[hr-media] North Korea: Journalism in the service of a totalitarian dictatorship

RSF Press release
22 October 2004

For the past three years, North Korea has come last in the Reporters
Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières) worldwide ranking of countries
by respect for press freedom. Yet, amid an international crisis linked to
Pyongyang's intransigence about its nuclear military programme, some
observers have seen a cautious opening. Some international news media have
even talked of a "Pyongyang spring." What does this mean for press freedom
?

The information gathered from former North Korean journalists and from
South Korean and international experts during a Reporters Without Borders
fact-finding mission to South Korea shows there have been no positive
changes for the news media, which are all controlled by the single party
and, some say, by Kim Jong-il in person. The word "reform" has indeed been
used very occasionally by the media, but the regime continues to feed the
population the same mind-numbing propaganda.

Journalists are press-ganged by the party into implementing a "permanent
information plan," which sets a strict hierarchy for media work. The first
priority is publicising the greatness of Kim Il-sung and his son Kim
Jong-il. Then comes demonstrating the superiority of North Korean
socialism, denouncing imperialist and bourgeois corruption, and
criticising the invasion instinct of the imperialists and Japanese.

In this report, entitled "Journalism in the service of a totalitarian
dictatorship,"  Reporters Without Borders reveals that at least 40
journalists have been "revolutionized," that is to say re-educated, for
such "journalistic errors" as misspelling a senior official's name. Others
have been sent to concentration camps where some 200,000 North Koreans are
held. This is what happened to TV journalist Song Keum Chul, who
disappeared in 1996 for questioning the official version of certain
historic events.

The only non-governmental news sources are foreign-language radio stations
which broadcast in the Korean language. But radio and TV sets in North
Korea are pre-set and blocked to State media frequencies and those who
listen to foreign radio stations risk imprisonment. At the end of 2003,
the party launched a campaign to check radio sets, which have been
designated as the "regime's new enemies."

Reporters Without Borders calls on the international community to focus on
the need for respect for the right of North Koreans to diverse news and
information.

The full report is available at: http://www.rsf.org