He was a propaganda mastermind who shaped North Korea’s Kim family cult of personality. Now, he’s met his end

Kim, who had been in poor health for several years, died on Tuesday, the official Korean Central News Agency reported, saying he devoted his life to the “sacred struggle for defending and strengthening the ideological purity of our revolution”.

The official biography released by KCNA said that Kim rose from the hardships of childhood to work at the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea from 1956, earning the trust of state founder Kim Il-sung. He spent more than 60 years consolidating the ideological foundation of the party and helped train talent that would support the state, KCNA reported.

“Kim Ki-nam was an elite career propagandist all his life, starting in the 1960s,” said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior fellow with the 38 North Programme at the Stimson Centre in the US.

“Kim Jong-un also trusted and relied on this propaganda veteran from his grandfather’s, and subsequently his father’s time, by keeping him in key propaganda positions for years before he retired from the propaganda scene in early 2019,” said Lee, who worked as an analyst for the CIA’s Open Source Enterprise for almost two decades.

Along with his role as the party secretary of the Information and Publicity Department – also known as the propaganda and agitation department – Kim Ki-nam was named the editor-in-chief of the state’s main newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, in 1976 and became chairman of the country’s journalist association, according to the North Korea Leadership Watch website.

His leading role in the party’s propaganda apparatus and guidance over media gave him extraordinary power to direct the state’s messaging on a daily basis. He also helped install Kim Il-sung’s long-standing principle of self-reliance, known as juche, and Kim