By Ronnie Thompson
Let’s be clear: North Korea is headed by a brutal and murderous regime. Its citizens are held hostage by an omnipotent dictator and ruling party that devise calculated strategies to eliminate the prospects of individual expression. The country’s suffocating leadership is common knowledge, as the Human Rights Watch notes that “[abuses] include extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions, and other sexual violence. North Korea operates secretive prison camps where perceived opponents of the government are sent to face torture and abuse, starvation rations, and forced labor.” This horrific regime and its genocidal actions against its own citizens represent everything that the United States and other western democracies have sought to remove from existence, and it’s not far-fetched to assert that North Korea embodies a modern, more isolated version of Nazi Germany. Interestingly, despite these facts that classify North Korea as an extreme totalitarian government, the American press eagerly seized the opportunity to fawn over Kim Yo-Jong, sister and key adviser to Dictator Kim Jong-un.
Kim Yo-Jong is far from an innocent bystander to her brother’s reckless and murderous actions. Jong was appointed to serve as Director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department in July 2015, a fact that the press has rarely mentioned. Unlike departmental secretaries in the United States, who are generally tasked with leading and implementing policy initiatives in their respective areas, Yo-Jong takes on a vastly different role. The name of her division should be alarming in itself, as no agency in the United States possesses such a blunt and terrifying title. Yo-Jong’s expressed duties are even more revealing, however. According to state media outlets, her obligations involve “assisting in consolidating Kim Jong-un’s power by implementing idolization projects.” Additionally, by acting as the chief controller and strategist of state media outlets, a critical agent in maintaining citizen subservience to the regime, Yo-jong possesses a substantial amount of power. She is a leading contributor to the continued indoctrination and silencing of the North Korean citizenry, yet Reuters, a widely circulated news outlet, claims that Yo-jong and the regime are poised to win the “diplomatic gold medal” at this year’s Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang. Unless the definition of diplomatic, which often involves sensitive yet effective negotiation, has recently changed, this assertion is not only disgusting but also dangerous. If diplomacy instead involved consolidating power by subjugating and slaughtering individuals, Yo-jong and North Korea would have already cemented their status in the diplomatic hall of fame. The United Nations, arguably the globe’s most important diplomatic entity, has placed many North Korean individuals and organizations, including Yo-jong’s Propaganda and Agitation Department, on their blacklist. This placement solidifies North Korea’s status as anything but diplomatic.
Reuters is not the lone participant in this bizarre coverage, as other popular publications such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN joined in on this reprehensible fawning. Both the Post and Times likened Yo-jong, with her significant influence on her country’s leader, to Ivanka Trump. The Post dubbed Yo-jong a “political princess” while the Times mentioned her “no-nonsense hairstyle and dress, her low-key makeup and the sprinkle of freckles on her cheeks.” These appalling descriptions fail to capture Yo-jong’s true nature: she is a political villain as opposed to a princess. By portraying Yo-jong in a favorable light, the press is elevating and normalizing a totalitarian government while also neglecting its repeated horrific actions.
Arguably more horrendous than the sympathetic coverage of Kim Yo-jong is media criticism levied against Vice President Mike Pence for refusing to interact with the regime’s delegation. While there is little doubt that the Trump administration can be polarizing at times, under no circumstance should the sitting Vice President be disparaged at the expense of elevating a high ranking official of a savage government. Disagreeing with Mr. Pence’s policies and beliefs is entirely understandable, but nothing he – or President Trump for that matter – has done approaches the unspeakable violations of human rights committed by Kim Yo-jong and the North Korean ruling party. Here in the United States, those who disapprove of the Trump administration can vote them out in the next election. Meanwhile, in North Korea, anyone caught speaking negatively of Kim Jong-un and his cartel is either executed or sent to modern day concentration camps. Why should the democratically elected Vice President of the United States be expected to engage with an official whose primary responsibility is to ensure that the citizens of her country continue to hate the very nation he leads? We should certainly hold our leaders to high standards, but interaction with a sinister figure like Kim Yo-jong should in no way serve as a litmus test for leadership ability. Rather, the Vice President’s actions should be reassuring to the American public, as his ignoring of Kim Yo-jong reinforces the United States’ long held opposition to North Korea’s gross incompetence and oppression.
The regime’s brutality produces impacts far beyond its own citizens, and Otto Warmbier is a testament to this. Warmbier, a University of Virginia student, was arrested in North Korea after committing an act considered diabolical by the rogue nation’s standards: he attempted to remove a likely worthless propaganda poster from a restricted area. This seemingly innocent action resulted in a sentence of fifteen years to hard labor, which ultimately led to Otto’s tragic death. Although North Korea denies any claims of torture, horrifying evidence indicates that Otto endured unspeakable suffering. Falling into a coma, he died just six days after his negotiated return to the United States in June 2017. This story is one of many that indicates the disgusting nature of this government and should serve as a reminder to the press to steer clear of elevating its powerful leaders. In the United States, the press serves the influential role of investigating and critiquing the government’s activities and reporting their findings to the public. Favorably covering the leaders of murderous countries in exchange for reducing the legitimacy of the American President and his administration is not a component of the press’s job description. This is not to say that the press is mandated to exclusively project the US Government in a positive light; disagreements with its current policies and strategies are completely acceptable in our democratic republic that champions freedom of expression. Nevertheless, a fine line exists between critiquing policy and lauding an individual who acts as a chief culprit in major human rights violations. In totality, when covering North Korea, a nation universally regarded as a modern dystopia, the American press should aspire to expose its atrocities as opposed to lightheartedly complimenting one of its leader’s superficial public presentations. This restraint is especially important in a time of escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea.