BBC Under Fire for Using Students to Sneak Into North Korea

[DonViejo]

By Josh Voorhees | Posted Monday, April 15, 2013, at 10:28 AM

Vice magazine used Dennis Rodman to get a first-hand look inside the hermit kingdom earlier this year. One month later, the BBC used a group of British economic students to do the same, albeit with a good deal more deception. The New York Times explains:

As tensions escalated between North Korea and the world late last month, a small group of students from the prestigious London School of Economics crossed the border into the reclusive country for what was described by organizers as a government-sanctioned "week of sight seeing, meeting with ministers, government officials" and academics.

But among the students, the university announced in an outraged statement over the weekend, were three BBC journalists filming an undercover documentary. The BBC, the university said, "deliberately misled" the group to underplay the scope of the reporting, placed the students in danger and jeopardized its work in politically fraught nations. It demanded that the BBC pull the film, set for broadcast on Monday, and issue an apology.

The British broadcaster, however, has said the show will air as planned despite the controversy. "This is an important piece of public interest journalism," Ceri Thomas, the BBC's programming chief, said during a radio interview over the weekend. Asked whether that justified placing the students at risk, he replied: "We think it does."

In a short online promo for the Panorama documentary, the BBC makes no mention of how reporter John Sweeney and his crew gained access to North Korea, only that he managed to spend "eight days undercover inside the most rigidly-controlled nation on Earth." While there, the teaser continues, Sweeney witnessed "a landscape bleak beyond words, a people brainwashed for three generations and a regime happy to give the impression of marching towards Armageddon."

more
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/04/15/bbc_north_korea_documentary_john_sweeney_uses_london_school_of_economics.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content

[samsingh]

1. this is a dangerous thing to do