An exercise in propaganda

No sooner had I gotten back from a grueling 12-day trip to North Korea than I was informed of a response from Steven Herman of the Voice of America to a column that I wrote for The Korea Times several weeks ago. One striking aspect of the letter, published on July 4, was the comparisons it inspired between American and North Korean propaganda. After having been inundated by much misinformation while visiting museums and gazing at monuments up North, I was struck by the propagandistic skills he displayed in answering my criticism of the pool system that governs access by foreign correspondents to certain key events here.

Like the North Koreans, Mr. Herman threw out fabrications with no substantiation. He even accused me of “the cardinal sin of going on air for his client before writing the mandated pool report” to show I “would not comply with the obligations of being a pool reporter.” As I have told Mr. Herman, I have no clue what he’s talking about. There was no such incident. He bases his comment on “understanding from SFCC colleagues” but has offered no response to messages asking his sources.

Mr. Herman builds on this falsehood by saying that’s why it was “mutually agreed” I would “no longer be a part of the rotational system.” There was no such agreement. Rather, Burt Herman, then the AP bureau chief, decided there was no point in having people qualify for pools if they weren’t able to cover events in which they were not interested. He cut off a number of people from the pool system and said the pool reports issued by those few western agencies still in the pool would not be available for general distribution.

Steve Herman, having come here three years ago, does not know the background and has received inaccurate reports from his unnamed sources or has embroidered on whatever they told him. It need hardly be said that Mr. Herman never asked me what happened though I recall the whole debate possibly better than his unnamed sources. Finally, Mr. Herman commits one more accuracy, saying I “demanded” that “others step aside” so I could receive “personal instant preferential treatment.” Obviously I never suggested anyone give up his slot ― though it does seem remarkable that the VOA gets selected nearly every time.

Donald Kirk

Correspondent in Seoul