By Don Kirk
The prospect of Western news agencies opening bureaus in Pyongyang is exciting. The possibilities for great stories from there are unbelievable.
Think of all that’s going on in North Korea that we don’t know about ― the real truth about the health of Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, intrigue at the highest levels surrounding the succession of third son Kim Jong-un to the throne, reports of restive workers and farmers plotting protests, arrests and sentencing of criminals to sprawling concentration camps and public executions.
News correspondents in Pyongyang will have a lot of questions to ask and much hard digging to do if they’re to match the record over the past 60 or so years of correspondents in South Korea covering corruption, revolt, assassinations and political plotting for power. No doubt they’ll have the assistance of intrepid local reporters, lured by the money and glory of working for a Western news agency. These reporters, anxious to show off their journalistic skills, their ability to work in a foreign language and their wide range of contacts, will be invaluable when it comes to tracking down obscure sources, arranging appointments with officials and professors, getting around the capital and, when news breaks elsewhere, heading for some other city or town.
Above all, local staffers in North Korea will want to declare their independence from the stuffed shirts of the power elite. They’ll show up outside the foreign ministry, ambushing diplomats as they emerge from negotiations, or hang around the gates of the many residences of Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un and other powerful figures, ready to grab a quote or two at an opportune moment. They may even reveal the name of the hitherto anonymous ``spokesman” responsible for issuing statements at the foreign ministry. And they will sit in on regular background briefings when the spokesman, or a military or Workers’ Party official, has an especially critical or sensitive message to convey.
Wouldn’t all that, be the way the pioneers of the Western press want to operate when they settle down in Pyongyang? From all I’ve seen of Western news agency correspondents, from Vietnam to the Middle East to Northeast Asia, they would demand answers to the hardest questions, and they would not give up until they got the real story. Peter Arnett, Associated Press’s star during the Vietnam War, epitomized the breed. Dennis Gray of the AP, whom I also met as a Vietnam War reporter, still hangs out in Bangkok when not off to the Middle East and elsewhere for AP. Chris Torchia, one-time AP bureau chief in Seoul and son of a long-time AP correspondent, has files from Middle East datelines. The late John Roderick of AP, a veteran of Mao Zedong’s Long March in China, was writing until passing away at 93 before the Beijing Olympics, which he’d been planning to cover.
Actually, you have to wonder what would happen if Western correspondents dared ask the really tough questions in Pyongyang, as they do everywhere else on the globe. Imagine the bluff and bluster with which officials would respond. And think of how long a correspondent would last while searching for inside stuff. An hour? A day? A week? For that matter, what type of assistance might the correspondent expect from a local staffer? For sure the local would be on the payroll of the security people. Might he or she play a dual or triple role – fixer, spy and minder, telling the person where to go, where not to go, remaining at the correspondent’s side on forays out of the office? Surely an all-in-one deal would cut expenses, always a consideration.
For the Pyongyang-based correspondent, truth to tell, the ultimate danger may be terminal boredom, moving in a highly circumscribed world where the doors are open for happy-talking ``features” and the occasional séance with a foreign diplomat or NGO type and not a lot else.
Like a host of others, I’ve been to Pyongyang on brief trips in which we were dutifully led around from site to site. There were, however, variations. The most memorable was a conversation I had with an information official whom I had begged to see while touring with Canadian-Koreans whose sole goal was to try to hook up with long-lost relatives. The official was shocked that I didn’t know who he was. All foreign correspondents knew him, he said. Apparently they persisted in messaging him asking for visas, which they never got.
If there was one message I was not about to send, it was the plea for a visa in order to obtain ``insights and understanding” and meet with ``responsible officials.” The official, having established that I’d never heard of him, reminded me I was there as a tourist and ``must not write anything.” He was shouting so loud, I had to swear I wouldn’t think of writing a thing. I was only there, I told him, for ``insights and understanding.” There was no other way, it seemed, to get him to shut up.
None of which stopped me from writing reams once I got out. How else was I going to cover my costs? I’m hoping the official never saw any of it. Correspondents based in Pyongyang, however, won’t have the luxury of leaving and writing whatever. On the other hand, if the regime ``collapses,” if a protest breaks out for real, if rival forces come out of hiding, if foreigners intervene, they’ll be there, eyewitnesses to history. It might take a while, but maybe they’ll get the real story after all. Someday.
Donald Kirk, author of ``Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine,” has visited North Korea eight times. He’s at kirkdon@yahoo.com; his website is www.donaldkirk.com.