The Associated Press continued its war of words with a Delaware-based watchdog group this week as the global news agency fiercely denied reports its Pyongyang bureau submits to censorship by North Korea’s government.
“AP does not submit to censorship, period. It is unlikely the writer contacted all the sources he claims, one of whom has publicly denied speaking to him at all. It is regrettable that AP is being accused of falsehoods by a disgruntled former business collaborator who has leaped to bogus conclusions,” the AP’s director of media relations, Paul Colford, told the Washington Examiner, referring to a 4,000-word-plus report published last week by NK News.
Investigative journalist Nate Thayer reported last week that AP and the Korea Central News Agency struck a deal in 2011 granting the U.S. wire service exclusive access to the secretive Hermit Kingdom in return for favorable reporting on North Korea’s government.
Thayer also reported AP agreed to publish materials that border on propaganda. Further, the NK News report alleged that the Korea Central News Agency likely controls the Pyongyang AP bureau, that the bureau’s staff is hand-picked by North Korean government officials and that the AP actually pays cash to the country’s government.
The NK News report is based on several interviews Thayer said he conducted with multiples sources familiar with the story. The report is also based largely on a draft copy of the 2011 agreement between the AP and the Korea Central News Agency.
However, the AP maintained that Thayer’s copy of the early draft agreement is much different from the final version. The AP also alleged Thayer has a personal vendetta against the global news organization dating back to the late 1990s.
“In the late 1990s, Nate Thayer, a former AP stringer, became disgruntled over a distribution agreement with AP covering video he had shot in Cambodia. More recently, he dismissed the value of AP’s North Korea bureau shortly before he sought from AP detailed proprietary information about the bureau for further articles that were published on Dec. 24 by NKnews.org,” the AP said in its initial response to the report.
“No serious news organization would hand over the kind of business agreements, salary information and other payment documentation that Mr. Thayer sought. His latest articles from Dec. 24 are full of errors, inaccuracies and baseless innuendo. The ‘draft agreement’ between AP and North Korea’s KCNA news agency that he cites is remote from the final document,” it added.
The Pyongyang AP bureau has yet to publish anything on major North Korean-related stories, including Kim Jong-Un’s mysterious six-week disappearance or Sony Pictures’ “The Interview” fiasco, according to Mediaite.
“Our statement speaks for itself,” Colford told the Examiner. “This ‘story’ had been spiked by the website until the writer came across some ‘draft agreement’ that contains language that AP would never agree to.”
NK News, for its part, stands by its report, accusing the AP of being purposefully cagey in its response to the report.
“It is unfortunate that the AP are ignoring to address the content of Mr. Thayer’s story and instead focusing on separate issues. If, as Mr. Colford suggests, there are differences between the draft agreement and what was actually signed, AP should clarify those differences publicly,” NKNews.org Director Chad O’Carroll said in a statement. “NK News has requested clarity on details of operations from AP several times, but received no substantive responses.”
NK News did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
