Media
Pyongyang News website offers archived TV news
Mar 21st
A website in Japan has begun offering an archive of several days worth of North Korean TV news broadcasts.
[Updated: see below]
The Pyongyang News website appears to be affiliated with a handful of sites operated by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (sometimes known as ‘Chosen Soren’ or ‘Chongryon’) (在日本朝鮮人總聯合會, 재일본 조선인 총련합회).
At time of writing, news bulletins going back to March 2nd are available. That’s longer than the 10 day archive offered by Elufa.net, another Tokyo-based website affiliated with the same group. The programs are received via a feed of North Korean television on the Thaicom satellite.
The new site has bulletins More >
AP/KCNA photo exhibit opens in New York
Mar 17th
A joint photo exhibition being staged by The Associated Press and the Korean Central News Agency opened at New York’s The 8th Floor gallery this week.
The exhibition is one by-product of the AP’s opening of a news bureau in Pyongyang earlier this year and features 79 photographs, including shots from AP photographers, KCNA staffers and material from the KCNA archive.
The pictures are “designed to show what life is like in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” the AP said in a news release.
They include the picture on the right, which is captioned: “A young North Korean dancer leaps by as girls put More >
KCTV adds computer-generated backdrop to evening news
Mar 13th
North Korea’s state broadcaster, Korea Central Television, has given its evening news a new look. The changes are small, but represent a leap forward in presentation style for the staid broadcaster.
The new look has news readers presenting items in front of a computer-generated background. A graphic to accompany the story appears above the right or left shoulder — a style almost universally used in other countries. When the report begins the graphic moves forward to fill the screen.
Here are a couple of images from the Saturday March 10, 2012, evening’s news, which was the first seen with the changes.
The report More >
DPRK radio disappears
Feb 24th
Several of North Korea’s external radio services and its powerful jamming operation that blocks foreign broadcasts are having trouble staying on the air.
Voice of Korea, the country’s international radio outlet, was missing from several of its scheduled broadcasts on Thursday, according to monitoring from sites in South Korea, Japan and the U.S.
Two days earlier its English-language broadcast to North America, scheduled from 1500-1554 GMT (1000-1054 Eastern Time) abruptly cut off around 20 minutes into the broadcast and didn’t return. On Thursday the French program left the air five minutes early while in the middle of a song.
All these events are highly More >
Is Rodong Sinmun using South Korean news photos without permission?
Feb 13th
Regular readers of The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea’s Workers’ Party, might be forgiven for thinking the newspaper has a correspondent in South Korea. The newspaper, now available in English via its website, offers a page of inter-Korean news complete with photographs of demonstrations happening in Seoul.
But where are they coming from? A little investigating reveals the pictures are mostly cropped versions of photos taken by South Korean news organizations. They aren’t cropped to change the meaning of the image — they’re cropped to remove the logo of the news agency that holds the copyright.
Is the Rodong Sinmun’s More >
DPRK again at bottom of press freedom ranking
Jan 28th
North Korea has again been ranked the second-worst country in the world for press freedom by Reporters Without Borders. The Paris-based organization has consistently ranked the DPRK at the bottom of the world in terms of press freedom for the last decade.
“It is no surprise that the same trio of countries, Eritrea, Turkmenistan and North Korea, absolute dictatorships that permit no civil liberties, again occupy the last three places in the index,” it said in the survey.
The news should come as no surprise to North Korea watchers. The government holds absolute control over the media, which delivers a centrally composed message through TV, radio and newspaper More >
China’s CCTV interviews Ri Chun Hui
Jan 24th
China Central Television (CCTV) scored something of a scoop on Monday when it interviewed North Korea’s most influential news anchor woman, Ri Chun Hui, as part of its Lunar New Year programming.
The piece, which ran on the CCTV news channel, saw the station’s Pyongyang reporter go inside the Korea Central Television news studio to meet with Ri on the set of the national TV news.
Ri is one of the most recognizable faces to anyone that watches North Korean TV.
She usually appears to read to most important news items – typically those involving Kim Jong Il or Kim Jong Un – and More >
AP opens Pyongyang bureau
Jan 17th
The Associated Press has opened a news bureau in Pyongyang making it the first western news agency to have a reporter and photographer based in the North Korean capital.
The bureau represents a coup for the AP over the competition, but its close cooperation with the state-run Korean Central News Agency, necessitated to realize the deal, brings with it questions over editorial independence.
AP President Tom Curley and KCNA President Kim Pyong Ho officially opened the bureau in Pyongyang on Monday. It came six months after the two met in New York and signed a basic agreement towards the office.
The bureau will be More >
Rodong Sinmun launches English site
Jan 11th
Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the Workers’ Party of Korea and North Korea’s main national daily, has launched an English-language website.
The page appears to have come online in the last few days but has a small archive of stories stretching back to December 1. It’s the first foreign language to be offered by the newspaper and comes just under 11 months since the launch of a Korean site.
Those with an interest in North Korean affairs will welcome the site but a quick review of the content initially offered shows much of it consists of stories already available via the Korean More >
Voice of Korea on Kim’s funeral
Dec 30th
From my own monitoring, here are a couple of reports from Voice of Korea, North Korea’s shortwave radio service, on the event surrounding the funeral of Kim Jong Il.
December 29 broadcast (covering the events of the previous day)
Voice of Korea reports on the funeral procession of Kim Jong Il.
http://www.northkoreatech.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/111227-vok-kim-visit.mp3December 28 broadcast
Voice of Korea reports that Kim Jong Un visited the bier of Kim Jong Il
http://www.northkoreatech.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/111227-vok-kim-visit.mp3The report begins:
Respected Kim Jong Un, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea and supreme leader of our party, state and army, in reflection of the boundless mourning of the entire army More >
