Move over, James Bond, for the New York Times has discovered a new 007 by the name of Kim Young Hwan, South Korean spook extraordinaire. I thought I knew this man; thought, that is, until I read two articles the New York Times printed recently, “Korean Activist, Ex-Supporter of North, Plots His Next Move” and “One Man’s Tale of Two Koreas, Changed Allegiances, Torture and Fear.” The way they describe Kim, it seems he is not the same man I thought I knew.
The Kim Young Hwan I know is a quiet, unassuming, serious, scholarly advocate with a far reaching vision for improving the quality of life for North Koreans, and as such I sincerely doubt that he would have agreed to 007 characterization. To Western readers, 007 is a flashy secret agent who flies everywhere, shoots bad guys and gets pretty girls; Kim is not anything like that.
The two articles appear to have some of the facts straight: Kim’s unusual experiences, including meeting Kim Il Sung, a clandestine trip on a North Korean submersible, imprisonment in South Korea, imprisonment in China, torture and more. But there is a serious problem with the way the New York Times chose to string these facts together. They tried very hard to depict Kim as a slick operator and a man with a significant network in China, rather than the serious ideologue that he is. There is no telling why they chose to connect the dots in a way that is not there.
I realize that newspapers have to inject their stories with a particular angle or spin, but the truth is that what’s important with Kim is the human rights work itself, not the sexy James Bond persona that they conjured up. And as for the composite picture they published, with the night lights of Seoul in the background? Oh please, it’s so sophomoric.
More than anything, I object to the tone of the story, one that neither Kim nor other Koreans without native fluency in English would necessarily be able to detect. This gives the press (both New York Times and others) a free hand in how they portray him. Ultimately, it is the tone of the story that remains in the minds of the readers, more so than the facts.
From what I have seen, readers walk away from these things with a sense of how screwed up things are over there in Korea, and that’s all. They’ll see Kim as some sort of spook, along with his activist colleagues. Sensationalist articles such as these distract readers from the seriousness of the work people like Kim are doing to try and improve the conditions in North Korea.
* The viewpoints expressed in Guest Columns are not necessarily those of Daily NK.
