North Korea: The Famine Reported in the Conditional

North Korea and the Famine Reported in the Conditional

A news story about a famine in North Korea, presented as the worst in decades and attributed to an international TV network, makes headlines. Within hours, readers stop discussing hunger and start debating how it is known. The country is one of the most closed in the world, as repeatedly stated in the conversation, and does not allow independent verification. Everything coming from there arrives in the conditional tense —would be suffering— and this verbal form has become the trigger for the controversy. The data may be true yet remain unprovable. In that gap, anything fits.

The first reaction is distrust. Not towards Pyongyang, but towards those who publish. The sequence is almost mechanical: the news arrives, someone asks for direct proof, no one has it, and the focus shifts to the outlet signing the report. Almost no one argues anymore whether people are starving in North Korea; they argue whether a newsroom can sustain a famine claim when it cannot enter to see it.

The detector for stories starting with 'could'

There is a current holding that language betrays the piece before content: when a text chains "could," "would," "might," it says the journalist has no idea and fills gaps with imagination. It is the same mechanism attributed to August's summer snakes, stories published because they are hard to verify and, above all, because no one will go check them.

The world's most closed country is the perfect stage for such pieces. The most repeated complaint is not that they lie, but that they consult no sources and rely on unknown experts. The usual response is also scripted: if you ask for contrast, you are placed in the opposing camp and invited to move there. The result is a conversation where the burden of proof weighs more than the fact.

China, Russian wheat, and six days by train

The North Korean regime does not stand alone. The geopolitical reading appearing in the discussion is that of a buffer: North Korea separates China from a direct border with the United States, so it interests certain parties to prop up the regime, including humanitarian aid. Whether that aid reaches the last peasant is another matter no one can certify.

Then there is Moscow. It is noted that Russia would send wheat in exchange for soldiers and weapons, without contracts or figures in sight, recalling that the North Korean economy lived for decades on Soviet subsidies. A practical detail slipping into the conversation is the rail connection: six days by train between Moscow and Pyongyang. The logistics exist; what travels in those wagons is another question.

The 'you too': 38 million hungry in the US

The most repeated response to the news has nothing to do with Korea. More than 38 million people go hungry in the United States, it is pointed out, asking why this does not make headlines. The list of examples expands with Libya or South Sudan as samples of how badly the other system works.

The argument comes in two versions: one relativizing the North Korean famine and one simply demanding informational symmetry. Neither answers the original question, and users are reminded of this. Comparing disasters does not decide which one is true.

What is visible from outside: the capital and the rest

Outside Pyongyang and four urban zones, almost everyone agrees, poverty is extreme, with or without declared famine. It is mentioned that even military units appear poorly equipped, striking in a dictatorship that displays its army. And the most cynical explanation circulates for achieving an impeccable parade: extra rations three weeks before the event. People eat just enough to applaud with adequate energy; the rest of the year is a different story.

That is, perhaps, the only information not traveling in the conditional: what is seen on screen and what appears just before. With the rest —abandoned children, victims, the real number of hungry— each newsroom does what it can and each reader decides whom to trust. Can one report on a closed country without turning every news item into an act of faith?