I'm not sure this is a big deal. N Korea has cut itself off from the world. If we had a pic of their site we wouldn't have any question. Was CNN saying these were actual photos? If so, we have something. If they were just posting a photo to show what a nuclear plant looks like, we don't. What they said in the story in reference to the pics matters a lot. I'm hoping we have something, and I hate to be skeptical.
In regards to "hard news" vis a vis North Korea, it is a non-issue.
What it does show is that CNN, who along with the rest of MSM puts on such airs about it's "professionalism", is rather lazy and sloppy if not downright deceitful when they can get away with it.
Everybody and their dog knows that North Korea has a nuclear reactor. The photo was included in a little slide show next to the story : " North Korea rallies support for Kim.... U.S. rejects Pyongyang demands for direct nuclear talks.... Saturday, February 12, 2005 Posted: 1:21 PM EST (1821 GMT) "
The photo was entitled "An aerial photo of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear plant outside of Pyongyang."
It was given such a title when it's link documents that it's web location is: http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/02/12/nkorea.nukes.ap/story.suspected.site.iran.jpg (Bold type mine.)
In other words, someone at CNN wanted to illustrate a "North Korean reactor photo", couldn't find one, was too lazy to look harder for one and then simply pulled out the "suspected.site.iran" stock photo and then gave it a false label.
Professional?
Hardly.
Journalism is not a true profession as it has no enforceable professional standards.
Can you imagine if I practiced medicine that way?
"Hey, Doc, the CT Scanner hard disk crashed and lost Mrs Smith's CT images. What should we do?"
"Well, calling her back would be too much trouble. I think it was negative so just get someone else's negative CT images, make a copy of the images and put her name on them."
I would lose my license for that.
Before the Internet, the MSM could get away with such deceit. Now, they find it much harder to do so.