Category: Media Criticism

The World Cup: Shut Up Already.

What would it take to get me to watch a World Cup match? Easy. Hold in it Glasgow, pipe free gin into the stands, and issue kilts. That way, there’s at least an even chance of something more entertaining than the scoreless ennui of soccer breaking out, like say, the cry of a thousand slurred brogues rising from a chundering mass of corpulent, bottle-swinging hooligans. There are several reasons why I’ve found the coverage of the World Cup especially tedious...

Why I Don’t Give a Damn About Gaza

Ethan Epstein sees hypocrisy in the silence that prevails among leftists over a blockade far more total and deadly than anything ever imposed on Hamas: For example, Gazans are permitted to receive items such as medical equipment and medicine, insecticide, coffee, tea, and, best of all, hummus paste. North Koreans, on the other hand, live under a total blockade, one imposed by their government. They are only permitted to receive what their government allows them ““ and that isn’t much....

How Al Jazeera Translates “Fair and Balanced” into Arabic

I had to see this for myself to actually believe it: Bjornar Simonsen, one of Alejandro Cao de Benos‘s obergruppenführers in the Korean “Friendship” Association, qualifies as an authority on North Korea in the eyes of Al Jazeera. But just to keep things objective and balanced, Al Jazeera puts Bjornar up against … John Feffer. You may not want to watch this if you’ve eaten processed meat or dairy products in the last hour or so, particularly if you have...

The Telegraph Credits OFK

Thanks to commenter Ut videam, who notes that the Daily Telegraph is now crediting OFK for the four images in question, and even added some nice links. I want to publicly thank the Telegraph for doing the right thing, crediting this site, and for taking the extra step of inserting the links and the complimentary words. To all of the readers who wrote to the Telegraph, or who put up supportive blog posts or comments, thank you from the bottom...

Blatant Plagiarism in the London Daily Telegraph (Update: The Telegraph Credits, Links OFK)

pla ·gia ·rism /ˈpleɪdÊ’əˌrɪzÉ™m, -dÊ’iəˌrɪz-/ [pley-juh-riz-uhm, -jee-uh-riz-] ““noun 1. the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work. You know, I write this with some ambivalence, because I’m always glad to see that the result of many, many hours of scouring North Korea on Google Earth, of poring through scholarly reports, and of cross-checking clues has brought much-needed attention to the horrors of North Korea’s...

Fareed Zakaria shows us how anyone can earn a living as a North Korea expert!

Next time my brother and I argue about why I’m not big a fan of Fareed Zakaria, I think I’ll point him to this CNN.com link where Zakaria gives us his “analysis” of the Cheonan Incident. The interviewer asks him a series of questions, which I rephrase. Zakaria then spits up State Department talking points and pulp he stole from wire service reports, and then blends this with his own analysis. I’ve hosed the pulp, talking points, and context off...

Hankyoreh “Experts:” North Korea Sank the Cheonan, But It’s Still South Korea’s Fault

I expect the Hanky and its fellow travelers to be committed 24/7 tools of North Korea, but for God’s sake, people, your country is in mourning. Is this really the time? People’s Solitary for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) General Secretary Kim Min-young offered his diagnosis of the situation, saying, “If the government had faithfully executed the existing agreement between North Korea and South Korea for the peaceful use of the waters near the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea, things...

A Bulb Comes on at The Washington Post

There’s debate over whether such Chinese aid would be useful in restarting diplomacy or unhelpful in easing the pressure that alone might someday spur a deal. What’s most likely is that it doesn’t matter: that the North Korean regime will never give up its nuclear weapons, because it has nothing else — no legitimacy at home or abroad. As in Iran, the problem is the regime more than the weapons. That’s not an argument against engagement with Kim Jong Il...

N.Y. Times (Sort of) Reviews “Kimjongilia”

The reviewer, Mike Hale, dismisses the documentary “Kimjongilia” as the result of “a morbid obsession with Mr. Kim and the hellish country he oversees, shared by escaped North Koreans and Western filmmakers,” which is an attack on the film’s choice of subject matter, not its artistic merit. Hale begins his review, in other words, wishing that filmmakers would pay as little attention to this subject matter as the New York Times’s news bureaus and its editorial board have. Any judgment...

Blasphemy in the Temple: Thoughts on Ramstad, Kirk, and the Finance Ministry

I’m going to add just one small bit to the fracas between the Korean Finance Ministry and two reporters with whose work I’m familiar — Don Kirk and Evan Ramstad. As to the questions themselves, sometimes, the function of a good reporter is to challenge official groupthink and corruption, especially in a place where groupthink is as prevalent as it is in Korea. I do not think that a country that aspires to be a hub of international business can...

Review: Nothing to Envy — Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick

December 30, 2009:   I’ve been looking forward to this one. It arrived in the mail yesterday afternoon, and I’ll be nibbling away at this a few pages at a time during my commutes, posting short updates as I hit interesting passages (this way, I don’t labor under the guilt of having written nothing about it for weeks if work or family obligations prevent me from finishing it). Having flipped through a few pages, I see a work that sits...

Christine Ahn: Above Criticism! (Or, “Help! Help! I’m Being Repressed!”)

Christine Ahn is feeling picked on, reports the Oakland East Bay Express, an alt-lefty rag with a room-temperature circulation.  Writer Kathleen Wentz informs us that Ms. Ahn guards the privacy of her views jealously when she’s not on CNN, a book tour, the lecture circuit, or hectoring congressional staffers: As a longtime peace activist and progressive, Christine Ahn was used to being on the ideological fringe. But even she wasn’t prepared to be red-baited and called a supporter of dictatorship....

L.A. Times on Rimjingang

Rimjingang was recently established in Japan, and trains and equips North Koreans as journalists to go back into their homeland to cover the news that other media can’t: The footage, taken surreptitiously from a speeding motorcycle, was jarring: It showed the Soonchun Vinylon factory, which many defectors claim has been secretly used to produce lethal chemicals, including nerve gas. But the video showed a deserted complex slouching forlornly on a weed-strewn stretch of countryside. The experts sat wide-eyed. They had...

Lisa Ling to Appear at LiNK Benefit Gala Tonight

[Liveblogging below. Paul Song is speaking, and Laura Ling will appear at the gala.] Wonderful. And you can watch it all here, live at 6 p.m. Eastern. For all the understandable criticism of Laura Ling, Euna Lee, and Mitch Koss for crossing into North Korea, a sentiment I’ve never understood has been the hostility by some toward Lisa Ling, whom to my eyes is guilty of nothing whatsoever here. Some have even appeared to criticize her for using her access...

Lisa Ling’s Husband Expresses Concern for Refugees; Mitch Koss, Laura Ling, and Euna Lee Remain Silent

The Wall Street Journal has published its own report on the scandal that is becoming a serious threat to (among other things) Laura Ling and Euna Lee’s public image as newsworthy victims. The Journal’s story adds fuel to suspicions that Ling, Lee, and producer Mitch Koss recklessly endangered the lives of refugees and activists by carrying video of them into North Korean territory, or otherwise failed to take measures to prevent that video from falling into Chinese and North Korean...