Associated Press to Open Pyongyang Bureau

Kim Pyong-ho (R), general director of North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), departs from Pyongyang for New York on June 23. The Associated Press invited Kim and his delegation to visit after its President and CEO Tom Curley visited the North Korean capital three months earlier. (KCNA-Yonhap)

KCNA President Kim P’yo’ng-ho (Kim Pyong Ho) arrived back in the DPRK on 1 July [Friday] after leading a DPRK press delegation on a trip to the United States, where KCNA completed an agreement with the Associated Press to open a full-time bureau in Pyongyang.  KCNA reports:

A delegation of the Korean Central News Agency led by Director General Kim Pyong Ho came back home by air Friday after visiting the United States at the invitation of AP.

During the visit the KCNA and the AP signed an agreement on the AP’s use of video from KCNA’s archive. They also signed other agreements and cooperation documents including MOUs on setting up the AP Bureau in Pyongyang and holding a joint photo exhibition in New York.

They will contribute to deepening the relations between the two news agencies, promoting mutual understanding of the peoples of the DPRK and the U.S. and improving the bilateral relations.

The Associated Press entered into an agreement to open a bureau in Pyongyang.  The AP will join Xinhua and ITAR-TASS as the only news agencies with a full-time presence in the country.  The AP’s Television Network has operated a video bureau in the country since 2006 by like Kyodo‘s Pyongyang bureau, it was staffed on a casual basis.   The Associated Press, via JoongAng Ilbo,  reports:

A memorandum of understanding agreed upon by the AP and the Korean Central News Agency would expand AP’s presence in North Korea to a level unmatched by other Western news organizations. It would build on the AP’s existing video news bureau, which opened in Pyongyang in 2006, by allowing AP text and photo journalists to work in North Korea as well.

With the signing, the agencies agreed to begin work immediately on detailed planning needed to set up and operate the new bureau. It would be the first permanent text and photo bureau operated by a Western news organization in the North Korean capital.

In addition, the agencies signed a contract designating AP as the exclusive international distributor of contemporary and historic video from KCNA’s archive. The agencies also plan a joint photo exhibition in New York next year. They already had an agreement between them to distribute KCNA photo archives to the global market, signed earlier this year.

“AP is once again being trusted to open a door to better understanding between a nation and the world,” said AP President and CEO Tom Curley. “We look forward to providing coverage for AP’s global audience.”

Kim Pyong-ho, president of KCNA, said after a signing ceremony Tuesday: “I hope this agreement contributes not only to the strengthening of relations between our two news agencies but also to the better understanding between the peoples of our two countries and the improvement of DPRK-U.S. relations.” Five years ago, AP Television News, headquartered in London, became the first Western news organization to establish an office in North Korea.

Kwon Tae-ho reported about the agreement in Hankyoreh:

The memorandum states that AP will have a monopoly on distributing KCNA images worldwide, while KCNA will guarantee and expand AP’s network of coverage within North Korea. This opens the way for AP reporters and photographers to be stationed permanently in North Korea.

AP President Tom Curley described the agreement as a historic occasion and that he hoped to provide coverage from North Korea to readers throughout the world. KCNA President Kim Pyong-ho also said he hoped the agreement would not only strengthen the relationship between the two agencies, but also increase understanding between the North Korea and the United States, and help improve North Korea-U.S. relations.

The AP has been negotiating with North Korea on items such as the opening of a Pyongyang bureau for the past few years. The discussion gathered pace when the KCNA invited three AP executives including Curley, Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll and International Editor John Daniszewski to Pyongyang in March this year. In May 2006, APTN, AP’s video division, became the first Western media organization to open an office in Pyongyang, but the agency’s New York headquarters did not dispatch permanent staff to the city, instead using a system whereby a producer at its Hong Kong branch made occasional reporting trips.

The only media organizations that currently have staff permanently dispatched at Pyongyang bureaus, other than the Korean-Japanese Choson Sinbo, which functions indirectly as a mouthpiece for North Korea, are China’s Xinhua News Agency and People‘s Daily, and Russia’s ITAR-TASS. Japan’s Kyodo News also runs a Pyongyang bureau but does not have staff permanently stationed there.

Attention is also focusing upon the question of how much North Korea will reveal itself to Western society through the opening of the Pyongyang bureau. Executive Editor Carroll said the AP would gather news about the country and its people in Pyongyang, just like at bureaus in other areas. There could be no censorship, she said.