Over at Simon’s latest Asia by Blog, you can get a good look at some of the blogosphere outcry over Barbara Demick s LAT piece (mention on this blog here) recording her conversation with a North Korean businessman in Beijing. Hugh Hewitt seems to be leading the charge to make Ms. Demick out to be a modern-day Walter Duranty (scroll down — there’s tons of stuff). Personally, I don’t see what people are getting so upset about. All Ms. Demick did was report her conversation with the individual in question. If I had the same opportunity, I would have done the same exact thing. Sure, as someone commented over at Roger Simon’s blog, some would have been in an uproar had a similar piece been written about, say, apartheid South Africa, but again, I think that’s because some feel the need for constant commentary with their news. All Ms. Demick did was record her conversation with a North Korean she met in Beijing. Does that make her a Kim Jong-il apologist? No. Was there a need to point out that her subject might very well have been full of shit? No. It’s not the LAT’s job to fisk North Korean propaganda, especially when the point of the piece was not to give balanced analysis of the North Korean nuclear issue or human rights abuses in North Korea, but simply to present the views stated by one individual in particular who was the subject of an interview. Yeah, a lot of what he said was outrageous, but are the readers that dumb that they need to have it spelled out to them by the staff of the LAT?
One interview does not a LA bureau of the Rodong Shinmun make.
UPDATE: I think Kathreb has some very intelligent commentary about the LAT piece in question. The Infidel also has some things to say about this episode.
35 Comments
“Would the critics rather have that space in the LAT taken up by more Michael Jackson stories, or perhaps an in-depth on Jennifer Aniston??s latest date? ”
How about an interview with a North Korean official in which the person doing the interviewing actually asks challenging questions?
It is not the subject of the interview that is the problem, it is the manner in which it was handled.
It is not so often that we agree on much but I agree with you completely on this. People should see it for what is - an interview, nothing more and nothing less.
Dan Rather is a villainous traitor for interviewing Sadaam Hussein, and Barbara Demick is the same for daring to conduct an interview with a North Korean without titling it “Evil, Murdering Bastard talks about his Evil, Murderous Country.”
This is what the right hand of the blogosphere has become. Over-sensitive whiners who must have every media piece framed according to their ideology, or else you’re a fucking America-hating, French-loving, dictator-coddling traitor.
Bow to PowerlineHewittCornerFootballsInstapundit and their rules, or you pay.
Honestly what did you expect from the Hugh Hewitt crowd? Nuance and sophistication?
If this one North Korean’s opinion deserves an entire article, I’d like to know why the LAT doesn’t devote such attention to a North Korean refugee.
By failing to mention that trading company employees are regime-friendly elites, readers (especially those who don’t read about Korea too much) are at liberty to take the guy’s statements as general North Korean sentiment, which I’m sure isn’t.
While some may, not all people will take this as just another interview.
The article promised more than it delivered, given that all Mr Anonymous did was spout well-rehearsed views anyone who reads KCNA can recite backwards. It really merits no reaction at all.
Actually, JTB, Panama was stolen from Colombia by T.R. after the Spanish-American War was over. Perhaps you meant to write “Puerto Rico”. But damn, if you remember that war you are even older than I am! And Hanminjoke, I do love the French, especially their Army (l’armee la plus belle du monde), but the last time I actually coddled a dictator, Jimmy Carter was President, although the dictator in question (Somoza) was heavily supported by republicans in Congress.
I also got to brief an LA times female reporter not too long ago, I have since lost her card, and found her questions to be both to the point, and enough to keep me cautiously nimble. She was asked to treat my remarks as “nonattributable”, and she honored that request. More than I can say for a slimeball bureau chief from USA Today.
Remember that whatever she wrote went through an editor. While I read the article as a “this is what he said” piece, it is possible that editing may have changed the context of her report.
Here’s what a Hugh Hewitt interview with the North Korean official would look like.
Hugh: You evil, murdering son of a bitch!
Nork: You American bastard dog! This interview is over!
If that’s your idea of “journalism,” and you want all your stories looking like they came from FrontPage or NewsMax, then by all means keep drinking the warblogger Kool-Aid.
I’ll gladly offer a free romp in the sack with my wife, and another with my sister for anyone that can find a Hugh Hewitt article which criticizes the Bush administration for failing to call the North Koreans murdering bastards during the six-party talks.
After all, Hugh’s philosophy should apply equally to governments as it does to journalists. If the Bushies can’t tell the Norks the truth (according to Hugh) to their faces during negotiations, they’re guilty of the same crime as Barb Demick. What good is is calling NK an “outpost of tyranny” or part of the “axis of evil” in speeches and press conferences if you can’t say it to their face at the negotiating table?
The answer to anyone with a brain is obvious: because they’re in negotiations to accomplish a goal, not to practice their name-calling. By the same token, Demick conducts an interview to get information, not to berate her subject.
This fact however, is completely lost on Hewitt and his lost puppies. By the same token, anyone that interviewed John Kerry last year who DIDN’T scream “LIAR!” at the candidate wasn’t doing his/her duty as a journalist. That’s what the twits on Hewitt’s wavelength want, and anything less makes you Benedict Arnold.
He and the rest of the twats that got their panties in a twist over Demick’s article are not the least bit interested in journalism. What they are interested in is branding journalists who don’t submit to their ideological standards as communists and traitors. Writing for the LA (or NY) Times puts you at the top of the hit list.
I find it puzzling that anyone could read Hewitt (or Powerline, Captains Quarters, Instapundit, et al) and not come away laughing at the mindset.
As somebody with a news background who works in a country notorious for “anonymous source” journalism, what disappointed me about Demick’s article (and I usually think her writing is fine) is his anonymity. As a journalist, she should know better than sacrifice the integrity of the interview, which by any measure says nothing different than KCNA propoganda, and so is un-newsworthy in itself. Ad ID would have made it news, plain and simple.
hanminjok: Unfortunately, your vitriolic, epithet filled diatribe does little except to paint you the radical you try to paint others as.
Yes, the Marmot said it nicely, and I said it vitriolically. Do you have any substance to add Plunge, or are you afraid Hewitt may not link to you if you dare differ?
Hewitt is offended by the fact that Demick did not confront her subject with a long list of very valid points about the absolute evil of the North Korean regime, as if every interaction of the western press should follow this lead and end up as confrontation.
My question to you Plunge, is are you also so narrow-minded that you’re unable to absorb Demick’s piece for what it is (as the Marmot has pointed out), rather than jumping on Hewitt’s bandwagon and demanding that his brand of in-your-face journalism standards be adhered to?
Are you here simply to call me a radical or are you here to explain why my position is radical with a position of your own?
The last refuge of a man with no argument is calling his adversary a radical unworth of arguing.
Michael, anonymous sources spouting Bush administration (or Clinton administration) propoganda are and were deemed newsworthy by all sorts of newspapers on a daily basis. The article was newsworthy for precisely the reason Demick mentioned: North Koreans seldom talk to U.S. media organizations, and his comments offered rare insight into the view from the other side of the geopolitical divide.
An ID would have added to the piece, but then there likely never would have been a piece with an ID. It’s rare to get a personal perspective from a North Korean official, and that rarity alone made it worthy.
Wasn’t it Rumsfeld who said that you fight with the Army you have, not with the Army you wish you had? Well, you take the interview you have, not the interview you wish you had.
Hanminjoke (what’s up with that sig, bro?)–I agree with you that US journalism is rife with anonymous sources, and there’s an ongoing debate among journalists about the criteria for it–every paper has different standards. That’s what surprised me about the LAT piece–they are pretty strict on attribution. If Demick couldn’t get permission to ID the guy and the story didn’t run, would it really have been a loss to readers? I would hardly call his heavily on-message words a “personal perspective,” unless that person was Kim Jong-il.
“One interview does not a LA bureau of the Rodong Shinmun make.”
No, but there’s no excuse for that interview, either.
First, newspapers have a choice about what to run, what not to run, and how they run it. Would the LA Times merely print a press release from the White House press office without comment? That’s basically what they did in this interview.
How many interviews have you read where the interviewer is merely a stenographer? (Even of movie stars.) Damned few, but she just sat there and wrote it down with a straight face.
They chose to run a propaganda piece without comment or without asking questions that would make the man try to justify his comments. There is no excuse for that brand of journalism. Bush is to blame for six hours of electricity a day? They were starving during Clinton’s term; is that Clinton’s fault? Did she think of suggesting to the man that maybe it was the fault of the system and the leadership, and recording his response? That would have been educational–and real journalism–but no.
Get a load of that last line. Was that the last line of the interview? Did the conversation end there? Or did the reporter place it there to make a point. Really, let’s not kid ourselves about objectivity in that piece. She could have gotten the interview AND been a real journalist, but she chose not to do the latter.
And the LA Times let her do it. That paper has never been a paragon of objectivity (their shenanigans in the last California gubernatorial election, for one example.)
Coming up next: A chat over cheese and crackers with poor misunderstood Robert Mugabe.
I would guess that the standard for attribution has a lot to do with the situation. In other words, the infamous anonymous “senior administration official” may lose his job if he’s uncovered. Arguably, this guy could lose his life.
Of course there’s a possibility that he was under orders from KJI to be anonymous. Possible, but not likely.
As far as being a loss to readers, I would say yes. Not a huge loss, but I found the piece interesting if only for the uncommon honesty sprinkled throughout regarding the dire economic situation in the North and the admission that the North does need American assistance. It’s not groundbreaking or earthshaking, but it’s not intended to be. It’s a conversation with a guy.
Contrary to several other opinions expressed here, it wasn’t exclusively KCNA propoganda. Of course there was plenty of that, but the couple of nuggets here and there were worth the effort by Demick. Besides, how many other interviews with anonymous North Korean officials have you read lately? Me neither.
Given the dearth of information about North Korea and the reluctance of Norks to have anything to do with western journalists, I don’t see how the piece can be called completely worthless. Would the critics rather have that space in the LAT taken up by more Michael Jackson stories, or perhaps an in-depth on Jennifer Aniston’s latest date?
“How about an interview with a North Korean official in which the person doing the interviewing actually asks challenging questions?”
And you’re actually under the impression that the answers to those challenging questions would be anything but the same KCNA propoganda that you complain about now? Did you see western reporters asking Baghdad Bob “challenging” questions during the Iraq war? Was it any different than if they’d just let him blather on by himself without the questions?
No.
When you’re dealing with Norks, a confrontational interview has only two possible outcomes: a stream of propoganda or the end of the interview.
Would you be satisfied if the LAT printed either of those? I guess not. From the tone of your criticism, the only thing that would satisfy you would be a journalist berating the Nork into submission, as Limbaugh and Hewitt do to their favorite liberal targets daily on the radio.
In fact that would be more useless and boring than what Demick did. But then, if that’s the kind of “journalism” that gets you off, I suppose you’ll keep on demanding it and getting it from the Hannity’s of the world.
Wow hanminjoke, you are just an ass aren’t you? Heaven forbid you can have a calm, reasoned discussion. Knowing nothing about me you make asinine assumptions and cast dispersions. Grow up, become an adult and act a bit more responsibly.
For what it is worth, I agree with Marmot’s assessment.
??Did you see western reporters asking Baghdad Bob ??challenging?? questions during the Iraq war?”
And if they didn’t, does that make it right?
Reporters interviewing Baghdad Bob were in a country at war, hostile to many of the Western reporters, and whose freedom of movement (and lives) were in the hands of that government. Whereas BD interviewed the agent in a restaurant over a beer.
“When you??re dealing with Norks, a confrontational interview has only two possible outcomes: a stream of propoganda or the end of the interview.”
Whereas the friendly interview produced a stream of propaganda. What an improvement.
“From the tone of your criticism, the only thing that would satisfy you would be a journalist berating the Nork into submission, as Limbaugh and Hewitt do to their favorite liberal targets daily on the radio.”
You can infer nothing of the sort from my criticism. For the record, I don’t live in the U.S., have heard Rush Limbaugh a total of about three minutes, have never heard Hewitt, and don’t know who Hannity is.
Resorting to silly comments like these shows that you have no confidence in your position. Otherwise, your position would be able to speak for itself.
Great to hear from the other side. Now can we go back to making jokes about the world’s tallest hotel?
I’m with you - it’s just an interview. I’ve had more comments on that post than any other and it’s 90% block-quote…apparently my choice of quotes makes me “fucking naive and loco in the head”. (Well, I guess I asked for the loco part~ :P)
Anyway we’re all still talking about it, so the Nork and the reporter both did their jobs amazingly well - congrats to them~
I guess Barbara Demick could have asked ‘the businessman’ a few questions about human rights etc etc. But what usually happens when North Koreans get hit with such accusations?
They go on a “lets abuse America and all her current and historical imperial crusades” routine. And what would have been the point of that? You only need to look at the transcripts from talks at the JSA to read that kind of stuff.
This interview was fairly meek compared to what the North Koreans usually dish out, and it does give us some indication that possibly some high ranking members in the cadre may be softening their stance a little. I reckon Ms. Demick deserves credit for what she did, it is possibly the most open and forth coming interview with a current North Korea official that you are likely to get anywhere.
Let me say how disappointed I am regarding your comments about the LAT piece. These people who are expression support for your point of view on this would not be so supportive if the journalist in question was from a conservative newspaper and the “businessman” spouting propaganda was from the extreme side of right field. The problem with the LAT piece is not the piece itself but the fact that the same kid glove treatment would not be extended to someone representing a rightist or fascist government. However, a “businssman” who preaches the teachings of Joseph Stalin (who killed more people than Hitler) is. This double standard is a reflection of the idealogical prism through which the mainstream media conduct their craft. It is this lack of balance in the reporting that troubles those of us who cannot tolerate an elitist, left-wing media that continue to insist that it is objective and harbors no agenda. If the mainstream media were to “fess up” and fully disclose their biases in all their glory, I would have no problem with all the editorializing passed off as “all the news fit to print.” For someone that often shows a spark of intellectual clarity in his writing, I am disppointed by your inability to flush out the core issue with the LAT article.
Please take a look at comments posted above by Plunge from the US and BS from Japan. Ad hominem attacks are used against hanminjoke from the US. Instead of attacking the claim been made by hanminjoke, Plunge and BS attack the person. These are the people who are supporting your comments on the LAT piece.
I agree with the minority here. Journalism is not acting like a blog for someone. Don’t journalists pride themselves on “asking the tough questions”? If there are problems with statements from the person being interviewed that are easily recognizable, that the reporter is sure to have some familiarity with, and the reporter just eats them, there is something wrong.
Should the LA reporter be taken out and shot? Should the LA Times be shut down? No. But complaining about the item being a shoddy piece of “journalism” is fine by me.
alex — your comments are well taken, and for the record, I understand and fully sympathize with the fact that had the same article been written about, let’s say, Pinochet circa 1980, the whole of Berkley would have descended upon the LAT headquarters demanding the paper’s staff be lynched. If you think I’m disagreeing with the assertion that there seems to be, in some quarters anyway, a tendency to give authoritarian regimes of the left a pass while calling the wrath of God upon those of the right, I’m not (although, to be fair, some might point out that some of us on the right have been known, on occassion, to overlook the nasty domestic records of certain regimes when said regimes took a pro-U.S. foreign policy line). What I am saying, however, is that I have no problem with a reporter simply relaying the statements told her by, in this case, a North Korean businessman/security agent, without having to analyze it for her readers. If she had conducted an interview with, let’s say, former Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith, I wouldn’t feel the need for her to attempt to deduce for her readers the veracity of what he was saying. That’s the reader’s job. If bloggers want to fisk what the North Korean said, fine. Personally, I find fisking North Korean statements a waste a time, as they generally fisk themselves, but if some feel the need, it’s all good. But to attack Ms. Demick for simply reporting what the guy said strikes me as beating up on the messenger.
As for the discussion above, from what I can tell, BS actually disagrees with my position on the LAT piece, while Plunge and Hanminjoke agree with the conclusion, but disagree rather strongly over argumentitive style.
“But to attack Ms. Demick for simply reporting what the guy said strikes me as beating up on the messenger.”
why is ms. demick being a messenger of north korean propagada and calling it journalism? when did the la times become the unfiltered mouthpiece for nork businessmen?
I’m sorry, but you call that North Korean propaganda? Obviouslly you have never listened to short wave radio broadcasts that originate from North Korea. What that businessman said wasn’t propaganda, you state-guard running dog imperialist lackey.
why is ms. demick being a messenger of north korean propagada and calling it journalism? when did the la times become the unfiltered mouthpiece for nork businessmen?
Interesting question. I guess I should retort by asking why its the LATs responsibility to “filter” news for its readers? Personally, I prefer to take in all the crap and filter it myself.
“I guess I should retort by asking why its the LATs responsibility to ?橫filter?? news for its readers?”
George Dubya is on record as saying that he doesn’t read newspapers, but rather has his inner circle filter it out for him. Don’t all good Americans aspire to be like the President? You need an RNC-certified re-education, Marmot. Thank god you’re outside the US of A, so as not to infect others with your dangerous individualism and non-filtered philosophy.
“Personally, I prefer to take in all the crap and filter it myself.”
That kind of thinking threatens the cabal who spend their considerable time and resources mounting wave after wave of blog attacks on the so-called liberal filter. Understand that the only acceptable alternative is to swallow the well-coordinated HewittFoxNewsOReillyPowerlineWSJNationalReviewWeeklyStandard filter.
Formulating your own filter does them no good in the grand scheme of information control and distribution, as it will only encourage others and perhaps lead to a diversity of opinion that this country can’t afford in a time of war. If you’re not regurgitating their talking points and participating in the circle jerk of links to repetitive agreement and nodding of heads, you’re not the cog in the machine of useful fools that you could be.
Okay, I lay the conspiratorial stuff on thick, but the machine I speak of has already collected a few scalps with its well-coordinated attack dogs. Some legitimate (Rather), others not (Eason). If you haven’t read through the list of links on Hewitt’s posts, you need to do so.
There are numerous references to adding Demick to the list of victims of right-wing blogs, creating a groundswell of outrage, and making sure the communist learns her lesson.
Steve Lovelady’s quote about “salivating morons who make up the lynch mob” seems to me to be quite relevant in this case.
Let us see who emerges from the fracas with drool-stains and who does not.
“George Dubya is on record as saying that he doesn??t read newspapers.”
He doesn’t need to. He has much better sources than they do.
“Interesting question. I guess I should retort by asking why its the LATs responsibility to ?橫filter?? news for its readers? Personally, I prefer to take in all the crap and filter it myself.”
because that’s what newspapers do. they don’t print everything that happens everywhere at any time because each issue would be a thousand pages long. the la times, if it’s going to be considered a responsible forum of journalism, prints things that are newsworthy and accurate. how is a nork “businessman” parroting the party line of dear leader either? does ms. demick feel the norks are misunderstood? are they unfairly demonized and need her to provide a mouthpiece for their positions?
there is no dialogue in this article, no exchange of ideas. what is ms. demick’s role? is that what a journalist does - are they a simple transcriber? of course not. in this case, they would frame the interview to give it context, to try to illuminate some truth. where is that? demick instead obscures truth by allowing this “businessman” to parrot nork propaganda without even the simplest of rebukes. what does this infer to a reader? does the la times feel that providing context for this interview would be redundant?
“…the only acceptable alternative is to swallow the well-coordinated HewittFoxNewsOReillyPowerlineWSJNationalReviewWeeklyStandard filter…”
Damn how did you know my online reading list? Not my usual daily sequence but maybe I should consider adjusting, if this one is the “party line”.
“Don??t all good Americans aspire to be like the President? You need an RNC-certified re-education, Marmot. Thank god you??re outside the US of A, so as not to infect others with your dangerous individualism and non-filtered philosophy…”
My RNC certificate is hanging on the wall even as we speak. Occasionally I pause, and my face turns upward to it worshipfully; my eyes glow with a renewed ardor of patriotic fervor, casting a beneficial light throughout the room (Ok it’s really just the glow from the monitor).
Do I detect the least little bit of lingering resentment over the results of the last election, H-joke? Console yourself, you haven’t had to hear endless repetitions of the popular vote margin (like we had to after 2000). Maybe it’s because we can’t enunciate clearly through all the drool. Not to worry, there’s still a song in my heart and a smile on my face for all I meet (when I do my daily goose-step exercise).
I don??t understand why some people considered LAT piece as NK propaganda. Demick??s article is a report (not an editorial or opinion piece). Journalist report doesn??t propose any thesis or argument; it should be an objective report (simple as it is). Journalist is not supposed to reveal his or her view in their pieces. Journalist is just a deliverer. Managing editor makes all the decision. If readers thought that the piece were a propaganda, that??s fine. However, some people like Hugh Hewitt slightly overreacted. He reminds me of some lousy Korean netizens. I was often attacked by netizens (thanks to my part-time work). I??d love to take constructive criticism. But the criticism often went over the top (like personal attack), and it hurt. (I am a strong woman though.)
Although Ms. Demick didn??t mention the businessman??s name, she and LAT people may know the name. But they couldn??t print his name on the newspapers for protecting the man??s privacy and security. I think that Ms. Demick did a great job. She shows me what professional journalism is all about. But that’s me.
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