It finally has happened! After all these many years, a major U.S. news organization is opening shop in North Korea.
It’s the Associated Press, fittingly enough, which after months of negotiations is receiving a permit from North Korean authorities to open a media bureau in Pyongyang.
According to Yonhap News Agency, an English-language news source, the Associated Press is the first western media bureau “to station full-time staff in the reclusive communist nation for text, photo, and video services,” according to an official announcement.
Tom Curley, the AP president and chief executive, says this is a “historic opportunity to provide coverage from North Korea for our global audience.” In turn, Kim Pyong-ho, the president of the North Korea Central News Agency, says that “even though our two countries do not have normalized relations, we have been able to find a way to understand one another and to cooperate closely enough to open an AP bureau.”
According to The Associated Press, AP writers and photojournalists will be allowed to work in North Korea on a regular basis, operating under the same standards and practices of free and fair press as other AP bureaus.
We’ll see about that!
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