Kyodo News announced Wednesday that widely used photographs and videotape of the incident involving five North Koreans seeking asylum at a Japanese consulate in China earlier this month were taken by its reporters.
It is the first time Kyodo has officially acknowledged this.
Kyodo had been refraining from reporting further details to conceal the source of its information, but has now decided to reveal more background because a week has passed since the five left China and because speculation about the video footage could affect Kyodo's credibility and Sino-Japanese relations.