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Why the U.S. Media Gets North Korea Wrong

Posted: August 30th, 2017

By Mike Chinoy

Mike Chinoy was a foreign correspondent for CNN for 24 years, serving as the network’s first Beijing bureau chief and as senior Asia correspondent. Currently a Hong Kong-based non-resident senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s US-China Institute, he is the author of four books and the creator of “Assignment China,” a documentary history of American correspondents in China.

Amid continuing tension with North Korea- underscored by the firing on August 29 of a ballistic missile that flew over Japan before plunging into the Pacific Ocean- public understanding and discussion of this complex and increasingly dangerous situation is hampered by a one-dimensional narrative that has shaped much of the American press coverage of the crisis.

The conventional wisdom is that North Korea is a serial cheater whose broken promises have for years sabotaged good-faith American efforts to end Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile program, with the string of missile launches in recent months only the latest sign of the North’s perfidy.

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