Journalists: Your Intellectual and Moral Superiors

The North Korean version.


(Meme taken from here. Do give praise, thanks, donations accordingly.)


The North Korean mouthpiece, KCNA, has delivered a rather chilling warning in its weekly propaganda run:

Upon hearing the news that the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors hurt the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK and slandered its loved children, the officers and men of the three services of the KPA are expressing towering resentment and pledging themselves as one to resolutely settle accounts by force of arms with those who violated the moral law of the nation and defamed the great man whom the people follow and the world look up to.


Officers and men of the army corps, divisions and regiments on the front and strategic rocket forces in the depth of the country are loudly calling for the issue of order to mete out punishment, declaring that they have already targeted Chosun Ilbo at coordinates of 37 degrees 56 minutes 83 seconds North Latitude and 126 degrees 97 minutes 65 seconds East Longitude in the Central District, Seoul, Choongang Ilbo at coordinates of 37 degrees 33 minutes 45 seconds North Latitude and 126 degrees 58 minutes 14 seconds East Longitude in the Central District, Seoul, the Dong-A Ilbo at coordinates of 37 degrees 57 minutes 10 seconds North Latitude and 126 degrees 97 minutes 81 seconds East Longitude in Jongro District, Seoul, KBS, CBS, MBC and SBS, the strongholds of the Lee group orchestrating the new vicious smear campaign.


In view of this grave situation the KPA General Staff sends the following ultimatum to the Lee group of traitors:


The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK are the army of the supreme commander and the people's army which is devotedly defending the supreme commander and protecting his idea and the people and children whom he values and loves so much.


It is the iron will of the army of the DPRK that the dens of heinous provocateurs hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK and desecrating its idea, system and people should not be allowed to exist as they are.


We would like ask the Lee group if it wants leave all this to be struck by the DPRK or opt for apologizing and putting the situation under control, though belatedly.


It should take a final choice by itself.

They certainly know who they are mad at even if the co-ordinates they gave are off.



Nevertheless, this North Korean mouthpiece's association with AP certainly put the latter in a bad light:

I have to suspect, based on the reduced volume of the AP’s reporting from North Korea lately, that it was already feeling embarrassed by its association, and I have to think they’re more embarrassed than ever today. The AP had to report this threat, of course, although the tone of its article makes for an interesting contrast to that of the AFP’s report on the same incident.  While the AFP’s report focuses on the North Korean threat and quotes extensively from the statement KCNA printed; the AP’s devotes several paragraphs to the criticism that set the North Koreans off — a comparison between its children’s festival and a Hitler Youth rally. The AP’s corporate leadership may be unprincipled, but they aren’t oblivious or stupid. Having tried without much success to sell KCNA as a legitimate news agency, they must now answer the charge that they’ve partnered with an organization that issues terrorist threats against fellow journalists in Seoul. If the AP was looking for an excuse to walk away from its collaboration with KCNA — and even if it wasn’t — KCNA’s latest action makes that collaboration more difficult than ever to justify.

The popular press, I believe, are, at least unofficially, in the tank for certain causes or people. KCNA is North Korea's propaganda organ. Does AP- or anyone else- really think it can bring such KCNA into the fold of (paper-thin) respectability?


(with much thanks)