Musings on the Norks . . .

I was asked to write a piece for Lanterloon this week, thus joining some very good company . . .

In Total Agreement, Well, Sorta . . .

The 2012 Nuclear Security Summit ended last night and the Big O and most of the other Big Talking Heads have departed the peninsula after making fresh commitments toward building a safer world without nuclear terrorism. (The full text of the "Seoul Communique" can be found here, if you need to be underwhelmed.) Ukraine has completed the removal of its last highly enriched uranium, sending it back to Russia where it will be totally safe - but hold on, then what's with the "unusual and extraordinary threat" Big O cited when he extended the national emergency over Russian atomic material last year.

Fat Boy, our next-door-neighbor some 30 miles North of Seoul, did his best to spoil the party by announcing a planned rocket launch next month as part of the Norks' "peaceful space program." The Big Talking Heads at the adults' table all chastised the Norks firmly, with even China openly displeased with this latest toddler tantrum. CNN ran the Norks' announcement it would go ahead with the launch as "Breaking News," while those of us who've spent more time than a two-day summit in Korea know it's simply Same Shit, Different Kim. As one journalist friend wrote on Facebook, "the DPRK regime has threatened to make Seoul 'a sea of fire' more times than I can remember." Obama warned the Norks there would be "no rewards for bad behavior" but it's not surprising Fat Boy and Co. don't believe them as Daddy Dearest, Kim Jong-no-longer-ill, was constantly rewarded for such bad behavior.

Here's how it works: The Norks behave badly and threaten or provoke, even going as far as to blow up a South Korean corvette or bomb a border island. Leaders of other countries sit and cajole the Norks into agreeing to accept food aid in turn for suspending nuclear and ballistic missile development, the Norks seek to up the ante and possibly get a better deal by throwing a toddler tantrum. It's unfortunately a lose-lose situation for the South as, although the North would be annihilated in any full-out war, there is enough conventional artillery aimed directly at Seoul (the suburb my office is in has been included in the promised list of first strikes) to blast it back to post-Korean war scorched-earth status. SSDK.

To add some humor to their tired old act, the Norks did provide a superb example of the circularity of their thinking. The Nork's foreign ministry, when announcing they planned to go ahead with the launch, claimed the deal reached with the U.S. just two weeks earlier "specified a moratorium on long-range missile launch, not 'launch of long-range missile including satellite launch' or 'launch with the use of ballistic missile technology.'"

I'm tempted to compare the Nork's tantrum-throwing and unique reading of contracts with the South seeking to change the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement after they'd asked for and agreed to it (including riots and a tear-gas canister release by lawmakers during the pact's passage) but that could be misinterpreted as on-line criticism, which is frowned upon by those in power.

I will point out, however, that contracts are often viewed in Korea as a step in the negotiating process, not a terminus. That's a concept many Westerners don't understand, which can lead to all sorts of cultural misunderstandings. I've lost count of the number of teachers of English here who've felt gyped when asked to do something not specifically noted in their contract, while to their Korean counterparts, that contract is a broad outline only.

Perhaps someone needs to explain that to the Big O . . .

Lies, Damn Lies and Rumors . . .

This began as musings on the cult of personality but evolved of its own accord. Words do that to me sometimes.

I arrived at the newsroom yesterday (Saturday, Feb. 11) to find CNN, ABC and Reddit reporting a rash of Weibo (China's version of Twitter) messages saying Kim Jong-un (the Norks' new leader, affectionately known as Fat Boy) had been assassinated in Beijing. These reports were quickly picked up by Doctrine Man and facebook friends interested in the state of the world. Other friends who also live in South Korea were questioning the veracity of the story, particularly one who was due to board a flight from China back to Seoul. I'm not quite sure why he felt less inclined to do so if Fat Boy had been terminated with extreme prejudice (by ninja assassins, no less, according to the ABC report) as he didn't leave the country when Big Daddy (Kim Jong-il of "I'm so ronery" fame) died, but he seemed concerned.

The CNN article said neither the Chinese state media nor Yonhap News Agency, the South Korean national news agency for which I work, were reporting on such a rumor.

Rumors are a constant in the news industry and not reacting to them is often the sign of true professionalism. It's all too easy to try to be first with the news and more difficult to wait for confirmation and accuracy. The U.S. had a classic case of just that situation last month when most media outlets prematurely reported the death of Joe Paterno but AP consciously held off while they sought verification. Interestingly enough, the same thing happened after the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords a year earlier, most outlets reported her death while AP held off for confirmation and ran the truth, without adding unsubstantiated rumors. (The article on how the Paterno story played out is well worth the read. H/T to Isaac Cubillos for that, or was it James Ian Burns?)

I asked the desk head on duty if we were going to address the rumors of Fat Boy's demise and learned we weren't, at that stage anyway. Rumors about the Norks are a constant here next door and no alarm bells were ringing for us, or apparently for the U.S. Embassy or the U.S. military. (Sometimes the mere availability of specific people at the end of a phone gives more information than anything they might say, particularly when it's information they can't disclose.) I informed my friends that the rumor seemed unfounded, with the proviso that the Norks kept the deaths of its last two dear leaders well-hidden for two days.

Then today, Whitney Houston's death was announced, and I watched on facebook as multiple people questioned the truth of the reports, despite confirmation from her publicist and the Beverly Hills police. (This was in part due to one dark-humored friend posting an ABC article from Sept. 13, 2010 denying reports of Houston's death. Many people fell for his joke. Some were also offended, but that belongs in the Cult of Personality post, when I write it.)

Which brings me to what most right-minded people (and myself) hate about the media today, or what my significant other refers to as the "commie-liberal-pinko-hippie-media," as opposed to journalism, which is my current field of employment.  Most popular media outlets on both sides of the spectrum, whether they be the rants of Fox (not-)News or the saccharine melodrama of ABC, would rather be the first to break a story, true or not, than risk being scooped in the service of accuracy. In print terms, the shocking headline goes above the fold on page 1, the subsequent correction is usually buried deep inside a day or two later. In Internet terms, the story simply gets rewritten in many cases and no mention of an embarrassing "Oops!" moment needs to even exist.

As someone who has always preferred to be on page three with the truth than page one with a beat-up, a preference that has had me at odds with at least one chief reporter, I wish more media outlets applied AP's diligence and stopped giving journalism a bad name.

Oh, and as far as we yet know, Fat Boy is still undead (and probably drooling) while Houston definitely does have a problem.