What’s the matter with Kim Jong Un?

On April 15, Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator, missed an important birthday celebration: that of his late grandfather, Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founding ruler. The younger Kim’s absence sparked speculation about his health. Early last week, Daily NK, a website based in South Korea, claimed that Kim had needed to undergo heart surgery due to “excessive smoking, obesity, and overwork.” The next day, CNN reported, citing Trump administration sources, that US officials had received intelligence suggesting that Kim may be in mortal peril. On Saturday, TMZ—which has a track record of breaking stories about celebrity peril—splashed, with characteristic subtlety, that Kim was “REPORTEDLY DEAD” (or dying); it cited regional media sources—including “a Hong Kong-backed news channel’s vice director who’s apparently the niece of a Chinese foreign minister”—that, it warned, in bold type, it had not itself corroborated. (Your average Hollywood gossip, this was not.) Twitter went into overdrive, but nothing concrete followed. Top officials in South Korea played down suggestions that much is amiss; one told CNN that Kim is “alive and well.” As the New York Post put it in a headline, Kim is variously “rumored to be dead, brain-dead, or just fine.” Since the weekend, confusion has continued to swirl. South Korea’s unification minister said Kim may simply be hiding out from the coronavirus—but as one analyst pointed out to Reuters, if that’s the case, why has North Korea not issued... Continue reading at 'Columbia Journalism Review'

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-04-28 12:08:17 UTC ]
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