# North Korean propaganda question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 19, 2014, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-propaganda-question/688743 "2014-05-19T17:02:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2014, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-propaganda-question/688743/1 "2014-05-19T17:02:33Z")
There’s a recent article on Cracked which made a passing joke about North Korea claiming it was the country that won WWII by dropping the atom bomb on Japan in 1945. Okay, I know what jokes are and I’m not going to cite Cracked. But we are talking about North Korea, so this has at least a bit of plausibility. This is the country, after all, that claimed unicorns were real. Has the North Korean government ever made such a claim? ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-propaganda-question/688743/2 "2014-05-20T18:57:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But we are talking about North Korea, so this has at least a bit of plausibility. This is the country, after all, that claimed unicorns were real. [No it didn’t](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_in_reporting_on_North_Korea#Discovery_of_unicorns): > [@](#): > > In 2012, a number of western media outlets reported that North Korea had claimed to have discovered evidence of unicorns. In reporting on the purported announcement, U.S. News and World Report somberly declared it to be “the latest in a series of myths trumpeted by North Korean news sources.” Subsequent analysis of the original DPRK statement, however, showed that the announcement involved the archaeological discovery of the “unicorn lair,” a poetic term used to describe the ancient capital of the Korean king Tongmyŏng-wang, and that neither North Korean academics nor media had ever claimed the literal existence of unicorns. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-propaganda-question/688743/3 "2014-05-20T19:07:05Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > [No it didn’t](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_in_reporting_on_North_Korea#Discovery_of_unicorns): Again North Korea disappoints the Western world. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-propaganda-question/688743/4 "2014-05-20T19:14:52Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Again North Korea disappoints the Western world. Quite right. Mad dictators ought to be _really_ mad, dammit. State-ordained haircuts and unclecide just don’t do it for me. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-propaganda-question/688743/5 "2014-05-20T19:26:46Z")
If the TV there drops the occasional howler, good sense and self preservation dictate not howling or pointing out the inaccuracy of the official media line, even if you are able to afford the TV. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-propaganda-question/688743/6 "2014-05-20T19:47:11Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Has the North Korean government ever made such a claim? Seems unlikely. If it ever made such a claim in the past, it isn’t doing so now; recent DPRK publications, such as news stories from the Korean Central News Agency, credit the US with detonation of the atomic bombs which ended World War II. For example, from the 2009 article [“KCNA Dismisses Japan’s Frantic Anti-DPRK Racket”](http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2009/200906/news23/20090623-18ee.html): > [@](#): > > [Japan] called on the “Self-Defense Forces” to advance into the Korean Peninsula alongside the U.S. forces with the DPRK as an operational theatre in case the war breaks out and to remain stationed there even after the U.S. forces dropped an atomic bomb to win its “victory”. Of course, that’s not to say that the North Koreans don’t overinflate their own role in the war and in bringing an end to Japanese rule. They just tend to do it via omission, exaggeration, and misdirection rather than outright fabrication. For example, one of their official accounts of the [modern history of Korea](http://www.korea-dpr.com/modern.html) states, > [@](#): > > Under the fierce attacks mounted by the KPRA and active nation-wide uprising, Japan declared its unconditional surrender on 15 August, Juche 34 (1945). The heroic anti-Japanese armed struggle of the Korean revolutionaries and people led by President Kim Il Sung achieved a brilliant victory, and thus Korea was liberated. This is technically true but rather misleading. The omission of any mention of the Allies’ attacks on (or threats to attack) Japan makes it seem as though the Korean revolutionaries kicked the Japanese out all by themselves. Kim Il-Sung was indeed a major player in the Koreans’ guerilla war against the Japanese, both before and during World War II, though at the time of Japan’s surrender he probably wasn’t even in the country. (He was serving as an officer in the Soviet army.) ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-propaganda-question/688743/7 "2014-05-21T15:14:03Z")
Suppose this is the North Korean version of a statement by Al Gore that’s interpreted as “I invented the Internet”. If we have a strong political motive to cast somebody in an unfavorable light, we can even make them sound silly in our own language by misquoting things they didn’t even say. Imagine how much more abuse can be piled on one, when it involves a free-wheeling sensationalist translation from another language. I would have to see an accurate text representation. in context, of the statement actually made by an authorized spokesman for the North Koreans, with an unbiased translation into a language that I understand. I will not accept at face value, a “translation” provided to me by a World News Daily stringer.