SAN FRANCISCO--My father-in-law some days ago talked to me about the Korean War, when he, as a child, got candies from the North Korean Army, which invaded his hometown. "They were like uncles," he said. Soldiers from the U.S. Army, on the other hand, in his memory searched for and raped Korean women in his village. Coincidently, a columnist in my newsroom also told me recently about his recollections of the war. He, too, said the North's army was ethically well-trained and was consistently nice to the villagers, and that women in his town were forced to hide from U.S. and South Korean forces.

north korea flagI tell these stories not to propose any pro-North theory, but to show how "information and facts" are selectively used by the media when it addresses the North Korean issue. The information found in my father-in-law's and co-worker's stories never appears in mainstream media in South Korea or elsewhere.

In fact, a lack of information characterizes articles on North Korea. Journalists' accessibility to Pyongyang is extremely limited. Until recently, we were even not sure whether a nuclear device had been tested. Yet despite this lack of information, media worldwide are full of lengthy reports on the nuclear test. Why? It seems that the world has returned to the Cold War, when ideological labeling of the opponent guided news production.

Especially in South Korea, lack of information does not bother Korean journalists, who readily produce stories with an ideological adversary in mind. "North Nuke May Aim at China", "The Test May Have Failed", "The Regime May Collapse with Additional Test" -- these headlines on October 15 in Dong-A-Ilbo, the third-largest national daily, are representative of South Korean coverage of the North's nuclear test.

What's being left out? Primarily, the voice of the actors, Kim Jong-Il and lower level leaders. The isolation of the regime itself should be the main reason, of course. But editorial omission of these voices has also happened frequently during the nuke-test coverage. For example, the story of the Russian foreign minister who conveyed the comments of North Korea's vice foreign minister on his country's wish to return to six-party talks was posted by Yonhap, the major news agency in South Korea at 2:23 p.m. on October 15. Most national dailies, however, didn't pick up the news. Likewise, the speech by the North Korean ambassador in the United Nations mentioning "North Korea's final goal" of a non-nuclear Korean peninsula policy was given small space at the end of an article that emphasized the ambassador's claim that any sanction may be regarded as a war action.

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