The US State Department’s 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom was released last month. News of the report’s release appeared most commonly in headlines like this:

“North Korea sentenced Christian toddler to life in a prison camp”–UPI

“Toddler in North Korea ‘sentenced to life in prison after parents caught with Bible’”–Telegraph

“North Korea sentenced a toddler to life after his parents were found with a Bible”—Times of India

Some articles noted that the toddler’s alleged imprisonment happened 14 years ago, in 2009. Most, however, omitted any mention of date. Typical was the Times of India report which wrote in a timeless present-tense, “[A] family along with a two year old has also been sentenced to life in a North Korean prison camp as his parents were found in possession of the Bible.”

No media report contained more than a few details about the toddler because the State Department report itself says little more: “One case involved the 2009 arrest of a family based on their religious practices and possession of a Bible. The entire family, including a two-year-old child, were given life sentences in political prison camps.” Presumably the State Department report says little more because the original 2021 Korea Future report from which the State Department cites the incident is itself a brief 61-word “case study”.

This is not to question the validity or importance of reports like those from Korea Future or the State Department. But there is more at issue here than media clickbait. How organs like the State Department report on NK religious issues lends itself to sensationalism, nudging readers closer to shocked, hopeless paralysis rather than informed, motivated action.

Media have a tendency to portray the State Department report as breaking news about North Korea. But the State Department itself makes no such claim. It acknowledges that the report is a selective literature review of previously published third-party reports considered by the US government to be credible and relevant. The report introduction says, “[T]he Department of State is not in a position to verify independently all information contained in the reports. To the extent possible, the reports use multiple sources to increase comprehensiveness and reduce potential for bias. The views of any particular source are not necessarily those of the United States government. The report is designed to spotlight examples of government and societal action that typify and illuminate issues reported in each country.”

What typifies and illuminates religion in North Korea? According to the State Department report, “Multiple sources indicated the situation had not fundamentally changed since publication of the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) report on human rights in the DPRK.” The report cites a 2021 white paper by the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) that it is “practically impossible for North Korean people to practice religion.”

What the State Department annually portrays about religion in North Korea is that it remains in a steady state of bad. As the report says, “The government reportedly continued to execute, torture, arrest, and physically abuse individuals for their religious activities.” When it comes to religion in North Korea, it doesn’t matter if the 2-year old is now 14. It is simply timelessly bad in North Korea. There is little more to do than to add more of the same distressing anecdotes to the pile.

Careful readers of the State Department report, however, may find themselves asking: If there are indeed 100,000 to 400,000 Christians in North Korea, what do they do all day other than get beaten? If religious life is practically impossible for them, are they simply hunkering down and praying for regime change so they can once again be religious?

While the State Department’s report changes little from year to year, the State Department is mistaken that North Korean religious life is endlessly stuck in 2014. One of the reports the State Department does not cite is the 2020 White Paper on Religious Freedom by the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, the latest update in a longitudinal study. As the 2020 paper details, 20 years ago virtually no one inside North Korea had seen a Bible with their own eyes. But by 2016, the number of those inside North Korea who had seen a Bible had jumped to nearly 8 percent. In the 2020 report, the Center says that number has continued to increase by 4 percent annually. More North Koreans may be reading the Bible today than at any other time in history.

And if roughly 1.6 million North Koreans have now seen a Bible, a KINU report estimates that 10 to 30%, or between 2 and 6 million, have listened to illegal foreign radio broadcasts. As the State Department knows from confidential US government reports, religious programs are among the most popular broadcasts inside North Korea, which is why the North Korean government has significantly increased its jamming efforts against them. Yet, even though listening to religious radio broadcasts is likely the most widespread religious activity among North Koreans, it receives essentially no mention in the State Department report.

Religious life inside North Korea today is not the same as 2014, nor is it a practical impossibility. There is a massive popular information movement underway, much of it centered around religion. If religious life in North Korea was reducible to brief yearly anecdotes about beatings for Bibles, then the world could simply stand by, shake its collective head, and leave the matter to governments to sort out. But if faith is a dynamic, active, spreading force in North Korean daily life, then the State Department’s latest religious freedom report continues to bury the lede.