I mentioned 38 North was a little annoyed at the media earlier today. Now I see they’re outright angry at a specific South Korean media company:
For those of us steeped in nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, this headline makes no sense. ICBMs are land-based missiles fired from mobile launchers or underground silos. So it would indeed be an amazing feat of technical skill if the North Koreans were able to pull this off.
The problem is this headline was fake news although the average reader would certainly have been excused for not recognizing that. In fact, it was a big mistake by the Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s largest news outlet that serves not only South Koreans but also has a regional and global readership. What makes the headline even more alarming for us is that it was based on a 38 North satellite imagery analysis by Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. BUT he didn’t say what the headline says.
And Yonhap was exceptionally slow at issuing a correction. The lesson here? Read any news about North Korea fairly critically.
