At least the News of the World didn’t publish doctored North Korean photographs

It’s hard to take at face value the public ostracizing of Rupert Murdoch as a cancer within journalism even as the world’s two foremost wire services have just associated themselves with the world’s most fraudulent news organization. I refer to the AP’s announcement late last month that it had made a deal with Kim Jong Il’s own Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) to open a bureau in Pyongyang, and the more recent announcement by Reuters that it had “expanded” its “relationship” with KCNA to deliver official North Korean content to readers everywhere.

Great — that’s just what we all needed. As to why the AP and Reuters think this arrangement should not harm their journalistic reputations, I can only guess that KCNA’s official status gives it some sort of credibility, however perverse. Meanwhile, Murdoch is under attack for the closeness of his association with the British government, and vice versa. You don’t have to be a fan of Murdoch or some (any?) of his publications to see a double standard at work here.

The reflexive reaction of some observers to any North Korean arrangement with any non-North Korean entity is to portray it as a sign that North Korea is opening itself to the outside world. The problem with this view is that it’s mostly wishful thinking. The story never quite ends as those observers want it to. North Korea allows plenty of foreigners into Pyongyang. They’re easy to keep an eye on there. These foreign visitors then write overly dramatized news stories, blog posts, and “zines” about their “adventures,” as if they’re Edward R. Murrow reporting from the Blitz. In fact, the only thing stopping most foreigners from visiting Pyongyang is having a better place to go. It’s hardly an adventure, and given the degree of stage-management all around them, a visit to Pyongyang probably isn’t even very enlightening about North Korea.

I didn’t have much of a reaction to these initial announcements. I figured I’d wait a few months and see how many stories the AP was allowed to file from bylines other than Pyongyang, or without the intervention of minders before reacting to this “news.” On reflection, it was hasty of me to keep an open mind. It didn’t even take the AP a month to swallow a spoon-fed fraud:

North Korea’s KCNA news agency stands accused of digitally altering a photo distributed last Saturday to exaggerate flood damage in the Stalinist country following record summer rains. “The content of this image has been digitally altered and does not accurately reflect the scene,” the Associated Press said in a correction distancing itself from the picture.

Under a memorandum of understanding of June 29, AP will become the first western news agency to open a bureau in Pyongyang.

The photo in question was allegedly taken by KCNA last Friday and supplied to AP the following day. It shows seven people apparently wading along a flooded road near the Taedong River. [Chosun Ilbo]

You can see the actual photograph at that last link, or at this Joongang Ilbo story, which helpfully circles the suspicious regions.

Meanwhile, the AP’s web site has plenty of Murdoch coverage, but nothing about whether the KCNA photograph it published was in fact doctored. However, the AP did quietly send this “Photo Kill” message out to editors and subscribers, acknowledging that it was taken in by KCNA’s hoax.

A photo that shows Pyongyang residents suffering from heavy rain has been digitally altered, the Associated Press said in a letter to editors and other subscribers. The news agency asked them to immediately eliminate the photo from their system and archives. “The content of this image has been digitally altered and does not accurately reflect the scene,” the news agency said in a statement titled “Photo Kill”.

The fact that North Korea would alter at least one image in this way is telling about its motives and modus operandi. Clearly, its motive was to give foreign readers a false and exaggerated view of the extent of damage caused by recent floods, and it had no compunction about using the foreign press as an instrument for its apparent deception. North Korea seems to be setting up a case to defraud foreign taxpayers, exploiting their sympathy to get aid, even as it’s reported to have squandered its resources on a “shopping spree for Armani, Gucci and other luxury goods for its ruling elites,” “Rolex and Omega watches,” and Hennessy Cognac.

Earlier reports about typhoon Meari, which hit North Korea on June 25-27, still reflected the traditional style. The Choson Sinbo, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper in Japan, on July 4 claimed the typhoon “died down” without affecting the North seriously, and damage was “not as severe as expected.”

The U-turn came on July 12, in a report about typhoon damage by the state-run KCNA news agency. “Casualties occurred in various regions. Some 160 homes were destroyed and about 21,000 farms were inundated, washed away, or buried in mudslides,” it claimed. [Chosun Ilbo]

This should serve as more warning to potential foreign donors to be suspicious of North Korean appeals for aid, and to insist on strict monitoring when we do decide to give any. Should, but won’t.

I can’t resist closing with a few words about the lovely Mrs. Murdoch, who can smack a hippie as skillfully as any of Richard J. Daley’s finest. Just watch it. BAM!

I sure am glad I’m not Johnny Marbles today. He has to live with the ineradicable stigma of attacking an 80 year-old man, and then losing the fight to a little Chinese lady in a pink jacket. It’s bad enough that he’ll have to explain that to his friends. He’ll also need years of therapy to sort out his strange-yet-haunting feelings of arousal. So have we all learned our lesson about stereotypes today?