The LA Times says Lisa Ling and Euna Lee, the two Current TV reporters captured by the North Koreans, were passionate about their work.

[Colleague Derrick] Shore and others who have worked with Ling during her years at Channel One and later at Current TV describe a bold and hardworking journalist who is both personable and empathetic. They say those traits served her in her work, including the human trafficking story she was reporting on when she and colleague Euna Lee were arrested in March along the Chinese-North Korean border by North Korean forces.

Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, who work for San Francisco-based Current TV, were convicted by the communist nation’s Central Court of an undefined “grave crime” against the regime and sentenced Monday to 12 years of hard labor.

Both women work in Current’s Vanguard journalism department — Ling as a vice president and correspondent and Lee as a film editor — and are based in Los Angeles. Current, founded by former Vice President Al Gore and others, is a television network carried on cable and satellite that strives to serve as a platform for citizen journalism while also producing documentaries on topics not covered elsewhere.

The story goes on to give personal details. For instance, both women are from LA and they’re married. Lee has a 4-year-old who just graduated from preschool.