News Broadcasting
CNN’s 2 docs focus on political strife in North Korea and Aids
MUMBAI: News broadcaster CNN will air two documentaries-Undercover In the Secret State and Living With Aids.
Undercover In The Secret State features secretly filmed footage of public executions and people struggling for life in North Korea. This airs on 19 November 2005 at 5:30 pm and on 20 November at 10:30 am and 6:30 pm.
Grainy footage, never before seen on television, shows a crowd being ordered to gather in a dusty field in North Korea . A public official tells the people that those who go against their country will end up with a fate like this one. Minutes later, a man is tied to a pole and shot by a firing squad, his body slumping lifelessly to the ground. His alleged crime: trying to make contact with the outside world.
This rare video of a public execution—likely the first ever smuggled out of North Korea —is an example of how dissidents are using technology as a new weapon in their battle against North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il. In North Korea , protest is both difficult and dangerous. But now, dissidents are using hidden digital cameras and cell phones to record, as never before, images of life inside the country. In chilling detail, these images show the world what conditions are really like there.
Korean journalist ,Jung-Eun Kim, tracks down dissidents doing the dangerous work of making these secret films and smuggling them out of the country. In furtive meetings on the Chinese border and safe houses in Bangkok , Thailand , she learns firsthand how these images are captured and at what risk.
The documentary footage includes the cursory trials and public executions in two different border towns. Also captured on hidden camera: emaciated, dirty, homeless children steal and scrounge for scraps in the markets. In the bleak, frigid North Korean countryside, political prisoner labor in a concentration camp the government says doesn’t exist. And, under a bridge in a factory town, a dissident defaces a poster of “The Dear Leader,” films his anti-government protest and runs for his life. His act of protest has cost him everything: his home, his country, a life with his wife and daughter.
North Korea is one of the world’s last Stalinist societies, a tightly closed state that strictly controls its people. There is no freedom to travel, to speak openly, to question or oppose the regime. The government of North Korea describes the nation as a paradise, but refugees speak of famine, prison, torture, lack of food, safety and even the most basic freedoms. The images now being captured by dissidents are some of the first to show what life is really like there.
The documentary also shows how information threatens North Korea ‘s rigid isolation and seeps into North Korean culture as never before. Smuggled DVDs of South Korean soap operas and movies from the West are showing citizens that North Korea may not be the paradise the government indicates. An Internet radio station in Seoul , South Korea , run by North Korean defectors broadcasts news to those on the border. A smuggled cell phone allows Jung-Eun to speak personally with a young man she met years ago at the border, and who now struggles to survive in North Korea .
Another documentary is called Living With Aids. Filmmaker, Sorious Samura’s documentary reveals the horrifying backdrop to the spread of HIV in Africa It airs on 30 November 2005 at 7.30 pm, on 1 December 2005 World AIDS Day at 7.30 pm, on 3 December 2005 at 5.30 pm and on 4 December at 10:30 am and 6:30 pm.
Samura travels to Mongu, Zambia to find out how Aids is destroying Africa and what Africans are doing to cope with its merciless impact on day to day life. Living with a family beset by Aids, and working in the region’s largest hospital for four weeks, Samura discovers that the complex African culture is exacerbating the spread of the disease and its social toll.
Through conversations with hospital patients, wives and mothers, party-goers and sex workers, Samura uncovers the shocking truth behind the rate of infection amongst the young, procreating generation: recklessness towards knowingly infecting sexual partners, a disdain for using condoms for personal protection, and an ingrained reticence to educating offspring about safe sexual relations. Samura speaks frankly about living conditions and their impact on children’s understanding of intimate relations. “Parents need their own bedrooms. We all know that children model their behaviour on their parents. Exposure to adult intimacy means some girls are losing their virginity as early as six years old.”
CNN International senior VP ,Rena Golden, says, “Living With Aids has the kind of editorial value and educational impact that work side by side as a vital piece of journalism that heeds the responsibility of CNN and other news networks to bring such important issues to the fore. CNN is pleased to be a part of the awareness drive”.
The documentary will be seen internationally on CNN by a potential audience of more than 186 million television households and hotel rooms, whom Samura is hoping will be uncomfortable with what it sees. “The global premiere of my documentary is an important opportunity to communicate to a wide audience how easily HIV can be spread, and to gain international recognition of the sensitive issues involved. This is crucial to changing the statistics in the fight against Aids,” he says.
News Broadcasting
CNN-News18 to air live counting day coverage for five state election results on May 4
The channel is rolling out its biggest election coverage machinery yet for results day on 4th May
NOIDA: The votes have been cast. Now comes the reckoning. CNN-News18 is pulling out all the stops for results day on 4th May, when counting begins across five battleground states — West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry — in what promises to be one of the most closely watched electoral verdicts in recent memory.
The channel’s coverage, titled Battle for the States: The Verdict, kicks off at 7am and runs through the day across linear TV, connected television and YouTube. It is the culmination of CNN-News18’s multi-format editorial initiative, Battle for the States, which has tracked the polls from the beginning under the theme Road to Power.
At the operational heart of the coverage will be the Live Results Hub, the channel’s central command centre built to collate, verify and process real-time data flowing in from reporters stationed at counting centres across constituencies. The hub combines newsroom intelligence, analytics and on-the-ground reporting to deliver what the channel promises will be the fastest and most accurate results coverage in English news.
Leading the on-air charge will be primetime anchors Rahul Shivshankar, Anand Narasimhan, Aman Sharma, Nabila Jamal and Shivani Gupta. They will be joined by a wide panel of commentators including author Chetan Bhagat; GVL Narasimha Rao, senior leader of the BJP; Smita Prakash, editor of ANI; activist Saira Shah Halim; political analyst Sumanth C Raman; Abhijit Iyer Mitra, senior fellow at IPCS; Amitabh Tiwari, founder of VoteVibe; columnist Abhijit Majumdar; Nalin Mehta, managing editor of MoneyControl; political analyst Tehseen Poonawalla; senior journalist Subir Bhaumik; and political analyst Manojit Mandal.
Shivshankar, who serves as editorial affairs director at CNN-News18, set out the stakes plainly. “Counting day is one of the most watched events in the electoral cycle, where speed and credibility are tested in real time,” he said. “Battle for the States: The Verdict is built on that promise, combining ground reporting, sharp analysis and cutting-edge election technology to give viewers the clearest and fastest route to the verdict. On May 4, CNN-News18 will once again be the nation’s most trusted channel to witness democracy in action.”
Smriti Mehra, chief executive of English and Business News at Network18, framed the coverage in broader terms. “Elections are defining national events, and audiences turn to brands they trust in moments that matter,” she said. “CNN-News18 has consistently led from the front in every election coverage, and this special programming reflects the scale of our ambition and editorial strength.”
The channel has form here. It claims to have been India’s most preferred English news destination for election results for the past 20 years, covering everything from the 2024 general elections to the Delhi, Maharashtra, Bihar and BMC polls on the back of what it calls an “Always First, Always Right” record. Five states, one day, and a nation waiting for answers. The clock starts at 7am on 4th May.
