Anatomy of a fake news campaign: Media spreads lie from US govt-funded Korean
outlet that Kim Jong-un died
Corporate media outlets spread fake news claiming North Korean leader Kim
Jong-un had died. The lie originated with a Seoul-based website funded by the
US government’s regime-change arm the NED.
By Ben Norton
There may be no other country on Earth lied about more than North Korea.
Western corporate media outlets have absolutely zero editorial standards when
reporting on the country.
Absurd lies are routinely treated as newsworthy stories, from the cartoonish
claim that Kim Jong-un executed his uncle by feeding him to pack of starving
dogs (fake news), to the notion that all North Koreans are drones forced to
choose from state-mandated haircuts (racist-tinged fake news), to the assertion
that state media swore it uncovered a unicorn lair (insanely stupid fake news
based on a mistranslation).
But these lies are not just innocuous errors that come out of nowhere; they are
part of an insidious pattern, and a decidedly political one. They are a form of
information warfare aimed at destabilizing North Korea’s government, known
officially as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), which has an
independent foreign policy and geo-strategic location — and just so happens to
be sitting on trillions of dollars worth of mineral wealth.
Many of these fake news stories originate with Korean opposition groups that
are funded to the hilt by the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), a CIA cutout created by the Ronald Reagan administration to push regime
change against foreign countries that don’t sufficiently kowtow to Washington.
The Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal published a documentary demonstrating how
the NED bankrolls a global network of regime-change activists, whose
unsubstantiated accusations against the DPRK, China, Russia, Venezuela,
Nicaragua, Iran, and other nations targeted by the US are spun into
unquestionable truths. North Korean defectors are a particularly unreliable
source of information, and many of their claims have been proven to be false.
They are highly incentivized, however, with offers of nearly $1 million to
continue cranking out the disinformation.
This April, we saw another textbook example of how NED-backed South Korean
outlets notorious for spreading fake news are amplified by the international
press corps to the point that their deceptions dominate the news cycle for days.
For nearly two weeks, dozens of major news networks across the globe provided a
megaphone to unsubstantiated rumors that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was
dead.
The disinformation campaign kicked off on April 20, when a little-known US
government-backed media publication called the Daily NK ran a report claiming
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had just undergone heart surgery and was in bad
health.
This story was later expanded into a shocking claim: Kim had died, at the young
age of 36.
The Daily NK followed up with an article stating that a video confirming that
the supreme leader was dead had been going viral inside North Korea.
These reports unleashed a firestorm. Dozens of media outlets across the globe
published story after story claiming Kim was either dead or incapacitated after
a botched surgery.
The anatomy of this fake news campaign is dissected below.
The Daily NK
@The_Daily_NK
A Daily NK source in North Korea reported yesterday that North Korean leader
Kim Jong Un recently underwent heart surgery.
https://www.dailynk.com/english/source-kim-jong-un-recently-received-heart-surgery/
… #DPRK #NorthKorea
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And it all began with the Daily NK. But what exactly is this obscure
publication?
US government’s NED bankrolls anti-DPRK fake news mill
The Daily NK is a South Korea-based propaganda outlet funded by Washington to
conduct information warfare against the government in the north. It was founded
by anti-DPRK activists who coalesced around the Network for North Korean
Democracy and Human Rights.
This network has received millions of dollars in grants from the National
Endowment for Democracy, the CIA cutout.
NED funding for the Daily NK itself goes back well over a decade, to when it
was founded. A search of the NED grants database shows that the Daily NK
received $400,000 in US government funding in 2019 alone, and at least $1.2
million in American tax dollars between 2016 and 2019.
ned daily nk funding
US government National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funding for fake news mill
the Daily NK
Ho Park, the head of North Korean research at Daily NK and one of the
publication’s co-founders, is a grantee who has been publicly honored by the
NED.
The US-backed Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights is also
linked to another major grantee called the Unification Media Group, which was
given at least $2.4 million from the NED between 2016 and 2019.
The NED notes on its website that the South-Korea based Unification Media Group
consists of the Daily NK, Radio Free Chosun, and Open North Korea Radio.
In other words, the US government has over the course of several decades
carefully cultivated a cadre of anti-DPRK propaganda outlets in Seoul, using
them to grease the wheels of a disinformation machine that regularly spreads
fake news and rumors from North Korean defectors. This media apparatus is the
spearhead of the US government’s campaign of hybrid warfare against the DPRK.
Anatomy of a fake news campaign
Birthed from the belly of the US-funded disinformation network in Seoul, the
global press corps enthusiastically adopted the fake news and delivered it to
the Western public.
After the initial Daily NK reports first appeared on April 20, major media
outlets in Hong Kong and Japan helped popularize the rumor.
The New York Post followed with a stunning headline: “North Korean dictator Kim
Jong Un rumored to be dead.” (Like many other outlets, the Post later edited
this headline, as it became clear that the story was unconfirmed, but the
original titles of many of these false reports can be seen in their URLs or
through internet archives.)
The New York Post based its claims on a report from a Hong Kong broadcast
network (later identified as HKSTV – Hong Kong Satellite Television), which
claimed it had a “very solid source” that Kim was dead.
The Post also amplified an article in a Japanese magazine insisting the North
Korean leader was in a “vegetative state.” It even claimed that “senior
Community Party sources in Beijing” had confirmed the rumor that Kim died in a
botched surgery.
ny post kim jong un dead
After the New York Post article, the fake news spread like wildfire through
tabloids from TMZ to the Daily Express, to Metro, to The Sun (UK), to the
Toronto Sun, to the Irish Post, and finally, The Mirror.
It was then picked up by numerous local media networks in the United States and
other countries.
Next, seemingly “respectable” media groups fueled the fake news frenzy,
including the National Interest, the International Business Times, Yahoo News,
and Foreign Policy.
Neoconservative American politicians pounced on the rumors in predictable
fashion. Republican Lindsey Graham, the most fanatically militaristic member of
the Senate since the death of his friend John McCain, told Fox News with an air
of confidence, “I pretty well believe he [Kim] is dead or incapacitated.”
Graham continued, “I’d be shocked if he’s not dead or in some incapacitated
state, because you don’t let rumors like this go forever or go unanswered in a
closed society, which is really a cult, not a country, called North Korea.”
Americans’ gut instincts that the fake news just “feels true,” after decades of
consuming a steady diet of loony regime-change rumors, was taken as proof that
it must be true.
On Twitter, the hashtag #KimJongunDead went viral as well, and millions of
users swallowed the fake news whole.
Next, a photoshopped picture went viral on social media purporting to show Kim
dead in a glass coffin. The image was reported on by Western media outlets like
The Sun, a tabloid owned by the same right-wing Rupert Murdoch-owned media
group that controls the New York Post.
As the fake news spread across the media ecosystem, Western journalists and
professional Korea watchers began mulling the possibility that the presumably
dead North Korean leader’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, was being groomed to replace
him.
Without any solid evidence, dozens of outlets ran stories confidently asserting
that Yo-jong was preparing to take her brother’s place. The Daily Beast even
published a piece purporting to explain why she is so “feared” in the country.
The Washington Post printed an op-ed by Jung H. Pak, a former senior analyst at
the CIA and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, with the title, “Why we
shouldn’t rule out a woman as North Korea’s next leader.”
The Guardian, Foreign Policy, the BBC, the New Yorker, TIME, Deutsche Welle,
The Australian, and Newsweek all added to the baseless speculation.
While some of these outlets amplified the phony story while feigning a tone of
skepticism, VICE News threw all caution out the window. The “hipster arm of the
empire” published an article trumpeting, “A Prominent North Korean Defector is
‘99% Certain’ Kim Jong Un Is Dead.” Its source was a defector trained and
funded by the NED.
vice north korean defector kim jong un dead
Days before, the US government-funded Daily NK had also praised VICE for
producing a slick documentary that effectively amounts to fawning PR for the
disinformation outlet, in a perfect circle of propaganda.
The Daily NK
@The_Daily_NK
For more on what Daily NK does, check out a short documentary by VICE NEWS on
the organization - including an interview with Editor-in-Chief Lee Sang Yong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daTRItd7FlI …
YouTube at 🏠 @YouTube
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10:00 PM - Apr 21, 2020
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See The Daily NK's other Tweets
Yet another “dead” foreign bogeyman shows up on TV
Then on May 1 – the same day VICE News claimed there was a 99 percent chance
Kim was dead – the house of cards came crumbling down, as DPRK state media
published photos of the leader cutting a ribbon at a fertilizer plant.
Max Blumenthal
✔
@MaxBlumenthal
Another US regime media fail
https://twitter.com/inside_nk/status/1256360997826199554 …
InsideNK
@inside_nk
📸 BREAKING | North Korea leader Kim Jong Un visiting a fertilizer plant
yesterday.
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Now that it is indisputable that the rumors they amplified were totally
unfounded, some of the aforementioned news outlets have scrambled to edit their
headlines and leads to soften the language, noting there was still confusion at
the time. But archived links do not lie.
And the fact of the matter is it was apparent from the beginning, to anyone
with a brain, and the capacity to think critically outside of the corporate
media bubble, that the rumors should not be trusted.
Actual experts, or even just expats in Korea who tweet in English, could tell
from the get-go that this campaign was bogus.
King Baeksu
@KingBaeksu
In 2019 alone, Unification Media Group and its Daily NK affiliate took in
$1,000,000 from US taxpayers via @NEDemocracy.
To stay on the gravy train, they must deliver sensational "scoops" for the
Empire. When their sources are compromised, we Americans have a hand in their
fate. https://twitter.com/shen_shiwei/status/1252439441269874695 …
View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on
Twitter
Shen Shiwei沈诗伟
✔
@shen_shiwei
Fake News on the health condition of #DPRK leader #KimJongUn. Everything in
#Pyongyang is fine and someone will pay the price for marking fake news
originated from an anti-DPRK agency. Source said.
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10:02 AM - Apr 24, 2020
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Critics also pointed out out that “Hyangsan Hospital – the hospital where Daily
NK said Kim had undergone heart surgery – ‘is similar to a community clinic and
isn’t a facility where operations or surgeries can be performed.'”
King Baeksu
@KingBaeksu
Why I was right about Kim Jong-un:
1. Daily NK isn't a reliable source.
2. Kim was seen walking in Wonsan between April 15th and 20th.
3. There was no buildup of PRC troops along the DPRK border.
4. Hyangsan Hospital is unequipped for surgical operations.
5. I'm unowned.
Easy. https://twitter.com/KingBaeksu/status/1254665843713232903 …
View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on
Twitter
King Baeksu
@KingBaeksu
Me:
1. Predicted in August 2016 that Trump would win.
2. Proved in 2017 that "Russiagate" was BS.
3. Swiftly debunked Smollett and Covington hoaxes.
4. Proved @adrianhong is a @CIA asset.
5. Proved Michael Kovrig was operating illegally in China.
Shill harder, anti-DPRK shills.
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1:07 AM - May 2, 2020
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But one didn’t need to be a Korea specialist to recognize the pattern of
disinformation. Anyone who is even mildly familiar with the practically
non-existent standards of media reporting on North Korea knows how these fake
news cycles work, and knew not to jump to conclusions.
In a refreshing albeit rare example of cautious skepticism, the media watchdog
Fairness In Accuracy and Reporting (FAIR) called out corporate media outlets
for spreading these rumors without any solid evidence, even before Kim appeared
on state TV.
And while impressionable Western journalists were heavily circulating the fake
news, South Korea’s government made it clear, “Kim Jong Un is alive and well.
He has been staying in the Wonsan area since April 13. No suspicious movements
have so far been detected.”
Chinese media outlets also emphasized from the beginning of the disinformation
campaign that it was clearly false. But their insistence was dismissed as
“Chinese propaganda.”
This was not even the first time that rumors went viral claiming Kim Jong-un
had died. Back in 2012, a strikingly similar similar fake news frenzy erupted
when social media posts alleging Kim had passed away were momentarily amplified
by mainstream outlets.
The latest paroxysm of propaganda was hardly the only regime-change
disinformation campaign blown out of the water in recent weeks. In April, The
Grayzone documented the wave of bogus corporate media stories claiming
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was dead – before he, too, appeared on TV
very much alive.
Indeed, the deployment of fake news is of a part with a larger strategy of
information warfare aimed at nations that refuse to bow to US domination.
From the waves of dubiously sourced reports about China’s supposed
“concentration camps” full of millions of Uighur Muslims, to unhinged warnings
of Russia’s supposed plans to hack the US electrical grid in the dead of
winter, to lurid stories of $750 condoms in Venezuela, to breathless
presentations of Iranian nuclear weapons files, the program is always the same:
lie without shame and shrink away after the deception is revealed for what it
is.
Because by then, the damage has already been done.