Organization
As the sole news agency of North Korea, KCNA daily reports news for all the North Korean news organizations including newspapers, radio and television broadcasts via Korean Central Television and the Korean Central Broadcasting System within the country. In December 1996, KCNA began publishing its news articles on the Internet with its web server located in Japan. Since October 2010, stories have been published on a new site, controlled from Pyongyang, and output has been significantly increased to include world stories with no specific link to North Korea including news from countries that have strong DPRK ties.
In addition to Korean, KCNA releases news articles in English, Russian, and Spanish. Access to its website, along with other North Korean news sites, has been blocked in South Korea since 2004 and can be accessed only through the government's authorization. As well as serving as a news agency, it is also alleged to conduct clandestine intelligence collection.
KCNA has press exchange agreements with around 46 foreign news agencies including Itar-Tass and Xinhua News Agency and South Korea's Yonhap News Agency with correspondents and bureaux in six countries, including Russia and China. In 2004, the agency had employed 2,000 people.
According to its website, KCNA "speaks for the Workers' Party of Korea and the DPRK government". The agency has been described as the "official organ." In June 1964 on one of his first official activities, Kim Jong-il visited KCNA headquarters and said the agency should "propogate the revolutionary ideology of the Leader (Kim Il-sung) widely throughout the world." However, the agency is also said to offer a unique insight into the North Korean "mentality."
A talk given to officials at KCNA on June 12, 1964, outlines the function of the news agency:
In order to become a powerful ideological weapon of our Party, the Korean Central News Agency must provide a news service in accordance with the idea and intention of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, establish Juche firmly in its work and fully embody the Party spirit, the working-class spirit and the spirit of serving the people. It must pay serious attention to each word, to each dot of the writings it releases because they express the standpoint of our Party and the Government of our Republic. —The speech stresses the importance of the leader reading the news reports, and care should be taken when writing them. It states that modernizing media technology is important to develop a better service, and that the agency is "renowned throughout the world".
Under the principle and guideline on the work of ideological propaganda and agitation put by the country's ruling party, the Workers' Party of Korea, the agency generally reports only good news about the country that is intended to encourage its people and project a positive image abroad. Nonetheless, it has on occasion acknowledged food shortages in the country. The Ryongchon disaster was also reported in April 2004, after a delay of two days.
Read more about this topic: Korean Central News Agency
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