Vox Created A Feamongering, Pro-War North Korea Video Says Media Watchdog Group
Media watchdog group, FAIR, calls Vox’s North Korea video a display of hawkish fearmongering that leaves out the United States’ role in creating Korean Peninsula tensions.
The media watchdog agency, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) analyzed a Vox produced video titled “The Horrific Reality of a War With North Korea” and found pro-war bias which FAIR says is typical of corporate media. According to Vox, in the North Korea video “five experts discuss what a war on the Korean peninsula would look like, how close we are to conflict, and the terrifying consequences.”
As the FAIR report says, Vox’s expert panel is remarkably hawkish in their handling of Korea. Four out of five of the experts work for the U.S. government while the fifth expert works for a think tank which is extensively funded by the U.S.
The panel of “experts” in Vox’s North Korea video.
The five experts who analyzed the prospects of a second Korean war were Andrew C. Weber (a former US assistant secretary of defense), Jung Pak, (a former CIA analyst on North Korea), Dave Maxwell (a retired US Army colonel), Tammy Duckworth, (a US senator representing Illinois) and Bruce Bennett, (a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation).
While Vox is not state-owned, FAIR claims the news outlet “continues a well-established corporate media trend of reflexively echoing the positions of the US government as if they are undeniable facts and an objective reflection of reality—a trend that is also manifest in Vox‘s CIA-inspired reporting on Iran and other Official Enemies.”
Bruce W Bennett is the only person in the Vox North Korea video who is not directly employed by the American government. Bennett is a military researcher who specializes in Northeast Asian issues and works for the RAND corporation. FAIR’s report pointed out that on RAND’s website they make it clear the majority of their funding comes from the U.S. government.
According to FAIR, the Vox video portrays North Korea as the instigators of evil and their South Korean allies and the U.S. as the rational peacekeepers. The video literally depicted North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un as a cartoon villain with an atomic mushroom cloud.
David Maxwell, a retired US Army col makes war sound inevitable and says: “It has been waiting for the right conditions in the past 65 years and at some point, when it deems it has the advantageous position or when it has no other option, it may very well attack South Korea, seeking to unify the peninsula under the northern regime’s control for one single purpose, and that is to ensure the survival of the Kim family regime.”
To Senator Duckworth’s credit she has publicly warned against military intervention with North Korea and as FAIR said, does not seem to carry the same war with Korea is inevitable mentality as the other panel experts. Yet, the Vox video opens with a quote from Senator Duckworth, where she says: “There’s no limited warfare option when it comes to open conflict with North Korea.”
No honest discussion of U.S. role in preventing peace negotiations on Korean peninsula.
What’s never mentioned or discussed in Vox’s North Korea video, according to FAIR, is the U.S.’ role in preventing peace on the Korean peninsula. There’s no mention of the numerous times that North Korea has stated it would consider denuclearizing if the U.S. would halt the annual military exercises the U.S. and South Korea conduct on the Korean border.
Context, nuance, and an honest discussion of the U.S.’ role in creating tension with North Korea are conveniently not mentioned in the Vox piece. Instead, as FAIR concludes, “viewers are presented with an array of US government-linked talking heads who insist the only options to resolve the conflict in Korea are devastating sanctions or apocalyptic war”.
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