Is Kim Dead? Your Guess Is as Good as Western Media’s

Julianne Tveten

"Monitoring intelligence" is journalese for "aware of rumors" (CNN, 4/20/20).

If CNN is to be believed, Kim Jong-un is in critical condition—or he isn’t.

Recently, the network published an article (4/20/20) whose headline stated that the leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), commonly known in the West as North Korea, was in “grave danger” following cardiovascular surgery and an absence at an April 15 event. The information came exclusively from the following sources: US officials; an unidentified source “familiar with the intelligence” the US had allegedly gathered on the situation; and Daily NK, a South Korean news site operated by defectors from the DPRK. (Daily NK produced the still-unverified original report of Kim’s surgery.)

Several paragraphs down, the article undermined its own premise. The story admitted to an absence of evidence to demonstrate that Kim was “incapacitated,” and acknowledged that the South Korean government reported “no unusual signs” regarding Kim’s health—a point echoed by the country’s Yonhap News agency (4/21/20). (CNN published an additional story—4/21/20—announcing South Korea’s comments.)

Chinese officials also cast doubt on the claims (Reuters, 4/21/20). This context didn’t dissuade NBC News (4/21/20) or CNBC (4/21/20) from hypothesizing in their headlines that Kim “may be” or “could be” “incapacitated.”

Speculation that Kim Jong-un was sick led to speculation that he might die led to speculation about who might replace him (Vice, 4/22/20).

Other outlets ruminated on the prospect of Kim’s death. CNN’s Don Lemon (4/20/20) asked a correspondent to identify a successor should Kim die, while Vice (4/22/20) posed the question: “Kim Jong-Un’s Sister Could Replace Him if He Dies. Who Is Kim Yo-Jong?” The Guardian (4/20/20) and Daily Beast (4/22/20) also characterized Kim Yo-jong as the country’s potential next leader. Not coincidentally, the hashtag #kimjongundead trended on Twitter mere days later.

Corporate media have also used the situation’s discrepancies as an opportunity to attack the DPRK and any country contradicting US intelligence. The New York Times (4/21/20) attributed the uncertainty to “North Korea’s own secrecy,” forecasting grim changes in the event of Kim’s death. CNN (4/21/20) declared that within the DPRK's governing structure, “rumors and misinformation are almost inevitable.” The Guardian (4/21/20) charged South Korea and China with “[playing] down speculation that Kim Jong-un is seriously ill.”

Notably, these reports found no fault in the US’s rumormongering. Nor did they address the DPRK’s reasons for maintaining political distance from the US, a country that, after killing an estimated 20% to 30% of the Korean population during the Korean War, continues to enforce military occupation, levy brutal sanctions, and falsely malign the DPRK as a nuclear menace (FAIR.org, 1/6/16, 4/26/17).

Since these reports surfaced, sources in South Korea and the DPRK have continued to refute them. On April 21, the office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in reportedly said Kim was “currently touring provincial areas with his close aides,” adding that it had no “evidence to support speculation about his ill health.” On April 25, DPRK diplomat Alejandro Cao called the claims of a moribund Kim “false,” while South Korean presidential adviser Moon Chung-in told Fox News that Kim was “alive and well.”

The haste with which these stories have circulated would be damning if US corporate media had rigorous standards for reporting on the DPRK—but they don’t. Writing for FAIR (7/6/17), Adam Johnson defined the “North Korea Law of Journalism” as a phenomenon in which editorial standards among US corporate media “are inversely proportional to a country’s enemy status.”

The last time Western media felt they weren't being kept up to date on Kim Jong-un's whereabouts (New York Times, 10/10/14).

DPRK-related examples of this principle abound. Kim Jong-un, for example, went “missing” in 2014, only to reappear days later. At the time, ABC News (10/10/14) conjectured that Kim’s health could be failing, again blaming a “lack of transparency” in the DPRK, and bizarrely suggested the disappearance was some “dictatorial” power move. The New York Times (10/10/14) asked, “The Mystery of the Missing Dictator: Where Is Kim Jong-Un?” Kim, of course, “reappeared” days later when the DPRK’s Korean Central News Agency published a photo of him during a tour of a housing district in Pyongyang (New York Times, 10/14/14).

These speculations aren’t limited to Kim Jong-un. In 2013, headlines began to surface in Reuters, ABC News, the Atlantic and elsewhere that Kim’s aunt, Kim Kyong-hui, had gone missing, inspiring theories that she’d died of ill health, or been purged or executed at the behest of her nephew (Guardian, 1/26/20). Six years later, she “reemerged” after the Korean Central News Agency released a photo of her at a concert alongside none other than Kim Jong-un (AP, 1/26/20).

Months before the apparent resurrection, US media accused Kim Jong-un of executing a special envoy to the US, Kim Hyok-chol, after a “failed summit” with President Trump (Reuters, 5/30/19; New York Times, 5/30/19; Bloomberg, 5/30/19). The source—as Alan MacLeod noted for FAIR (6/10/19)—was Chosun Ilbo, a conservative South Korean newspaper known for faulty reporting on the DPRK. Just four days later, CNN conceded that Kim Hyok-chol had been reported alive and in state custody.

Worse yet, USA Today (1/3/14), NBC News (1/3/14) and other Western outlets reported in 2014 that Kim Jong-un had fed his uncle, alive, to scores of “ravenous” dogs. The articles summarized a then-unconfirmed newspaper report stating that Kim’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek, and his allies were “completely eaten up” in an execution by dogs. The outlets acknowledged the possibility of inaccuracy, but only to vilify their source, Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po, for its “close ties to China’s ruling Communist Party.” It was later revealed that the “report” originated with a satirical social-media post (Guardian, 1/6/14), presumably targeting a Western press all too eager to deride an official enemy.

Business Insider (4/21/20) published a piece (originally from Military Times, 4/21/20) featuring a retired US Special Forces colonel speculating that in the wake of Kim's death, the US and South Korea might invade the North "to secure and render safe the entire WMD program, nuclear, chemical, biological weapons and stockpiles, manufacturing facilities and human infrastructure (scientists and technicians)."

This pattern would be laughable if it didn’t have a sinister purpose: justifying continuing US hostility toward North Korea. Since the latest round of allegations of Kim’s failing health arose, this has been made plain: US media have begun to suggest the need for a “military response” in the aftermath of a hypothetical leadership change in the DPRK. Military Times (4/21/20—reprinted in Business Insider, 4/21/20) argued that “a Kim Jong-un demise could destabilize the region, create a massive refugee flow and force the US, South Korea and possibly other regional allies to react to the upheaval.” The New York Post (4/22/20) promptly followed suit.

While the US is clearly incentivized to distort this narrative, it’s still impossible to articulate with certainty the status of Kim Jong-un’s health or the future of the DPRK’s leadership structure. What is certain, however, is that neither CNN nor any of its US-boosting corporate-media cohorts can be trusted to do so.