A plane carrying Laura Ling and Euna Lee touched down this morning at Burbank Airport, where the two journalists had a tearful reunion with their families. The women had been arrested in March for trespassing in North Korea while working on a report for Current TV, detained for months and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. After a visit yesterday between former US President Bill Clinton and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Il, Ling and Lee were issued a pardon, and have now returned home.

A few grantees of the Knight Foundation have been monitoring the situation closely. Here are some of their reactions:

Stacy Woelfel, chairman of the Radio and Television News Directors Association:

We are pleased that North Korean officials have recognized that journalists’including RTNDA members’covering important international issues are working for people across the globe and deserve the freedom to pursue their stories free of government interference. I have hope the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee means the government of North Korea understands the basic right of journalists to investigate and report as they see fit.

Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists:

We welcome the news that Euna Lee and Laura Ling will be pardoned and released after more than four months in detention. This has been a long and complex process given the situation on the Korean peninsula. We thank former President Clinton for his intervention and we are grateful that the North Korean authorities have responded to appeals for clemency. We know that the families of these two reporters will be relieved to have their loved ones back home.

Liza Gross, interim director of the International Women’s Media Foundation:

We are very grateful for the release of these two American journalists. As a worldwide network dedicated to press freedom, we spoke out on their behalf and our supporters advocated for their release by signing petitions that were then forwarded to the North Korean government. We are grateful for former President Clinton for his involvement and we welcome them home.

Also, the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas has more on the journalists’ release.