BBC under fire for clandestine documentary

A leading British university criticized the BBC on Sunday for arranging an academic trip to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to make an undercover documentary, saying the network had put students who were unaware of the plans in danger.

The London School of Economics said three BBC journalists - including respected reporter John Sweeney - joined a student society trip at the end of March, posing as tourists to make a film about the DPRK.

The university said the students had been told "a journalist" would accompany them, but it had not been made clear the BBC's aim was to use the visit to record an undercover film for Panorama, a current-affairs program.

"This was not an official LSE trip," Craig Calhoun, the Director of the LSE, wrote on Twitter. "Non-students & BBC organized it, used the society to recruit some students, & passed it off." Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have escalated in recent week.

Alex Peters-Day, general secretary of the LSE's student union, told Sky News the students were told of the BBC's intentions to make an undercover film only at a very late stage, with one saying she was informed only when they were on the plane to the DPRK.

She said the BBC had used the students as "human shields".

The university said Sweeney, who graduated from the LSE in 1980, had posed as a history PhD student at the university to gain entry to the country even though he currently has no connection with the institution.

"BBC staff have admitted that the group was deliberately misled to the involvement of the BBC in the visit," the LSE said in an e-mail to staff and students released to the media.

"It is the LSE's view that the students were not given enough information to enable informed consent, yet were given enough to put them in serious danger if the subterfuge had been uncovered prior to their departure from North Korea."

Unwelcome attention

The incident brought more unwelcome attention to the BBC, which has faced sustained criticism for its handling of an investigation into alleged child sex abuse committed by the late Jimmy Savile, who was a top BBC television personality.

The Panorama documentary on the DPRK was scheduled to air on Monday night.

The BBC has thus far refused the university's plea to keep it off the air to protect the students from possible retribution if their identities are revealed on the show. The broadcaster said three students who have asked to be removed from the show will have their images blurred so they cannot be identified.

The BBC's Sweeney said on Sunday it was "entirely wrong" for the university to try to prevent the broadcast. He said all of the students had been told about the potential risk and had agreed to allow the journalists to join the trip, adding that all were more than 18 years old and capable of making their own decisions.

A BBC story about the trip that the network filed online on Sunday said Sweeney and a two-person crew that included his wife spent "eight days undercover" in the DPRK.

The LSE's Peters-Day said on Sunday that 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 told a BBC interviewer. "We don't know what could have happened to those students and, truthfully, neither does the BBC. It's absolutely disgraceful that he (Sweeney) put students in that position. It's incredibly reckless."

She said Sweeney was being "disingenuous" by citing free-speech concerns as justification for putting students in danger. In the past, journalists have been detained for working without authorization in the DPRK, where foreign reporting crews usually have to operate under strict governmental supervision.

BBC News Head of News Programs Ceri Thomas said on a BBC News program on Sunday that 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 the DPRK.

Reuters-AP

(China Daily 04/16/2013 page10)