Posted on 03/03/2005 11:13:45 PM PST by goldstategop
Subscribers to the Los Angeles Times, and their parent company the Chicago Tribune, should reconsider their subscriptions. The Tribune Company's willingness to actively promote the party line of Kim Jong Il on its front pages speaks loudly to the lack of trust that can be placed in their credibility as news-reporting outlets.
Such a betrayal should be cause for a horrific blog-swarm and truly objective broadcast outlets should be equally attentive. The question of whether or not they will be is entirely a different matter.
Why am I so vexed?
The Tribune Company felt it was necessary to print a story on Thursday under the guise of "news coverage" by Barbara Demick, a staff reporter. In this front page news feature, Demick reportedly interviews "Mr. Anonymous" whom Demick claims to be North Korean, with close ties to the North Korean government. The headline read, "North Korea without the Rancor."
What unfolded in sentence on top of paragraph was a disgusting display of propaganda that would make even Eason "Baghdad" Jordan proud.
Demick spins the innocent meetings she had with the source as an honest conversation and she represents what the source says as patently true – no fact checking, no aggressive follow-up questions!
Mr. Anonymous, spins a tale of "all is well" and "life is normal" as though there is no moral or qualitative difference in the lives of Americans and North Koreans.
There's never been a positive article about North Korea, not one," he said. "We're portrayed as monsters, inhuman, Dracula ... with horns on our heads."
She allows him to tee-off unchallenged with charges against America.
For basic life, we can live without America, but we can live better with it," he said. "Now that we are members of the nuclear club, we can start talking on an equal footing. In the past, the U.S. tried to whip us, as though they were saying, "Little boy, don't play with dangerous things."
She sat there as Mr. Anonymous championed the idea that it was America's fault for the breakdown of talks between the two nations.
"We were hoping for change from the U.S. administration. We expected some clear-cut positive change," the North Korean said. "Instead, Condoleezza Rice immediately committed the mistake of calling us an outpost of tyranny. North Koreans are most sensitive when they hear that kind of remark."
And, of course, when Mr. Anonymous got around to discussing human rights, America was doubly to blame. First, he claimed an equivalency in human rights between North Korea and the United States. Then, he followed up with blaming President Bush for North Korea's problems in lacking basic necessities to live:
"Is there any country where there is a 100 percent guarantee of human rights? Certainly not the United States," the businessman said. "There is a question of what is a political prisoner. Maybe these people are not political prisoners but social agitators ... Electricity is a real problem. We have only six hours a day," said the North Korean, who lives in an apartment in a choice neighborhood of Pyongyang, the capital. "When you are watching a movie on TV, there might be a nice love scene and then suddenly the power is out. People blame the Americans. They blame Bush."
She even tried to ruefully play off the presence of what had to be a North Korean government monitor.
A colleague, a 55-year-old man also visiting from North Korea, nodded.
Demick even allowed him to have the last word in the story.
"There is love. There is hate. There is fighting. There is charity ... People marry. They divorce. They make children," he said. "People are just trying to live a normal life."
The insanity of allowing such blather to spew forth on the front pages of the Tribune Company's most visible pages is sickening. Demick is no more a journalist trying to find and report news than Donald Duck is a serious candidate for president in 2008.
Demick might have done herself well to interview one or two people who were actually from North Korea, but did not have the "close ties with the North Korean government" – nor the friendly, nodding, government monitors tagging along.
Regardless, seeing Kim Jon Il's propaganda is something one might become accustomed to in North Korean papers where journalists die if they dispute the government line. But I am not prepared to – nor will I – suffer another laughable paragraph from the Tribune Company in trying to convert themselves into the world's most maniacal leader's dogma pages.
If you would like to contact the Tribune Company to express your concerns about this matter, Dennis J. FitzSimons, president and CEO, and Gary Weitman, vice president of communications, corporate relations, are two places you could start.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Freaky.....
He believes that Americans have the wrongheaded notion that North Koreas are unhappy with the system of government under Kim Jong Il. "We Asians are traditional people," he said. "We prefer to have a benevolent father leader."When do they get the pulitzer?
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
All they're doing is preaching to their choir.What's the harm? Real people don't read that crap and if they did they wouldn't be swayed anyway.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.