University blasts BBC over undercover program
Source: Agencies |
April 15, 2013, Monday
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A BRITISH university has denounced the BBC for using a student trip to North Korea as "cover" for a documentary program.
The London School of Economics said the BBC put students at risk by having at least one of a team of three journalists pretend to be affiliated with the university to gather material for a TV program set to be broadcast in the UK tonight.
The university says it tried and failed to persuade the BBC not to air the "Panorama" program.
The BBC's John Sweeney, who LSE officials say posed as a post-graduate student, said yesterday that it was "entirely wrong" for the university to try to prevent the broadcast from going forward.
LSE student union general secretary Alex Peters-Day said the students were lied to and that at least one of the students on the trip was not told in advance of the journalists' participation.
"This is a student welfare issue," she said. "We don't know what could have happened to those students and, truthfully, neither does the BBC. It's absolutely disgraceful that he put students in that position. It's incredibly reckless."
The BBC's head of news programs, Ceri Thomas, said the students were given the information needed to give informed consent to the increased risk of traveling with journalists who did not have authorization to work in North Korea.
However, he said the students were told roughly a month before the trip there would be "a journalist" traveling with them but were later told, once they were en route to North Korea, that there would be three journalists conducting undercover filming for TV.
He said students may have been under the impression a print journalist, not a three-person TV crew, was involved.
Thomas said the BBC would air the documentary despite the LSE concerns because of high public interest.
"It is disappointing for us that the LSE has chosen to make this public," he said. "We would have kept them out of this altogether. They could have avoided the publicity and we think that would have lowered the reputational risk."
He said BBC executives felt that if the deception was discovered the students likely would have been deported, but he said he could not "categorically" rule out the possibility their lives might have been at risk.
A BBC statement released yesterday indicated that the students "were all explicitly warned about the potential risks" of traveling to North Korea with journalists as part of this group. It said they were warned that they might face "arrest and detention."
The London School of Economics said the BBC put students at risk by having at least one of a team of three journalists pretend to be affiliated with the university to gather material for a TV program set to be broadcast in the UK tonight.
The university says it tried and failed to persuade the BBC not to air the "Panorama" program.
The BBC's John Sweeney, who LSE officials say posed as a post-graduate student, said yesterday that it was "entirely wrong" for the university to try to prevent the broadcast from going forward.
LSE student union general secretary Alex Peters-Day said the students were lied to and that at least one of the students on the trip was not told in advance of the journalists' participation.
"This is a student welfare issue," she said. "We don't know what could have happened to those students and, truthfully, neither does the BBC. It's absolutely disgraceful that he put students in that position. It's incredibly reckless."
The BBC's head of news programs, Ceri Thomas, said the students were given the information needed to give informed consent to the increased risk of traveling with journalists who did not have authorization to work in North Korea.
However, he said the students were told roughly a month before the trip there would be "a journalist" traveling with them but were later told, once they were en route to North Korea, that there would be three journalists conducting undercover filming for TV.
He said students may have been under the impression a print journalist, not a three-person TV crew, was involved.
Thomas said the BBC would air the documentary despite the LSE concerns because of high public interest.
"It is disappointing for us that the LSE has chosen to make this public," he said. "We would have kept them out of this altogether. They could have avoided the publicity and we think that would have lowered the reputational risk."
He said BBC executives felt that if the deception was discovered the students likely would have been deported, but he said he could not "categorically" rule out the possibility their lives might have been at risk.
A BBC statement released yesterday indicated that the students "were all explicitly warned about the potential risks" of traveling to North Korea with journalists as part of this group. It said they were warned that they might face "arrest and detention."
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