Media frenzy

By John Burton

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," the 19th century American humorist Mark Twain once said after his obituary was mistakenly published in a newspaper. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un can now say the same thing.

On April 20, Daily NK reported that Kim had undergone heart surgery due to "excessive smoking, obesity, and overwork." The Seoul-based website, which is published by a group of North Korean refugees, is used as a tip sheet by journalists and analysts for developments in the secretive country. But its content is often of variable accuracy.

Nonetheless, the report set off a media firestorm when international news agencies picked up the story and distributed it around the world. Why the story was believed by many was that on April 15, Kim had missed an important ceremony honoring the anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung. His absence led to speculation about his health.

Once the Daily NK report was released into the global media bloodstream, it took on a life of its own. CNN reported that the U.S. had received intelligence that Kim was "in grave danger." The reports escalated from there. It was said that Kim was in a vegetative state after a botched heart operation or that he was suffering from the coronavirus. The Washington Post reported that rumors about Kim's dire health were swirling in Pyongyang, leading to panic buying.

It was just one short step then for TMZ, a popular Hollywood celebrity website, to declare that Kim was "reportedly dead," citing as its source "a Hong Kong-based news channel's vice director who's apparently the niece of the Chinese foreign minister."

Although foreign policy may be normally outside TMZ's ken, others were ready to say the same thing. Ji Seong-ho, a North Korea refugee recently elected to the National Assembly in Seoul, claimed that he was "99 percent" sure that Kim had died.

Rumors of Kim's demise also sent the cottage industry of North Korean watchers in Washington into overdrive. Respected U.S. think tanks, from the Brookings Institute to the Atlantic Council, issued briefs about who might succeed Kim.

In contrast to the anonymous-sourced reports about Kim's deteriorating health, those who were skeptical, including top officials in Seoul, were willing to go on the record to refute them. Diplomats in Pyongyang also poured cold water on the speculation, reporting that street scenes in the North Korean capital appeared to be normal.

The New York Post summed up the confusion in a headline that Kim was "rumored to be dead, brain-dead or just fine." Of course, it turned out to be the latter when North Korea released a video on May 2 of Kim at the opening of a fertilizer plant the previous day.

The most important lesson about the recent media frenzy over Kim is that the international media must take more care in verifying reporting about North Korea. Yes, it is difficult to access accurate information about the opaque country. But this is not an excuse for the international media to pass on sometimes incomplete and questionable information.

Unfortunately, the "black box" nature of North Korea appears to give carte blanche to many journalists to indulge in speculative reporting without fear of contradiction in most cases. One friend, a former foreign correspondent in Beijing, said that much of the reporting on North Korea reminds him of his early days covering the mafia in New Jersey. "Some journalists would make up details about mafia figures, such as inventing fake nicknames for them, knowing that they would never be publicly rebutted by them."

It is unlikely that major international media outlets would publish reports about the ill health or death of almost any other leading world leader, besides Kim, that were largely based on rumors.

Moreover, some of the reporting about Kim's health problems or death appeared to be motivated by wish fulfillment about the collapse of North Korea among interested parties. North Korean refugees would obviously like to see the downfall of the regime if Kim died. The same could be said for national security think tanks in the U.S.

With the Kim story now apparently out of the way, the same type of caution should also be applied to rumors about the widespread presence of the coronavirus in North Korea.

Pyongyang's claim that it has detected no virus cases might be dismissed as propaganda, but equal skepticism should be given to unconfirmed reports about big outbreaks of the illness in the country. Diplomats and aid workers on the ground have not yet offered any evidence that would confirm this.

When it comes to reporting on North Korea, I remember one of the most valuable pieces of advice I was given when I started out as a journalist: "When in doubt, leave it out." But that of course contradicts another hoary journalistic adage: "Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story."

John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.