If you thought that the liberal media’s horrid behavior swooning over the murderous North Korean regime and Kim Yo-jong at the Winter Olympics was just a weekend affair, you’re sadly mistaken.
On Monday morning, Reuters published a pro-Kim piece that took until paragraph 16 to offer a concrete counterpoint that this distracted from their country’s human rights abuses.
Besides the awful title of “Head held high, Kim's sister returns to North Korea,” correspondent Christine Kim’s lede read like a dispatch from the 2008 campaign by ABC’s Terry Moran or then-NBC correspondent Lee Cowan when talking about Barack Obama and his rallies:
A prim, young woman with a high forehead and hair half swept back quietly gazes at the throngs of people pushing for a glimpse of her, a faint smile on her lips and eyelids low as four bodyguards jostle around her.
Kim argued that every move the sister of Kim Jong-un made was “closely scrutinized,” but the real summation is that the news media screeched like young girls at a boy band concert at her every move.
Look no further than how the Reuters correspondent continued: “Crowds applauded as she stood for the South Korean anthem during the opening ceremony for the start of the Winter Olympic Games, while her big smiles and relaxed manner left a largely positive impression on the South Korean public.”
After noting how Kim Yo-jong carried herself with an aurora of “royalty,” the Reuters piece footnoted Vice President Mike Pence’s presence “reminding the world of the Kim family’s brutal regime,” but there wasn’t any condemnation until 10 graphs later.
Boasting of her receiving a toast at a dinner with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Reuters’s Kim played up quotes from the North Korean Director of the Propaganda and Agitation, such as her claim that she “can’t speak very well in public.”
In a portion entitled “Soft Power,” Reuters continued doing the North Korean regime’s bidding:
With so little known about her (even her age of 28 is unconfirmed), scrutiny on Kim Yo Jong was intense, dominating local media and internet chatrooms.
“Personally I think she looked very relaxed during her visit to South Korea,” said Kang Mi-jin, a North Korean defector who works at the Seoul-based Daily NK website. “Her facial expressions were cool and she didn’t seem flustered.”
Reportedly schooled in Switzerland, the youngest daughter of former leader Kim Jong Il was promoted by her brother to the country’s top decision-making body in October.
(....)
Even her elegant, sloping handwriting was parsed in South Korean media. Experts said it conveyed confidence, superiority and reflected a positive attitude.
Alas, we finally arrive at paragraph 16 with quite an understatement, explaining that “[n]ot everyone was impressed, however.”
“Kim Yo Jong’s aloof expression when she wasn’t meeting with high-ranking South Korean government officials and high-tilted chin prompted scorn from many South Koreans, who said she looked ‘too haughty’ or “uppity,’” the news service reported.
The article concluded with five paragraphs dissecting Kim Yo-jong’s facial expressions and body language, but it was preceded by brief nods to the regime’s brutality, pointing out that it’s been “accused by a United Nations inquiry of systematic torture, starvation and killings comparable to Nazi-era atrocities” and slapped with U.S. sanctions.
