SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – North Korea stoked international outrage last week after launching a podcast clearly directed at National Public Radio’s This American Life.
Entitled That Stupendous, Glorious Korean Liveliness, the hour-long broadcast was detected early Friday from a previously hidden bunker outside of Pyongyang; it became available for download on iTunes DPRK just hours later.
The move marked the latest show of force from an increasingly pugnacious North Korean government and dashed hopes that Kim Jong-un would prove more measured in his implementation of radio than father and predecessor Kim Jong-il, whose robust programming lineup included the popular game show, Wait, Wait… Don’t Kill Me, the folksy Labor Camp Companion, and the consistently excellent Diane Rehm Show.
“We do not hide that this dynamic, explosive hour of radio was directed at our sworn enemies, the hacks at WBEZ Chicago and their insolent leader, Ira Glass,” said North Korea’s chief propagandist, Jin Yoon-song. Despite layers of harsh sanctions levied against it by the United Nations, the deeply isolated country insists on its "sovereign right" to develop radio programming that keeps the public oppressed and uninformed.
