N. Korea Dissidents? Perhaps.
Barbara Demming, the LATimes reporter who infuriated the blogosphere with her recent love piece on North Korea has a story in today's paper critical of the regime ... but the story reads like it's wrapped in a candy wrapper, reflecting Demming's ongoing failure to criticize the North Korean regime.
The story details just one sign of dissent: People hanging banners critical of the regime, taking video of the banners, and selling the video to South Korean or Japanese television stations. You can download one such clip as a Wave file here.
Obviously, the perpetrators are vulnerable to charges that they are just doing this for money. Just as obviously, they are risking the lives of themselves and their families for doing so. And not as obvious to me, given the news of late, there is a healthy and heartening interest in Japan and South Korea for bad news about Kim Jong Il's regime.
Any dissent, whether pure or for profit, is good news -- but Demming's reporting is still bad news. She again misses multiple opportunities to inform her readers of the nightmare that is North Korea.
She refers to "Kim's grip on power," writes that the filmers "want to bring the world's attention to the human rights situation," and adds on the filmer's motivation: "They blamed him for the country's poverty and for stifling reforms. They accused him of arresting reformers and causing the death of his father, who they claimed died of grief because of the country's deterioration."
She also quotes a filmer:
Much is known about the incredible inhumanity that is going on in North Korea. There are satellite photos of the prison camps and stories from defectors who survived them. Demming continues to fail to share this information with her readers, to the detriment of the readers' understanding and LATimes' reputation.
See Also:
N. Korean Spin Machine Hits LA
The story details just one sign of dissent: People hanging banners critical of the regime, taking video of the banners, and selling the video to South Korean or Japanese television stations. You can download one such clip as a Wave file here.
Obviously, the perpetrators are vulnerable to charges that they are just doing this for money. Just as obviously, they are risking the lives of themselves and their families for doing so. And not as obvious to me, given the news of late, there is a healthy and heartening interest in Japan and South Korea for bad news about Kim Jong Il's regime.
Any dissent, whether pure or for profit, is good news -- but Demming's reporting is still bad news. She again misses multiple opportunities to inform her readers of the nightmare that is North Korea.
She refers to "Kim's grip on power," writes that the filmers "want to bring the world's attention to the human rights situation," and adds on the filmer's motivation: "They blamed him for the country's poverty and for stifling reforms. They accused him of arresting reformers and causing the death of his father, who they claimed died of grief because of the country's deterioration."
She also quotes a filmer:
"I saw that everybody was starving, and the state wasn't doing anything but building mausoleums to Kim Il Sung and villas for Kim Jong Il." andMissing from the story is any documentation of the reality of any of these references and quotes. No mention of mass starvation, gulags, spontaneous killings of entire families for one person's perceived slight of the regime.
"If we were caught, everybody would be dead."
Much is known about the incredible inhumanity that is going on in North Korea. There are satellite photos of the prison camps and stories from defectors who survived them. Demming continues to fail to share this information with her readers, to the detriment of the readers' understanding and LATimes' reputation.
See Also:
N. Korean Spin Machine Hits LA
posted by Laer at 5:49 AM
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