Today is July 2nd 2018 and Googling “North Korea news” is likely to bring up a heap of news stories with titles like The Guardian’s North Korea still secretly enriching uranium, say US officials and Reuters’ US intelligence believes North Korea making more nuclear bomb fuel despite talks. Most who see these headlines are likely to assume that, since it is being reported by so many respected publications, the story must be true — and, in this case, most people would be wrong. Anyone who bothers to check can verify that all of the articles trace back to a single NBC report presenting the unofficial remarks of 5 totally anonymous US officials, presumably coaxed from the augmented voices of 5 silhouetted figures during an interview in a clandestine basement.

NBC’s Report on North Korea’s Nuclear Fuel:

An Analysis of War-Propaganda in Action

All of the truth contained in NBC’s report is contained in its opening sentence, which reads:

“U.S. intelligence agencies believe that North Korea has increased its production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites in recent months — and that Kim Jong Un may try to hide those facilities as he seeks more concessions in nuclear talks with the Trump administration, U.S. officials told NBC News”

NBC goes on to clarify that the officials mentioned above are specifically 5 US officials out of “more than a dozen” whom NBC spoke to “on the condition of anonymity.” What the report actually says is that 5 of 13+ anonymous officials interviewed think that some intelligence analysts think the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (better known in the US as North Korea) produced more nuclear fuel than usual during an unspecified number of recent months.

At the big media-outlets like NBC, Washington Post, the Guardian, MSNBC, Fox, Reuters, and the rest, the analysis stops right there and — before you can blink — MSNBC’s headline U.S. officials say NK increased nuclear production at secret sites is emblazoned on the front page of the Google.

Context: Like Kryptonite to US-Media

Apparently, not one reporter, fact-checker, or editor for these outlets thought readers should consider that Donald Trump’s and Kim Jong-Un’s historic meeting — the one where both nations committed to de-escalating a literal nuclear stand-off — only happened 20 days ago. But that would make the story less exciting. Why would readers (or anyone really) expect North Koreans to have started complying months ago with the hypothetical terms of a future agreement that was promised by a meaningful yet still symbolic peace summit fewer than 3 weeks ago?

NBC’s Sources: Anonymous ‘Officials,’ Ex-CIA, & Koch-Funded Think-Tanks

U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un at the Capella resort on Sentosa Island Tuesday, June 12, 2018 in Singapore. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

In addition to omitting the basic context journalists are expected to provide, NBC’s already-dubious report about rumors heard from (we can’t tell you!) is laced with misleading content. While the headline and introduction leads NBC’s readers to think the views of US intel are being reported, commentary by several others is mixed in with that of the mystery-officials. No explanation is given for why their opinions are relevant — and, to be fair, it would be difficult for anyone to justify a decision to insert comments from an ex-CIA neocon on a Koch-funded think-tank’s payroll and obvious imperialists. Whether it was an intentionally deceptive choice or just bad writing, the result is that the absurdly biased utterings can be mistaken for US intel by distracted, hurried, or uncritical readers — and, sadly, major media-outlets, as well.

A Closer Look at NBC’s Dishonest Mash-Up Tactics

Between the shadowy officials’ musings, NBC grafts a few sentence fragments alluding to a general suspicion that at least one nuclear-research facility’s whereabouts is kept secret. This bombshell revelation comes not from NBC’s officials but Joel Wit, a former bureaucrat in Bill Clinton’s state department and founder of the Stimson Center’s 38north.org. How Wit’s comments relate to the rumored increase in fuel-output ostensibly being reported is unclear but including them leaves readers feeling that something secretive, even sinister, went down in the DPRK in ‘recent months.’

While 38 North’s analysis is definitely more nuanced than the garden-variety orientalist tabloid-journalism that passes for news in US, Wit’s views on how the US should “deal with” the DPRK reliably echo the status quo of US Empire. It is important to note that, as a scholar, Wit is definitely qualified to comment on the topic and that he played a part in negotiating the US-DPRK Agreed Framework in ’94. The problem is how NBC interspersed his remarks — which reflect the US interests Wit pushed for a career — with US intel’s chit-chat so that a rumored increase in fuel-output starts sounding like the DPRK was just caught explaining its diabolical plan to f*** the US​ over.

The Heritage Foundation:

Credible Source… or Military-Industrial Orgy?

Bruce Klingner, the Heritage Foundation’s North Korea ‘Expert’

Near the report’s end, NBC also chose to inject the venom of Bruce Klingner, a 20-year veteran of the CIA who is currently on the Heritage Foundation’s payroll, one of the biggest conservative think-tanks around. Klingner’s remarks add nothing but his paternalistic opinion that North Koreans must be plotting something (because they’re evil, ya know?). By shoe-horning such reactionary trash into a report assumed by many to be a credible US intelligence assessment, NBC acts as product-placement for the military-industrial complex.

The inclusion of the Heritage Foundation’s ‘expert’ is particularly egregious considering that NBC leaves out the fact the think-tank is known to accept huge sums of money from South Korea’s central intelligence agency, KCIA. The South Korean National Assembly even discovered documents revealing the KCIA had funneled millions to the Heritage Foundation in the ’80s in exchange for Heritage establishing the “Asian Studies Center” — which, incidentally, is where Klingner is now employed as a senior research fellow.

It’s Almost as if US-Media Is Trying to Demonize the DPRK…

How NBC (or any journalist or news organization) could possibly run such a misleading report is a disheartening question to need to ask — but ask it, we must. However, an even more important question is — how did the combined editorial boards of most US-based, English-speaking media-outlets unilaterally accept and re-broadcast NBC’s absurd vilification of North Korea under their own names? Why did hundreds of articles spring up over the weekend echoing NBC’s elevation of a well-known reactionary think-tank’s warmongering as if it were news and not the racist, imperialist, exceptionalist, dangerous war-propaganda that it is? What purpose is served by demonstrably mistaken headlines like Gizmodo’s “US Intel Officials Allege North Korea Is Still Enriching Uranium After Trump-Kim Summit”? Or the Washington Post: “North Korea working to conceal key aspects of its nuclear program, U.S. officials say”?

In solidarity,

John Laurits

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First published at www.JohnLaurits.com