North Korea - Essay Example

The media within the U.S. presents a biased view of North Korean nuclear proliferation, citing issues that North Korea has failed to comply with and ignoring issues and problems that North Korea is facing. Taking an example of the article ‘North Korea Takes No Apparent Action as Deadline Passes’ written by David Singer and published in the New York Times on April 2007, the author clearly mentions how North Korea did not shut down its nuclear manufacturing facilities failing to point out until much late in the article that the United States of America was late by a month in meeting its deadline of paying $25 million to North Korea.  (Times). This is not the only example of how North Korea and its policies and actions have been unfairly treated by the U.S media This article clearly depicts the fallacious nature of the western media for one it only portrays Asians as the villains and also it shows the reporters on bias towards the Americans, holding it till the end of the article to show that the Americans also failed to meet their end of the bargain.

In recent times though the tone has changed because of the death of Kim Jon Ill, the media in the west have portrayed or at least started portraying a different North Korea to the public, for instance after the death of the Korean leader Bill O Reilly on fox news was quoted as saying that the whole country is faking the depression surrounding the leader's death, in one of the shows called Fox and friends, basically depicting the whole country as a major fraud and superimposing a negative characteristic on the entire population. Even in a  recent article, it states North Koreans Agree to Freeze Nuclear Work; U.S. to Give Aid, by Stephen Lee Myer published in February of this year, the underline tone of the press is very negative, the article states that Obama administration called the steps “important, if limited.” Here it is plain to see that the White House, with the help of the press, is showing a very unrelenting attitude toward the North Koreans.

 The media solely focuses on the aspect of nuclear proliferation and try to undermine everything about the country and its people in the larger scheme of things the Western Media has pushed The country into isolation, without any say in world politics. The non-US media had also been very nagging in the past but since now the whole idea of proliferation is being looked down upon by the North Koreans the strategy has changed and the nagging has toned down but still The country suffers from the past negativity and being left in total isolation with China being the only public supporter of the country. Iran on the other hand is a different story, the Iranians maintain that they are not enriching uranium to build an atomic bomb but the west does not buy that because of Iran’s continued public hostility against the west and especially its open hatred of Israel and its existence.

Therefore the west sees ulterior motives when it comes to Iran’s nuclear programming. In an article in Washington, Post Israel is concerned over Iran's nuclear program, the IAEA Officials and Israeli officials have mounted huge concerns in the regions near Zahidan and other areas of the country as being workshops for Iran’s Nuclear Weapons but Iran maintains its uranium is being enriched for peaceful purposes, the Israeli prime minister Nathenyahu has hinted at a possible air strike on the Iranian centrifuges but without proper support from the American government it is very difficult but that being said American media is also very skeptical of the whole programmer and has shown negative reports leading to a number of sanctions on the Persians.

 Barack Obama in his third Presidential Debate stated that he has not left any options on the table when it comes to dealing with Iran’s Nuclear Program. On the other hand, Iranian media continuously claims that its programming is for peaceful purposes IRNA the news channel of Iran even broadcasted the speech of the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei in which he called that they consider the “nuclear bomb as haram”. The Russian media also supports the idea of dialogue rather than violence, a news article on the voice of Russia states “Iranian nuclear issue: Fruitless dialogue better than war” highlighting the use of dialogue than aggressive rhetoric of war.