Back in June, I cited a story from the Chosun Ilbo on why Western men like Korean women. You may or may not recall yours truly blasting a couple of the Westerners quoted in Ye Olde Chosun for making it look like Westerners dig Korean chicks because they’re quiet, docile and submissive. Well, I got an email from Zane Ivy, one of the guys quoted by the Chosun, in which he said that what got printed in the Chosun was “not so much a ‘quote’ of what I said, but a somewhat inaccurate paraphrase.”
Allow me to reprint the email here:
This is really not so much a “quote” of what I said, but a somewhat inaccurate paraphrase. I talked with the reporter in question via phone for around twenty minutes, and was very reluctant to give a “sound bite.” Our discussion went into quite a bit of depth about Western/Korean cultures, and several times the reporter told me she didn’t really want a deep cultural analysis, she wanted something of simple interest to her readers…and I in turn complained of the superficial analysis concerning this sort of thing that I read in the press here. I never said that Korean women were/are “submissive” in general when speaking with the reporter, however I DID say that they were often submissive to their parents.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a similar thing happened with the other “Western” men interviewed.
Assuming what you describe above is accurate — and given some of the liberties I’ve seen Korean reporters take with direct quotes, it likely is — it would seem both the Chosun Ilbo and I owe you apologies, Mr. Ivy. I can’t speak for the Chosun, so mine will have to do for now.
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Oh, I’m not surprised, not at all. The concept of “direct quote” is almost nonexistent in mainstream Korean media (although it may be getting better). The strict and simple rule of punctuation that anything written between quotation marks has to be what exactly came out of the person’s mouth does not seem to apply. Furthermore, the editing skills and distortion techniques (placing things out of context) of the Chotsun (no disrespect to the Marmot) and Co. are known to be more advanced than the mouse-keyboard hand-eye coordination of our best Starcraft players.
Which leads me to state one reason why I think OhMyNews has a chance, despite the rubbish they sometimes write — they tend to be more complete and accurate with their quotes, especially those from important political press conferences.
Which all doesn’t mean much. There is no such word as “journalistic integrety” in Korea. It simply does not exist.
Well, you know, I’ve had similar experiences with media in Korea, Russia, US (but by some reasons never in Australia even if it was the Australians who have approached me most frequently). In most cases, the media people need ’sound bites’. So if you are willing to talk to them, there are two strategies: a) either produce a decent sound bite yourself - and make sure your words have been written down correctly; OR b) insist that they would show you the final text.
Isn’t this a feature of some sections of the press worldwide? The tabloid press in the UK would consider this to be ‘responsible’ reporting in at least it held some semblance of what had been said. Their preferred method is simply to make it up and retract only in the event of successful litigation….
I wrote a short collumn for the Chosun (KOrean print edition) in I think it was probably about 2001. Was supposed to write a week for at least four months.
They rearranged everything I wrote to make it into what they wanted to hear. I quite after two installments.