North Korea’s propaganda and agitation work is not living up to the expectations of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), the country’s top party daily warned on Thursday.

In a front-page editorial, the Rodong Sinmun blamed administrative negligence, stressing the importance of propaganda and agitation “information” workers in accelerating the construction of a “powerful” country.

Party organizations must carry out propaganda work with an aim to produce original work, the organ continued, in what appears to be a rare acknowledgment of shortcomings in the WPK’s ideological output.

The party daily, notably, said that the “propaganda and agitation work has not been carried out at a level desired by the party nowadays.”

“One of the reasons is that the party organizations have been neglecting work with primary information workers,” the Rodong said.

The duty of the party organizations, it continued, is to support all propaganda and agitation workers, as well as to guide and encourage them.

“If they are not able to overcome formalism, considering work with primary information workers as secondary, propaganda and agitation work will not proceed smoothly,” it said.

“By extension, it demoralizes the public and disrupts the economic construction to a degree.”

In the editorial, the Party daily also emphasized the importance of “constantly raising the standard of primary information workers,” continuing that the effectiveness of state propaganda “depends” on them.

The Rodong editorial serves as something of a follow-up to comments by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in a letter to participants in the Second National Conference of Party Primary Information Workers earlier in the year.

That letter saw the DPRK leader note that “ideological work is the core of the important cores’ of the party’s work,” saying that Pyongyang stood to make “great progress” in socialist economic construction should they redouble their efforts.

The Rodong on Thursday emphasized that party organizations “should… push forward” with the formation of a group of primary “information” workers.

“The group of primary information workers should be composed of people who have loyalty to the party, thorough spirit of devoted service for people, and are a model of implementing revolutionary tasks,” it said, describing it as a “vital issue directly linked to the success or failure of the party’s ideological work.”

The editorial also saw the ruling party organ say information workers should be provided with more active party-level support.

Party organizations at each level are asked to “immediately inform” workers of the newly-released party policy and “send necessary reference materials… so that they can be used for propaganda and agitation work.”

“They (party organizations) should resolve issues raised in the work of primary information workers at the right moment and pay keen attention to guarantee the time for them to research their work and proceed with initiative,” the Rodong said.

“At the same time, they must wage a strong struggle against phenomena that disrupt the work of primary information workers in the name of production and construction,” it added, stressing their living conditions much be guaranteed by the party.

One expert said the editorial ties into a trend seen since the Second National Conference of Primary Information Workers on March 6 and 7 in Pyongyang.

“North Korean media since early March has indirectly acknowledged that there was room for improvement in propaganda and agitation work,” Rachel Minyoung Lee, senior analyst with NK News‘s sister site NK Pro, said.

“But it appears unusual for state media to explicitly state that does not meet expectation levels and to criticize the party for it.”

The Rodong in March called on workers to take on “fresh and dynamic information and agitation activities,” urging them to “fulfill their duty… bringing the intentions of the party home to the masses.”

April saw the party daily in another editorial underline the importance of propaganda and agitation activities as an ideological “fortress of revolution” against “hostile forces which attempt to tear it down.”

Neither editorial contained such strong criticism of party organizations, however.

“Today’s editorial appears to be part of state media’s stepped-up rhetoric in recent months on the importance of propaganda and the preservation of socialist morals against ‘bourgeoisie’ ways of life,” NK Pro analyst Lee said.

“The uptick seems to suggest that the DPRK leadership may have some concerns about the country’s ideological unity at a time when domestic unity is important for tiding over difficulties from sanctions and meeting the various economic goals set by the party.”

Edited by Oliver Hotham