Excerpted from A History of US Journalism from 2012 to the Present

“Many of the reporters who had been brought over to Pyongyang for a journalistic junket headed off to Cartegena as soon as the North Korean missile broke up in the atmosphere. In fact there were rumors that North Korean tourism officials worked closely with their counterparts in Colombia in arranging quick transit for the schools of journalists who were attacking their new story like flesh eating piranha. The object was to haunt discos with names like Isis and Elektra and also the famed Hotel Caribe where hookers who had fraternized with secret service agents plied their trade. After the reporters had gotten their stories, a secondary wave of tourism emerged like one of the tsunamis that follow earthquakes in  places like Malaysia and while many secret service agents suffered a loss of income after being relieved of their jobs, they had inadvertently provided unpaid advertising to a whole generation of Colombian hookers who now attained an almost mythic status, equivalent to that of other denizens of the demimonde like Jack Ruby, the Dallas strip club owner who killed Lee Harvey Oswald. "The city's prostitutes, many using English-friendly names like Lady, Daisy and Paola, say all the international attention might be good for business," the New York Times reported ("In Agent Scandal, Inquiry Leads to Colombian Bordellos," NYT, 4/17/12). The Pley Club and Angeles were two popular brothels visited by reporters. But the ambience differed. "While dancers at the Pley Club move to bouncy reggaeton sounds, another club Angeles, is a little more sedate. A Tracy Chapman video was playing while the Times interviewed a prostitute there," dcist reported ("Reggaeton, $160 Whiskey,Tracy Chapman Videos: Inside the Colombian Brothels Secrete Service Agents Visited,"4/18/12)