean joined the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, as a public policy fellow, and later served as a global fellow, senior fellow and director of the think tank’s Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy. She joined East-West Center as a POSCO Visiting Fellow in 2023, and is now an Adjunct Fellow with the EWC and a non-resident fellow at the European Centre for North Korean Studies at the University of Vienna.
Jean has shared her North Korea experience and analysis as a featured speaker at the Aspen Security Forum, SXSW, the Milken Institute Global Conference and the Jeju Forum, and at universities and think tanks around the world. She also has served as a CNN contributor, and has appeared as a guest on CBS’ Face the Nation, PBS Newshour, NBC and BBC Television, among other outlets. She publishes commentary in The New York Times and elsewhere, and can be seen in the National Geographic documentary series “Inside North Korea” as well the “Dictator’s Playbook” on PBS, “How to Become a Tyrant” on Netflix, and in the Oscar-nominated 2023 documentary “Beyond Utopia.”
Jean is co-host of the acclaimed Lazarus Heist podcast series about North Korea for the BBC World Service. Season 1 of the Lazarus Heist was nominated for the Peabody Award in 2022. Season 2 was released in 2023.
She is a native of Minneapolis with a bachelor's degree in East Asian Studies and English literature from Columbia University, and a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She worked as a reporter for the Korea Herald in Seoul, South Korea, before being posted with AP to the news agency's bureaus in Baltimore; Fresno, California; San Francisco; New York; London; Seoul, South Korea, and Pyongyang, North Korea. Reporting assignments took her across Europe, North America, Africa, Oceania and Asia.
She is a member of the Council of Korean Americans, the National Committee on North Korea, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and the Asian American Journalists Association. She also served on the World Economic Forum's Global Futures Council on the Korean Peninsula.
Read or view highlights of Lee’s work on her website, www.jhleemedia.com.
Jean H. Lee is a journalist and foreign policy analyst renowned for her expertise in covering North Korea and Northeast Asian affairs. She is co-host of the award-winning Lazarus Heist podcast for the BBC World Service and a former Pyongyang bureau chief for the Associated Press news agency.
Jean began reporting on the ground in North Korea in 2008. In 2011, she became the first American journalist to join the Pyongyang foreign press corps in North Korea. In 2012, she opened AP’s Pyongyang bureau, the first and only US news bureau in North Korea. Her work in North Korea from 2008 to 2017 included nearly three years working alongside North Korean staff and colleagues in Pyongyang on assignments that took her across the closed nation to visit farms, factories, schools, military academies, and homes in the course of her exclusive coverage.
In 2015, Jean joined the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, as a public policy fellow, and later served as a global fellow, senior fellow and director of the think tank’s Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy. She joined East-West Center as a POSCO Visiting Fellow in 2023, and is now an Adjunct Fellow with the EWC and a non-resident fellow at the European Centre for North Korean Studies at the University of Vienna.
Jean has shared her North Korea experience and analysis as a featured speaker at the Aspen Security Forum, SXSW, the Milken Institute Global Conference and the Jeju Forum, and at universities and think tanks around the world. She also has served as a CNN contributor, and has appeared as a guest on CBS’ Face the Nation, PBS Newshour, NBC and BBC Television, among other outlets. She publishes commentary in The New York Times and elsewhere, and can be seen in the National Geographic documentary series “Inside North Korea” as well the “Dictator’s Playbook” on PBS, “How to Become a Tyrant” on Netflix, and in the Oscar-nominated 2023 documentary “Beyond Utopia.”
Jean is co-host of the acclaimed Lazarus Heist podcast series about North Korea for the BBC World Service. Season 1 of the Lazarus Heist was nominated for the Peabody Award in 2022. Season 2 was released in 2023.
She is a native of Minneapolis with a bachelor's degree in East Asian Studies and English literature from Columbia University, and a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She worked as a reporter for the Korea Herald in Seoul, South Korea, before being posted with AP to the news agency's bureaus in Baltimore; Fresno, California; San Francisco; New York; London; Seoul, South Korea, and Pyongyang, North Korea. Reporting assignments took her across Europe, North America, Africa, Oceania and Asia.
She is a member of the Council of Korean Americans, the National Committee on North Korea, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and the Asian American Journalists Association. She also served on the World Economic Forum's Global Futures Council on the Korean Peninsula.
Read or view highlights of Lee’s work on her website, www.jhleemedia.com.
