‘Morning Joe’ Co-Host Smacks Down Media’s Pro-North Korea Coverage

“Something about N.K. killing, starving, & imprisoning its people,” Willie Geist tweets from South Korea

Willie Geist
MSNBC

“Morning Joe” co-host Willie Geist is not having any of the media’s North Korean Olympics love.

In a tweet Sunday, Geist blasted media reports portraying the North Korean Olympic team in a flattering light. The delegation was headed up by Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong.

“I can report South Koreans here in Pyeongchang are not as enthralled with Kim Yo Jong and the North Korean cheerleaders as it seems some media are back home,” wrote Geist. “Something about N.K. killing, starving, & imprisoning its people while threatening South Korea with nuclear annihilation.”

Over the weekend, Geist was part of the wide spectrum of Twitter users on the left and the right who denounced the media’s treatment of North Korea. Critics blasted headlines and tweets from the New York Times, CNN, NBC, the Washington Post, Reuters and others which offered fawning coverage to the delegation and Kim Yo Jong.

Some of those tweets looked like this:

https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/962531034817552384

https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/962697873782689792

The media’s positive framing of the North Korean team mostly left out that Kim Yo Jong helps lead the world’s most repressive dictatorship and that their much-lauded synchronized “cheer squad” were essentially comprised of slaves.

“Kim Jong Un’s Sister Is Not Your New Fave Shade Queen. She’s A Garbage Monster,” wrote BuzzFeed, in one of the earliest pieces denouncing the coverage.

It went from there.

https://twitter.com/SalenaZito/status/962713319130976257

https://twitter.com/DavidRutz/status/962704944729067520

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