A peek in Rodong Shinmun

It is not that difficult to find the most representative North Korean newspaper. Everybody knows that such role has been reserved for the Rodong Shinmun, the ruling Korean Worker’s Party’s mouthpiece. This is not just a humble newspaper, but the voice of the party and state itself.

By Andrei Lankov

It is not that difficult to find the most representative North Korean newspaper. Everybody knows that such role has been reserved for the Rodong Shinmun, the ruling Korean Worker’s Party’s mouthpiece. This is not just a humble newspaper, but the voice of the party and state itself.

So when I recently dropped in to the National Library I just looked through the latest issue of this venerable newspaper. The latest available issue happened to be published on the 11th July and the choice was completely random. So, what is there?

The entire front page is taken up by one large, unsigned article which informs the reader of the greatest event of late. The Dear Leader, Marshal Kim Jong-il inspected the largest department store in the city of Pyongyang and provided its personnel with a wealth of managerial guidance on the best way to run this retail outlet. The article is accompanied by two pictures: one depicts the marshal taking an escalator with some of his entourage, and another shows the leader standing with the top management of the department store.

The upper part of the second page is occupied by report of another great event: Marshal Kim has inspected the Pyongyang Zoo and taught its personnel a thing or two about animal rearing and zoo management.

The second page also has official telegrams sent to and received from China on a diplomatic occasional ― the 50th anniversary of the treaty of friendship and alliance between China and North Korea. The page also has a small report about an event to commemorate the 117th birthday of a humble rural school teacher, Christian missionary and nationalist named Kim Hyong-jik. He happens to be the grandfather of Marshal Kim Jong-il and the father of Kim Il-sung.

The third page contains half a dozen reports about labor enthusiasm and production achievements. Somewhat uncharacteristically, these reports almost exclusively focus on light industry ― obviously resulting from the recent emphasis on the production of consumption goods.

An article in bottom right corner attracts some attention ― it tells of how housewives of a particular county created a model reconstruction brigade to work on irrigation projects in the area. A small picture depicts the construction site: women are neatly dressed but there is not a machine to be seen, so they use only shovels and their bare hands to line the walls of the irrigation canals with block-like rocks.

The fourth page is filled with reports of foreign visitors who have come to North Korea to express their admiration of the country’s great achievements. Most delegations are Chinese, but it is reported that a group of Russian police officials have also come to join the chorus and have expressed their admiration for the ``the great successes of North Korea, achieved under the wise leadership of Comrade Kim Jong-il.”

The fifth page deals with South Korea and foreign policy. The largest article is entitled ``The Hatred of Treacherous Regime,” and tells North Koreans how much their South Korean compatriots hate the current South Korean administration of President Lee. There are reports of strikes, police abuse and an unfolding scandal in the South involving U.S. military use of defoliants at a military base.

A small photo depicts a student’s rally in Seoul, whose participants are demanding a 50 percent cut in tuition fees. The accompanying article does not even hint at the fact that such a cut was actually suggested by ``the treacherous regime of Lee Myung-bak.” Instead, it deliberately creates the impression that South Korean students have begun this revolutionary fight spontaneously, because they could not bear the prohibitively high burden of tuition fees.

The final page again deals with foreign policy, it starts with a large and boring (even by Rodong Shinmun’s notorious standards) article about the eternal friendship between China and North Korea. It also has reports from other parts of the world which talk about how much the people of the world admire Generalissimo Kim Il-sung, the founder of the North Korean dynasty. According to the newspaper, commemorative events to honor the memory of the late Generalissimo Kim had been held in Romania, Nigeria, Congo and Thailand.

The sixth page also contains an article commemorating the U.N. World Population Day. For some reason the article largely concentrates on gender inequality in the capitalist world and contains some statistics about the sorry fate of Western European women (obviously, the greatest victims of gender discrimination).

Another article on the sixth page deals with the complex situation of the world food market. Obviously, it was published in order to tell the readers that North Korea is not unique in having grave food shortages. Nonetheless this article stands out because it is almost free from demagogy and indeed contains interesting analysis of current international trends (perhaps the only piece in the entire newspaper which deserves to be called an article).

Such is the daily fare of news and views which is provided to North Koreans by their media _ day by day, for decades, without much change.

Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. He can be reached at anlankov@yahoo.com.