Mick Hartley

Exciting times for Associated Press. Last month they signed an agreement with North Korea’s state news agency, KCNA, to open a bureau in Pyongyang:

The AP has operated a television office in North Korea for five years, but the new operation will be the “first permanent text and photo bureau operated by a Western news organization in the North Korean capital," according to a release.

The AP and KCNA have been working on the agreement for several months. In March, AP chief executive Tom Curley, executive editor Kathleen Carroll and senior managing editor for international news John Daniszewski traveled to Pyongyang. More recently, KCNA president Kim Pyong Ho led a delegation to New York.

"This agreement between AP and KCNA is historic and significant,” Curley said in a statement. “AP is once again being trusted to open a door to better understanding between a nation and the world. We are grateful for this opportunity and look forward to providing coverage for AP’s global audience in our usually reliable and insightful way."

So, how's it going?

The Associated Press (AP) has asked its client agencies worldwide to withdraw a North Korean news agency’s photo of flooding in the North’s capital, saying it appears to have been altered through digital technology.

The photo taken by the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) was distributed to AP members and customers on July 16 and purports to show floods that hit Pyongyang a day earlier.

More here:

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.

[Photo: AP/Yonhap]

But Lee Yong-hwan, a professor of photography at Chungang University, said, "The boundary between the trees and the water on the left side is blurry, and there is a pixel spread at the knees of the man carrying his shoes in his hands. There are signs that the photo was altered." 

As evidence of photoshopping, the website North Korean Tech cited the way the people’s legs neatly enter the water and the lack of dark water marks on their trousers. 

A Unification Ministry official said, "The North seems to be exaggerating flood damage to extract aid from the international community."