It’s likely that only the most hardcore Vogue readers remember it—and presumably Anna Wintour and company are hoping that even they will one day forget it—but back in 2011, the venerable fashion magazine posted a glowing profile of Asma al-Assad. Yes, that Asma al-Assad: the wife of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who has murdered hundreds of thousands of people—largely civilians, and some by chemical weapons—over the past several years while stamping out a rebellion. Even worse, as leaked emails later showed, Asma herself cheered along the slaughter; she was no mere bystander. Shortly after publication, however, “A Rose in the Desert” disappeared. (It’s available now thanks only to the Wayback Machine.)
It’s possible—likely even—that some American media outlets will soon have to pull a similar trick. For their coverage this weekend of the visit by Kim Yo-jong, sister of Kim Jong-un, to the Pyeongchang Olympics is eerily reminiscent of Vogue’s hagiography of the brutal dictator’s wife.
Kim Yo-jong is no mere spectator to her brother’s misrule of North Korea. She’s an elite member of his regime, as director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Workers’ Party of Korea. There she oversees the propaganda regime that constitutes a key component of the enslavement her country’s people. She’s also a member of the Politburo. But don’t just take it for me—Kim is personally sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for her role in sustaining North Korea’s oppressive regime.
You wouldn’t know that from, for example, CNN’s treatment of Kim, however. Instead, the most trusted name in news reported this weekend she is “stealing the show” at the Olympics by virtue of her “smile,” and “warm message.” CNN further said that Kim was earning a “gold medal” for her “diplomatic dance.”
Here are a few terms that did not appear in CNN’s article: gulag; human rights; nuclear weapons; missiles. The article literally does not even mention that Kim is sanctioned by the U.S. government. Other U.S. outlets were similarly glib; Business Insider celebrated that Kim “threw a look” at the camera while standing behind Vice President Mike Pence. By the way, it later emerged that a highly paid PR firm had midwifed the Assad Vogue article. What’s CNN’s excuse?
While CNN and others have feted Kim’s visit, those with the most at stake—the South Koreans—have been decidedly more clear-eyed about the purpose of her visit. Take this editorial in the Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s newspaper of record: “It would of course be wonderful if the Moon Jae-in administration's efforts lead to denuclearization talks, but Kim Jong-un is not sending his people to Pyeongchang to talk about disarmament. He is sending them to weaken sanctions and spread propaganda,” the paper argued.
The Joongang Ilbo, another leading daily, made the interesting point that Kim Yo-jong’s visit is a sign of North Korean weakness, not the confidence that others have projected on it: “South Korea is North Korea’s last resort. Pyongyang’s dispatching of Kim Yo-jong testifies to its deepening pains from sanctions,” the paper argued.
Whatever the case, one can’t help but be stunned at the blatant amorality of CNN and the likes’ coverage. Kim Yo-jong is thought to be about 30 years old; like her older brother, she appears to have been educated in Switzerland while a mass famine, caused by their father’s callous policies, killed hundreds of thousands (or perhaps even millions—the true extent is still not known) of her countrymen in the 1990s. I know another North Korean, roughly Kim’s age, who now lives in Seoul; he survived the famine but you can see the mark it left upon him: He never fully developed, his frame is tiny, though his hands are those of a bigger man, a man who would have been bigger had he not suffered from malnutrition. Now CNN glamorizes an agent of the regime that did that to him.
