The Associated Press: Korea’s Global Propaganda arm

By Nate Thayer

February 7, 2016

The Associated Press opened their news bureau in Pyongyang, North Korea four years ago last month with much self-trumpeted pomp that brought the entire AP executive business side of the company hierarchy from their New York headquarters as invited guests of the world’s most egregious government violator of human rights and press freedoms

Yesterday, North Korea launched a ballistic missile, designed expressly for the purpose of serving as a nuclear weapons delivery system to target the United States, a country they have repeatedly threatened to wage nuclear war against.

The AP’s “Top Stories of the Day” for Saturday February 7, according to the AP official website, were composed of the republican presidential debate in New Hampshire; a story about the Zika virus in Brazil where Olympic games are scheduled to be held later this year; a story on two New York police officers shot on Thursday; and the lead poisoning scandal in public water supply in Flint, Michigan.

 

There is no mention of the successful launch of a nuclear weapons delivery system aimed at the United States by North Korea, although the story has dominated the global news cycle at almost every other media outfit in the world.

 

However, in the AP official website “Big Story” of the day worldwide, the North Korean nuclear missile delivery system launch was listed as the top world story of the day. That can be found here: http://bigstory.ap.org

However, that story, which involved AP reporting contributions from Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing, Washington, and the United Nations, included no contribution from the AP self heralded Associated Press “news bureau” in Pyongyang, North Korea—the country of which the news story comes from. That is because the AP North Korean “news bureau” is, in fact, no news bureau at all.

The AP in North Korea produces photographs and very little news content and is controlled by employees of the North Korean state propaganda apparatus, which runs the state controlled media apparatus the Korean Central News Agency, and the North Korean hand-picked AP “staff reporters” salaries are paid by the Associated Press.

The AP Pyongyang bureau is allowed to operate on rules forbidden in every other AP news bureau in the world, but does exactly resemble those of Chinese, Russian, and Cuban state controlled press, except AP says it is representative of the world Free Press.

AP’s Pyongyang “news bureau” is the spawn of a very profitable business arrangement made between the dictatorship that runs the most egregious enemy of the free press and human rights in the world and Associated Press New York business executives, the latter who effectively agreed to serve as a global distribution arm for the propaganda produced by the world’s most repressive and dangerous government, North Korea, in exchange for the AP receiving the immensely profitable exclusive rights to distribute North Korean produced and controlled news text, photographic and video to the global market. This arrangement rakes in great profits for the AP, the American news company.

Here is the single story released today, February 7, 2016, by the Associated Press from their Pyongyang bureau after the nuclear weapons delivery system missile test that is being developed to target the United States. The story was distributed by the Associated Press to their nearly 10,000 media subscribers worldwide:

 

It was datelined Pyongyang, but includes no byline. This means that the “news story”, which included no interviews or independent analysis but rather the same North Korean government-released information from their state-run propaganda organ, the KCNA, and was, in fact, compiled and reported by the North Korean propaganda apparatus, who then submitted it to the AP Asian regional news editing desk (located in Bangkok) who then released and distributed worldwide a North Korean propaganda story using the stamp of independent credibility of the imprimatur of the reputation of the Associated Press.

 

February 7, 2016

 

Storms may brew, but in N. Korea pride over new satellite

 

“PYONGYANG, North Korea — Hours after the rest of the world already knew, North Korea’s state media triumphantly announced in a special news bulletin to the nation Sunday it had successfully launched a satellite into orbit, calling it a major milestone in the nation’s history and the “greatest gift of loyalty” to the country’s young leader, Kim Jong Un.

 

In a possible hint of what might lie ahead, however, North Korea’s state media implored the nation on the eve of the launch to be prepared for whatever “violent storm” may be coming.

 

They may need to: the U.S., South Korea and Japan have strongly condemned the launch, and potential new sanctions over both the launch and the North’s purported hydrogen bomb test just one month ago are now being discussed in the U.N. Security Council.

 

North Korea’s most famous and venerated TV newscaster, dressed in a traditional pink gown, proudly announced on the TV bulletin — reserved for extremely important events — that the Earth observation satellite Kwangmyongsong-4 had been successfully put into orbit early Sunday morning. She called it an “epochal” moment.

 

The satellite’s name means Shining Star.”

 

Note that not a single interview or source came from North Korea, the subject, obviously, of the top world news story. This is unprecedented for news coverage of any story from any of the 100 plus other AP news bureaus worldwide.

However, later today, February 7, there was another AP story released which carried a Pyongyang North Korea dateline and included two named bylines. It carried the same headline as the earlier story. What allowed the AP to throw in the byline–misleading the global readership and subscribers that the AP had reported this story from North Korea, discarding  their otherwise strict ethical vetting standards that apply to every other AP news bureau in the world, was a single quote from the North Korean mandated AP “journalist” that the AP hired upon the orders of the North Korean state propagandists. “Jon contributed the local quote and reaction in Pyongyang. Talmadge, AP’s Pyongyang bureau chief, reported from Tokyo. You can follow him on Instagram at @erictalmadge.”

Storms may brew, but in N. Korea pride over new satellite

By JON CHOL JIN and ERIC TALMADGE

Feb. 7, 2016 2:16 AM EST

 

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Hours after the rest of the world already knew, North Korea’s state media triumphantly announced in a special news bulletin to the nation Sunday it had successfully launched a satellite into orbit, calling it a major milestone in the nation’s history and the “greatest gift of loyalty” to the country’s young leader, Kim Jong Un.

In a possible hint of what might lie ahead, however, North Korea’s state media implored the nation on the eve of the launch to be prepared for whatever “violent storm” may be coming.

 

They may need to: the U.S., South Korea and Japan have strongly condemned the launch, and potential new sanctions over both the launch and the North’s purported hydrogen bomb test just one month ago are now being discussed in the U.N. Security Council.

 

North Korea’s most famous and venerated TV newscaster, dressed in a traditional pink gown, proudly announced on the TV bulletin — reserved for extremely important events — that the Earth observation satellite Kwangmyongsong-4 had been successfully put into orbit early Sunday morning. She called it an “epochal” moment.

 

The satellite’s name means Shining Star.

The news Sunday was the first acknowledgment of the rocket preparations made to the North Korean public, even though the launch plan had been released in advance to international organizations to avoid accidents with commercial shipping or aircraft and had been closely watched by experts around the world for more than a week.

 

As the news aired, crowds in Pyongyang cheered and applauded as they watched the news of the launch, which was displayed on large screens at different places around the capital.

 

“As far as I know, there are few countries in the world that launched their own satellites,” said one, Pyongyang resident Ri Hyon Gil. He added that he was proud of both the launch and the news of the H-bomb test because they demonstrate the North’s scientific and technological progress.

(Authors note: This was the single contribution from the AP North Korean bureau “staff reporter” to the AP “news story datelined Pyongyang)

North Korea claims to have successfully put four satellites into orbit. Foreign observers have confirmed only two — this one and a similar probe launched in 2012. They also question whether the 2012 probe ever transmitted any signals back to Earth, though the North claims it broadcast patriotic odes to the nation’s leaders.

 

It may take several days to confirm whether Sunday’s satellite is alive and transmitting signals to the ground.

 

North Korea’s official news agency, KCNA, called the launch a “complete success” and said it marked a major advance in “developing the country’s science, technology, economy and defense capability by legitimately exercising the right to use space for independent and peaceful purposes.”

 

The inclusion of “defense” in that statement could be problematic in the weeks ahead.

 

North Korea has resolutely denied claims by Washington, Seoul, Tokyo and the United Nations that its space launches are intended to test ballistic missile technology and thus banned under international resolutions. Instead, it has said its space launches are strictly for peaceful purposes.

 

It had also been careful not to trumpet this launch until after the satellite was confirmed in orbit.

 

But in another report just before the launch, which like the “violent storms” report made no direct mention of the rocket or the international condemnation it has received, noted that Monday is the anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army in 1948.

 

That, along with the birthday of former leader Kim Jong Il on Feb. 16, a major holiday called the Day of the Shining Star in North Korea, are likely why the North planned the launch at this time.

 

As KCNA put it:

 

“The fascinating vapor … trailing in the clear and blue sky in spring of February on the threshold of the Day of the Shining Star, the greatest national holiday of Kim Il Sung’s Korea, is a gift of most intense loyalty presented by our space scientists and technicians to the great Comrade Kim Jong Un, our dignified party, state and people.”

Jon contributed the local quote and reaction in Pyongyang. Talmadge, AP’s Pyongyang bureau chief, reported from Tokyo. You can follow him on Instagram at @erictalmadge.

 

The AP official website for February 7, “The Big Story”, was chock full of stories on the nuclear missile test launch.

“North Korea Praises Rocket; Others view as Covert Missile Test”, was the headline of their top world story datelined Seoul, South Korea and released at 12:04 PM EST on February 7, 2016.

 

The “Others” who view the missile launch as a “Covert Missile Test” would be every other government, intelligence agency and independent analyst in the world. There is, empirically, no debate on the issue anywhere other than from, apparently, the AP “news bureau” in Pyongyang, North Korea and the government of North Korea.

The AP story from Seoul was dated Feb 7, 2016 and released at 01:15:07 UTC quoted:

1/ A Tweet from American North Korea specialist, Martyn Williams, based at Stanford University in California

 

2/ A statement released to the world by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

 

3/ A U.S. government spokesman in Washington confirming an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council has been scheduled, also released to all Washington media.

 

4/ A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York, also released to all global media.

 

5/ A prepared statement of U.S. National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice from Washington, also released to all media simultaneously.

 

6/ A special announcement read on state-run North Korean TV that was broadcast worldwide

The story includes exactly no contributions from the Pyongyang AP bureau–which is not simply unusual, but rather unprecedented for any other AP news bureau in thee world.

The point is not that this AP article was not a balanced, professional piece; the point is it was written with no contribution from the country that the story was based on. Further, it is essentially the same story that was published by most other quality news agencies who have no office and have cut no secret deal with Pyongyang.

This is the AP story datelined Seoul, South Korea released February 7 at 12:04 PM EST:

“Korea praises rocket; others see covert missile test

The story is bylined Foster Klug, the excellent AP bureau chief in Seoul. It also listed as “contributing” to the report at the end of the article “Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim and Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul; Yuri Kageyama and Eric Talmadge in Tokyo; Lolita Baldor in Washington; Louise Watt in Beijing; and Edith Lederer at the United Nations”.

 

All are, also, excellent journalists.

 

There was not a single piece of input from The AP’s much self promoted “News Bureau” in Pyongyang, North Korea, which is staffed by two permanent “news reporters” who are, in fact, hand picked by the North Korean propaganda apparatus and who the North Korean government mandated to the AP they hire to staff the AP bureau in Pyongyang.

 

There is a titular AP “bureau chief” in North Korea, Eric Talmadge, but he is denied permission to live or visit or report on the country except for when, as strictly decided by the North Korean Ministry of Propaganda and Agitation, the supervising all-powerful government ministry which runs the state-run propaganda media outlet the Korean Central News Agency, where the AP offices are located. Talmadge does not live in North Korea. He lives a world away in Tokyo, where has been this past week.

 

Note that Talmadge “contributed” to this story while impotently relegated to reporting in Tokyo. Talmadge also is an excellent veteran journalist. But he is, regardless of the title “AP North Korean Bureau Chief”, not permitted to report on North Korea except as permitted by the state censors.

 

This story, datelined Seoul and bylined Seoul AP bureau chief Foster Klug, was released at 12:04 PM EST February 4, 2016. The link is here:

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/054110f673474ecbb0b0bbd26a2d91ab/n-korea-praises-launch-others-see-covert-missile-test

Korea praises rocket; others see covert missile test

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — For North Korea’s propaganda machine, the long-range rocket launch Sunday carved a glorious trail of “fascinating vapor” through the clear blue sky. For South Korea’s president, and other world leaders, it was a banned test of dangerous ballistic missile technology and yet another “intolerable provocation.”

 

The rocket was launched from North Korea’s west coast only two hours after an eight-day launch window opened Sunday morning, its path tracked separately by the United States, Japan and South Korea. No damage from debris was reported.

 

North Korea, which calls its launches part of a peaceful space program, said it had successfully put a new Earth observation satellite, the Kwangmyongsong 4, or Shining Star 4, into orbit less than 10 minutes after liftoff. It vowed more such launches. A U.S. official said it might take days to assess whether the launch was a success.

 

The launch follows North Korea’s widely disputed claim last month to have tested a hydrogen bomb. Washington and its allies will consider the rocket launch a further provocation and push for more tough sanctions.

 

The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting Sunday morning at the request of the U.S. and Japan which said Pyongyang had violated a council ban on ballistic missile launches. Japan’s U.N. Ambassador Motohide Yoshikawa said before heading into the closed meeting that the missile went over Japan and landed near the Philippines, “and this is a clear threat to the lives of many people.”

 

Motohide said that while “China calls for more dialogue,” what’s needed now is pressure and speedy adoption of tough new sanctions. The United States and China have been working on a new sanctions resolution since North Korea’s nuclear test on Jan. 6.

 

North Korean rocket and nuclear tests are seen as crucial steps toward the North’s ultimate goal of a nuclear armed missile that could hit the U.S. mainland. North Korea under leader Kim Jong Un has pledged to bolster its nuclear arsenal unless Washington scraps what Pyongyang calls a hostile policy meant to collapse Kim’s government. Diplomats are also pushing to tighten U.N. sanctions because of the North’s Jan. 6 nuclear test.

 

In a development that will worry both Pyongyang and Beijing, a senior South Korean Defense Ministry official, Yoo Jeh Seung, told reporters that Seoul and Washington have agreed to begin talks on a possible deployment of the THADD missile defense system in South Korea. North Korea has long decried the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, and Beijing would see a South Korean deployment of THAAD, which is one of the world’s most advanced missile defense systems, as a threat to its interests in the region.

In a statement, North Korea’s National Aerospace Development Administration, in typical propaganda-laden language, praised “the fascinating vapor of Juche satellite trailing in the clear and blue sky in spring of February on the threshold of the Day of the Shining Star.” Juche is a North Korean philosophy focusing on self-reliance; the Day of the Shining Star refers to the Feb. 16 birthday of former dictator Kim Jong Il. North Korea has previously staged rocket launches to mark important anniversaries.

 

South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang Gyun said a South Korean Aegis-equipped destroyer detected the North Korean launch at 9:31 a.m. The rocket’s first stage fell off North Korea’s west coast at 9:32 a.m., and the rocket disappeared from South Korean radars at 9:36 a.m. off the southwestern coast. There was no reported damage in South Korea.

 

The U.S. Strategic Command issued a statement saying that it detected and tracked a missile launched on a southern trajectory, but that it did not pose a threat to the United States or its allies.

 

Japanese broadcaster NHK showed video of an object visible in the skies from the southern Japanese island of Okinawa that was believed to be the rocket. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency later backed away, without elaborating, from a report that said the rocket might have failed.

 

The global condemnation began almost immediately.

 

South Korean President Park Geun-hye called the launch an “intolerable provocation.” She said the North’s efforts to advance its missile capabilities were “all about maintaining the regime” in Pyongyang and criticized the North Korean leadership for ignoring the hardships of ordinary North Koreans.

 

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to “take action to totally protect the safety and well-being of our people.” U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice called the North’s missile and nuclear weapons programs a “serious threats to our interests — including the security of some of our closest allies.”

 

The Foreign Ministry in China, the North’s only major ally and its protector in the U.N. Security Council, where Beijing wields veto power, expressed “regret that, disregarding the opposition from the international community, the (North) side obstinately insisted in carrying out a launch by using ballistic missile technologies.” A statement released by the Russian Foreign Ministry criticized the rocket launch, calling on the North Korean leadership “to think about whether the policy of opposing the entire international community is serving the interests of the country.”

 

South Korean opposition lawmaker Shin Kyung-min, who attended a closed-door briefing by the National Intelligence Service following Sunday’s launch, said the NIS believes that the rocket’s payload satellite was about twice as heavy as the 100-kilogram (220-pound) satellite it launched in 2012. The NIS estimates that if the rocket would have been used as a missile, it would have had a potential range of about 5,500 kilometers (3,417 miles), Shin said.

 

Kim Jong Un has overseen two of the North’s four nuclear tests and three long-range rocket launches since taking over after the death of his father, dictator Kim Jong Il, in late 2011. The U.N. Security Council prohibits North Korea from nuclear and ballistic missile activity. Experts say that ballistic missiles and rockets in satellite launches share similar bodies, engines and other technology.

 

“If North Korea has only nuclear weapons, that’s not that intimidating. If they have only rockets, that’s not that intimidating, either. But if they have both of them, that means they can attack any target on Earth. So it becomes a global issue,” said Kwon Sejin, a professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

 

In 2013, North Korea conducted a nuclear test and then unnerved the international community by orchestrating an escalating campaign of bombast, including threats to fire nuclear missiles at the U.S. and Seoul.

 

North Korea has spent decades trying to develop operational nuclear weapons. It has said that plutonium and highly enriched uranium facilities at its main Nyongbyon nuclear complex are in operation.

 

The North is thought to have a small arsenal of crude atomic bombs and an impressive array of short and medium-range missiles. But it has yet to demonstrate that it can produce nuclear bombs small enough to place on a missile, or missiles that can reliably deliver its bombs to faraway targets.

After several failures testing a multistage, long-range rocket, it put its first satellite into space with a long-range rocket launched in December 2012.

 

The North’s recent activity comes amid a long-standing diplomatic stalemate. Six-nation negotiations on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program in exchange for aid fell apart in early 2009.

Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim and Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul; Yuri Kageyama and Eric Talmadge in Tokyo; Lolita Baldor in Washington; Louise Watt in Beijing; and Edith Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.”

 

The above story is accompanied by 10 photographs. Three were taken by rival news agency, Kyoto, from China and bought by the AP; the remaining seven were taken by AP photographers in Seoul, South Korea and Japan. They depicted citizens and soldiers watching video released by the North Korean government of the nuclear weapons test on TV screens in public venues in South Korea and of Japanese soldiers reacting to the missile launch by AP photographers in Tokyo.

 

Not a single photograph of the missile launch was allowed by North Korea to be released to the AP, despite the fact that, according to the AP, they have a full-time staff photographer, who was hand-picked by North Korea, in their so-called Pyongyang bureau.

 

The AP also listed other related stories to the nuclear missile launch at the end of the article:

 

1/ North Korea’s rocket plans seen as disrespectful of China

2/ Analysis: AP bureau chiefs in Koreas on planned launch

3/ What N. Korea rocket launch may mean for region and world

4/ China urges restraint over North Korea rocket launch

5/ AP Photos: Rocket models in North Korean propaganda displays

Released along with the AP stories datelined Pyongyang are several photographs taken by the AP “staff photographer” in Pyongyang, who was appointed by the North Korean propaganda apparatus and who works out of the offices of the rigidly controlled state media mouthpiece, the Korean Central News Agency.

None of any of this AP coverage included any reporting from the AP “news bureau” in North Korea, despite the fact that AP contends they have a “full-time staff reporter” based in Pyongyang. He, too, was hand-picked by the North Korean government, who ordered the AP to hire him as condition for opening the AP North Korea Bureau.

 

This is not the first time that Associated Press coverage by its North Korea “news bureau” in Pyongyang of top world stories has failed to offer any coverage from, well, North Korea.

 

In fact, in the four years that AP has had a “fully staffed news bureau” in Pyongyang, they have not broken a single story. In fact, their competition—notably the British Reuters News Agency– in Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, and Washington have uniformally gotten the jump on every one. These include the hacking of Sony computer systems by North Korea, two test launches of a nuclear weapon, and several missile and rocket launches, which are in fact the delivery systems being prepared to give North Korea the capability to reach and target the United States with a nuclear bomb, a country which North Korea is technically still officially at war with.

 

This does not mean that the AP coverage of North Korea by their excellent veteran journalists, who are not permitted to live in North Korea, has not been itself excellent. It just means that the North Korean “news bureau” in Pyongyang is, effectively, a world distribution system for state controlled propaganda from the most dangerous and offensive government on the planet.

 

So the question remains: why is there an AP news bureau in North Korea at all? It certainly has proven to not be capable of providing news of vital public interest to free people around the world.

 

The answer is that the top business executives of the New York based Associated Press company decided to cut a deal with the Devil in the pursuit of lucrative business contracts to distribute enormously profitable North Korean government propaganda.

The Associated Press corporate executives have refused multiple requests to release the terms of their signed, written contracts with the despots in Pyongyang.

There is very good reason for that. They are scared witless that the truth revealed will expose the arrangements for what they are: A stain on the very foundation of the concept of Free Press.

 

The AP corporate headquarters refusal to be transparent or honest is, not without irony, exactly what they demand from the sources and subjects of every other news story they produce and distribute. And it is the foundation of what every AP journalist ir required to do for every story they write on every topic—except for North Korea.

 

It is long past time AP management came clean, in the name of the integrity of, respect for, and legitimacy of a Free Press and Free People everywhere.

 

Full stop.