Undercover journalist. BBC sinks to new low.

Was the programme commissioned by the BBC, or did John Sweeney pitch it to them and make it sound like a good idea? He is a controversial journalist who is, perhaps, best known for his highly acrimonious encounter with the Scientologists. I have his very interesting book about them on my Kindle, but I think it's probably fair to say that they became an obsession.

Pogs no, I havent seen any of the interviews on television but I have heard quite a few on the radio.

The students in this group were not children, moreover they are meant to be our brightest and best and most politically aware. If they weren't they wouldn't have got into the LSE in the first place.

They should have been well aware without being told what the dangers of travelling to North Korea could be, with or without an accompanying journalist, particularly under current circumstances.

And j08, I quite agree that we know that North Korea has nuclear capabilities and an unstable leader. but we emphatically do not know quite enough already about the country. We actually know very little and any information about the state of the country and its people must be invaluable at this difficult time.

This expedition was arranged without BBC involvement being officially sanctioned by LSE. The students appear to be divided about whether they were properly briefed before they arrived in Beijing. Once in Beijing, it would have been difficult for them to have dropped out - no visas for China, no return tickets from Beijing. The BBC is said to have approved the undercover assignment 'at the highest level' and to have carried out a risk assessment. Presumably this assessment included factors like the possibility of all the party disappearing into a N Korean jail for an indefinite period. Being shot? Who knows. What they didn't apparently take into account was the effect the making of the programme would have on potential future visits by other students and staff at LSE and the problems likely to be caused when people from LSE (possibly from any British university) want to visit other areas where it's difficult to get a visa. And the effect on the students' future careers. In other words, this was a BBC stunt in which LSE was embroiled without its consent or knowledge based on a risk assessment which only took account of some of the risks.

Exactly! And then the programme itself didn't tell us anything we didn't already know, or could imagine.. Was it worth it?!!! (No)

FlicketyB - they have dead leaders on display in glass cases, the people have to bow in front of statues bearing the hammer and sickle, there is a lot of poverty everywhere amongst the ordinary people, the contrast between North and South Korea is very marked.

We knew it all.

I watched the programme and have to say the content did not justify the risks taken. The hardest question asked was why they hadn't seen any patients in the hospital they looked round. The answer was that patients were treated in the mornings. To be fair if I was in hospital I wouldn't want a group of foreign (non medical) students coming round the ward!

I think John Sweeney would have been congratulated for his undercover efforts in other circumstances. No-one bangs on about the risks that decent journalists have taken over the years, to bring good, investigative stories that are helpful to us - this, surely, is one such story. We're all tired of celeb-seeking hacks and paparazzi who do nothing to demonstrate good journalism. Adult students who choose to visit North Korea are already facing risks, including refusal of entry on a whim. It will be no great loss if LSE can't send more students for a while.

I still think the programme was worth the effort. the sight of hospitals without patients, farms without fields or cattle, the excuses given for these strange sights brought home the full meaning of the phrase 'brain washing'

You do not need to traipse round wards to see patients. Visit any hospital in the UK, the bustle and constant movement of people through it, you will see enough patients in a walk round its main corridors to know they are there in abundance. More to the point the suggestion that patients came in for treatment in the morning and then went home in the after noon, if correct, suggests that it was little more than a minor injuries unit. Leaving the question as to where those with more serious illnesses went, if anywhere, open.

A reporter visiting a country as tightly controlled as North Korea as part of a group of tourists, albeit, all university students, is going by definition to be kept away from anything that their hosts do not want them to see but we do desperately need to know more of this country, the condition of its people and the conditions of their lives - and this was a contribution to that.