Jeong Ji-Min has had enough.
When MBC executives tried to blame her translations for being the cause of misleading and false information that subsequently lead to the mad-cow debacle, she got angry since:
she had warned the producers of the program about possible translation errors, but she said her comments had been ignored.
Sadly enough, PD Diary spent twenty-minutes Tuesday night in an attempt to defend the program against accusations of editorial liberties that most would call lying. As Ms. Jeong was quoted: “the problems are not translation issues but reflect deliberate editorial intent.”
The JoongAng article is here.
Update: The Government is using Ms. Jeong’s comments to further an investigation into the producer’s “mad cow” broadcast. As per Ms. Jeong’s comments, as per the JoongAng Ilbo
She also repeated that she warned the producers but PD Diary said Wednesday that the warning was not strongly and officially presented.
53 Comments
Precious.
after i die of vCJD (mad cow disease to you degree forging expats and bored Korean middle school, high school, and university students), please force feed my brain and spinal tissue to PD Diary producers.
the best justice is served infected!
I hope PD Notebook burns in hell for his. However, I’ll be willing to settle for public humiliation and legal prosecution…
Slimy irresponsible twats.
We all knew that PD Notebook lied about US beef when the program first aired. That said, I am actually glad this took place. It stopped the FTA, which I do not think is in the best interest of the US, it has pushed the removal of the US troops one step closer to that evacuation plane/boat. And I still can buy good Australian beef at E-Mart. So…. where’s the beef??
Thanks PD Notebook….
“Its earlier translation of ‘dairy cow’ as ‘mad cow disease-infected cow’ was not a poor translation, but a translation with interpretation, the program argued.”
Simply priceless.
Swashbuckling dishonesty! I hope they can the entire show.
I don’t know I should cry or laugh but don’t we all know it will come down like this…
I despise MBC in general for its Leftist slant, and PD Notebook in particular for its sensationalist, at times even outright deceitful, reporting. Nonetheless, I ought to also emphasize that PD Notebook did get Hwang Woo-suk story right, and it took inordinate amount of courage to do so, all alone.
So I find the wrath of the conservative media (esp. Cho Gab-je calling out the program) a bit hypocritical.
You have unbearably low standards. The job of journalists is to get the story right every time, and there is no carryover credit for previous success when it comes to evaluating dishonest propoganda like the Mad Cow piece.
Dan Rather will be remembered for one story he got horribly wrong, not the thousands he got right. And that’s the fate he deserves.
Even worse, Dan Rather will be remembered for “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” and suing his employer.
Rather did inspire one of the better latter-day REM songs….
I wonder if REM had to pay him royalties.
I suppose with the reputation of the Korean media, the equation must be flipped. They get it wrong so consistently and so often that the one they get right will be remembered, and the scores that are wrong are swept under the rug as the norm.
iheartblueballs,
You’ve captured my outlook on Korea better than I could on my own.
I concede that I have “unbearably low standards” when it comes to certain aspects of Korean culture–and almost no expectations for the better.
But I also think it’s unrealistic–and perhaps even utopian–to compare South Korean journalistic standards to its contemporary American counterpart. Free press is over three hundred years-old in America; and it is considerably longer if we consider its roots in the English tradition. A better American analogue, if one must come up with one, is any of the worst offenders of the “yellow journalism” era. Even then, we’d be unfair to the Korean press in chronological terms.
By the way, why don’t we have the comment preview function any more? It would be of tremendous help to those who are not native English speaker like myself.
It’s quite proper to slag PD Diary, but the different reaction of the two audiences is also instructive. In the U.S., when Dan Rather tried to pass off a 2000s Word document as a 1970s type-written page, he was called on it pretty quickly and the incident actually backfired and helped W’s campaign (Evil Genius Rove(tm) no doubt planted it).
Here, blatant falsehoods on the airwaves were treated as fact and hindreds of thousands of lemmings took to the streets with their pretty candles.
I don’t believe this story. Koreans are warm-hearted, friendly and honest people who love foreigners and would never lie, or overcharge a person for something.
Their media would never mislead the public about foreigners in any way.
And remember, it’s “white mans paradise” don’t forget.
If this is true, than they would be the biggest hypocrites in Asia, so it can’t be true!
Wedge I agree that the american public has become more discerning but much of that is just in the last 50 years or so, take for example the “faked lemming suicides” staged in Disney’s White Wilderness people still use the lemming blind following reference even though we all know it has no basis in reality.
In the shower just now I was wondering how long it would take before someone from the Lemming Defense League would make a statement. The answer: 23 minutes. Thanks!
@9 yes exposed got the Hwang Woo Suck story, but if I recall, their interview methods, particularly of some of his grad students who divulged some key information, were highly unprofessional and manipulative. If one is a “the ends justify the means” type of person, one can give them loads of credit for exposing Hwang, but if one wants to give them credit for being professional and respectable in the Hwang affair, one had better review PD Diary’s methods.
@Cmm, did you get your website fixed up yet? It still doesn’t work on my computer, just a mixed up directory ^.^
@19
While Disney did stage the lemming “suicides” in White Wilderness, the reality isn’t far from the truth. Here is a documentary clip from Encyclopedia Britannica of lemmings in Norway:
http://cache.eb.com/new-multim.....min002.wmv
I think we can continue to safely refer to the Mad Cow protests as what Slim coined as “Lemmingstock 2008.”
@23
*that virtual* reality isn’t far from the truth.
hehe
Right - like the way that ‘PD 수첩’ really means ‘PD Book of Lies and Misrepresentation of Fact’.
MBC is nothing but a bunch of Rho (Moo-hyun) and (way) left of center worhipping queens. I really hope there is public humiliation and a lot of resignations. I also hope all those people choke on their candles in some fashion or another for being so….ready for this…stupid.
David, no offense intended, but have you graduated high school yet? You seem personally angered by all of this for some reason and I am wondering if that is due to hormone imbalance or something?
Again, no offense intended, just wondering.
How unprofessional is this? The slipshod, propagandist mentality of those supposedly entrusted to convey information to the public is disgraceful.
But how delightful to see them come undone.
But how pointless. It changes nothing. Nobody ever seems to learn from these disgraceful scandals. They seem to come away with even more absurd opinions, get more deeply stuck in the mud of their conceptual prisons.
I recall that there was apocalyptic sect whose adherents were waiting for the world to end on a certain date. When the date came and went and nothing happened, you might think that they would have been disillusioned, but oddly enough, it somehow only seemed to strengthen their beliefs. They thought they were being tested and held even more steadfastly to their expectations - kind of like Cubs fans…
#27 Since you asked, I graduated college. No, I get angry at these people because we (the US) have almost no limitations on the amount of Korean crap we take into our country. Samsung and LG cell phones, Hyundai cars, crazy college students. While the Koreans thrown up all sorts of legistlation against our goods. I don’t see the iPhone being sold here or GM motor vehicles. Our college students go to Japan, so I don’t worry about that. But, with the Koreans, everything has to be a onesided tilt in their favor. Trade issues are nothing but favorable to the Koreans, and the beef thing is proof of that. So, yeah, I get a little pissy when Koreans tell me that what the US does in it’s trade practices is unfair. Because just like PD Notebook, they are lying through their teeth. Full stop, end of story. Why swlee?
Here is a reference to doomsday cults in wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_cult
“Social scientists have found that while some group members will leave after the date for a doomsday prediction by the leader has passed uneventfully, others actually feel their belief and commitment to the group strengthened. Often when a group’s doomsday prophesies or predictions fail to come true, the group leader will simply set a new date for impending doom, or predict a different type of catastrophe on a different date. Niederhoffer and Kenner attribute this motivation of the charismatic leader to maintain a consistent belief structure as due to a desire to save sunk cost: “When you have gone far out on a limb and so many people have followed you, and there is much “sunk cost,” as economists would say, it is difficult to admit you have been wrong.” In Experiments With People: Revelations from Social Psychology, Abelson, Frey and Gregg explain this further: “..continuing to proselytize on behalf of a doomsday cult whose prophecies have been disconfirmed, although it makes little logical sense, makes plenty of psychological sense if people have already spent months proselytizing on the cult’s behalf. Persevering allows them to avoid the embarrassment of how wrong they were in the first place.” The common-held belief in a catastrophic event occurring on a future date can have the effect of ingraining followers with a sense of uniqueness and purpose. In addition, after a failed prophesy members may attempt to explain the outcome through rationalization and dissonance reduction. Explanations may include stating that the group members had misinterpreted the leader’s original plan, that the cataclysmic event itself had been postponed to a later date by the leader, or that the activities of the group itself had forestalled disaster. In the case of the Festinger study, when the prophecy of a cataclysmic flood was proved false, the members pronounced that their faith in God had prevented the event. They then proceeded to attempt to convert new members with renewed strength.
Does this sound like anyone you know?
I recall that there was apocalyptic sect whose adherents were waiting for the world to end on a certain date.
Ancient Mayan prophesy says that a cataclysmic world event will happen in 2012. Something to look forward to.
@22 I don’t have a website.
I assume you are referring to the website that sells larger-than-Korean-sized condoms to people in Korea. I don’t know what’s up with that page. You can search for the people on facebook, just make sure you spell 외국 as wayguk. You’ve posted three times about that site now. You seem quite interested. Not surprising though because you actually DID strike me as a catcher.^^
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/.....ent-165935
#9 “I ought to also emphasize that PD Notebook did get Hwang Woo-suk story right,”
They got the Dr. Hwang story right by accident. They had no interest in truth. Absolutely disgusting.
Sensationalsim has happened in the US media too. For example when Dateline NBC hooked up explosives to old Chevy trucks’ gas tanks to show how dangerous side-impact collisions were (not).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.....troversies
As one would expect in the US, heads rolled. I wonder how many MBC PDs will lose their job. I bet the lying US producers are wishing they had 후배 translators whom they could unconvincingly scapegoat.
My favorite part of that article:
PD Diary said Tuesday that “we thought Vinson’s mother, who had no professional medical knowledge, was confused about the two terms,”
Right.
“but we cannot agree with the criticism that the entire report was distortion and instigation.”
Either irony has finally arrived to this penninsula or, once again, there was a translation error and they were merely one “not” away from finally telling the truth.
#16, I think it would be nice to have the preview regardless of your English ability. The format now sends words off into a beige netherworld. I have no idea what I typed behind that curtain.
And good for Jeong Ji-Min for standing up to those garbage swilling scoundrels.
What I find sad is that, in my experiences here in Seoul, translation and editing is not a service that is looked upon as being vital. Companies just do not want to spend much money on either. As one commenter like “Linkd” could talk about (I’m guessing) there is a lot of creative fiction that is tolerated rather than just straight, acurate translation from one language to another, especially if translating from Korean to English.
I can really sympathize with Ms. Jeong and fully understand that what happened was the result of editorial decisions since it is the job of the editors to review content and not the translator. The PDs saw what they wanted to see, regardless of their political bent.
the root of the problem is the follow-the-leader-mob mentality that impedes objective, rational thinking. clearly, there are many koreans who know better but are either pushed aside or remain silent for fear of sticking out. this is not how things should be.
i’m not saying this happens only in korea, obviously not. but due to the way history played out, the korean version is quite extreme and in this day and age, counter-productuve. i can only hope that the korean youth will come to see the system for what it is and start some real change.
Mizar5 #30
there was a group like that in Busan several years ago. The 1992 cult (maybe 1993). The date passed and the members went on to other churches. One of the ministers at the church is an assistant at the university chapel where I work now. Not sure if he’s penciled in a new date.
Koreans may be genetically predisposed to get hit first when the sky falls and suffer more than other groups when the world ends.
Elgin
As someone who edits translations all the time, I can assure you that “straight, accurate translation” from Korean to English is often not viable. While much of what I see is informative and well-written, too often it is scarred by horribly overwrought writing, jingoism and exagerrated (or just plain wrong) claims.
I think that translations between languages as different as English and Korean will almost always require a bit of creative input from the editor. The problem arises when said editor has a political axe to grind, and has decided in advance what the translation will say.
#39
This whole situation is something more than follow the leader. Or more appropriately, follow-the leader in its many manifestations is from something deeper that lies within the human psyche. Something framed by Golding as he describes the theme of his book, ‘Lord of the Flies’:
The whole book is symbolic in nature except the rescue at the end where adult life appears, dignified and capable, but in reality enmeshed in the same evil as symbolic life of the children on the island. The officer, having interrupted a man-hunt, prepares to take the children off the island in a cruiser which will presently be hunting its enemy in the same implacable way…
For those of who have forgotten the book, the system of rule and order the children set up on the island, over time, degenerates, as an intense fear of some unknown thing on the mountain, whom the children refer to as the ‘beastie’ begins to preicipate this primal hysteria and evil which lies at the heart of human nature. Ironically, during these protests, one Protestant minister argued the Devil was in control of the protesters. Most reasonable folks may find this claim amusing, but by Golding’s logic, this is not far from the truth. In the book, the devil is symbolized by a rotting pig’s head, a sow that was slain by boys driven by this bloodthirsty urge, which some say represents the evil of destruction, demoralization, and panic.
I happen to be reading this book with some middle school students and I want to ask them, “What conditions do you think are needed for a country or culture to fall into a state of fear?” They’re great kids and I hope they think about it. Last year, in our class, we read an excerpt from Orson Welles’s 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. We also read eyewitness accounts from a newpaper article that is from the same collection I have. Some examples of what happened after the broadcast:
Within a few minutes newspaper offices, radio stations, and police departments everywhere were flooded with anxious telephone calls. Sobbing women sought advice on what to do; broken voiced men wished to know where to take their families.
Station WCAU received more than 4000 calls and eventually interrupted a later program to make an elaborate explanation that death had not actually descended on New Jersey, and that monsters were not actually invading the world. But calm did not come readily to the frightened radio listeners of the country.
A white faced man raced into the Hillside, New Jersey, police station and asked for a gas mask. Police said he panted out a tale of , “terrible people spraying liquid gas all over Jersey Meadows.”
In Indianapolis, Indiana, woman ran screaming into a church. “New York is destroyed! it’s the end of the world,” she cried, “You might as well go home and die!”
An anonymous and somewhat hysterical girl phoned the Princeton Press Club from Grovers Corners and said, “You can’t imagine the horror of it! It’s hell!”
A man came into the club and said he saw the meteor strike the Earth and witnessed animals jumping from the alien body.
Fifteen persons were treated for shock in one Newark hosipital.
and so on…
Well, by jove, let’s all light some candles and drink battery acid.
re: #42, this is pretty much my point but in better words.
Sometimes I have edited Korean copy that has been translated into English and I would also end up having to reconstruct some coherent train of thought out of the mangled wreck of English. I do not envy your job too much.
The Chosun Ilbo has a related article.
I am surprized the translator is not suing MBC for their slanderous
accusations.
Fox News were reporting that Aretha Vinson may have died of vCJD on April 10th (one day after she died).
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,349289,00.html
WTKR 3 News carried a similar story on April 17th and reported that doctors had suggested to the family it might be a human form of mad cow disease.
http://www.wtkr.com/Global/story.asp?S=8177890
The PD Diary showed aired on April 29th.
The USDA (Department of Agriculture) announced that she didn’t die of vCJD in May, as carried by the AP.
http://www.wvec.com/news/healt.....4248a.html
The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) announced June 12th that the NPDPSC had ruled out vCJD as cause of death.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd.....122008.htm
The NPDPSC (National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillence Center) website has no mention of the case far as I can tell.
http://www.cjdsurveillance.com/index.html
One of the main differences between vCJD and sCJD is the average age of victims. Victims of vCJD tend to be younger (average age 30 versus 65 for other forms of CJD). Aretha Vinson was 22 when she died.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre...../fs180/en/
“Eujin”, the important point is “may have died of vCJD”. Whether or not it was is very important because to simply it may have been is sly innuendo and gossip, not news reporting.
The fellow that runs the mad cow blog did the same thing and I was surprised because, as a lawyer, I thought he would be more careful than that. I wonder if the U.S. Meat Industry has grounds to sue him now.
Eujin what do you make of PD 수첩’s claim that 94 percent of Koreans are genetically more susceptible than Americans or Britons to contracting vCJD through the consumption of beef products - despite the fact that the scientist upon whose research they based the claim totally rejected it as a being a gross mischaracterisation of his conclusions?
R.Elgin #48, I just put some links up for people to judge for themselves. I’m trying not to spin any particular position with respect to the legality or ethicality of the PD Diary show. If they reported that she died of vCJD and that had not been confirmed by autopsy at the time then they were incorrect, since it turns out she didn’t, according to the CDC.
gbnhj, #49, I was discussing about this with Sonagi on another thread, but she’s probably gone on vacation now. Maybe it will pick up again when she comes back.
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/.....ent-165614
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/.....ent-164620
If they claimed that 94 percent of Koreans are genetically more susceptible to vCJD than British or Americans, then I would say that is incorrect. If they said that 94% of Koreans have the same gene type as found in all victims of vCJD, whereas only 37% of British have that gene type, then I would say that there is evidence in Kim Yong-Sun’s research to support that.
But I can’t talk for Kim Yong-Sun. I don’t know him and he should speak for himself.
Thank you for your response, Eujin, and thanks also for the links to previous discussions. PD 수첩 did, in fact, claim the former, and for that they found themselves in difficulty not too long ago.
That’s why the issue of their professional ethics does not rest on their handling of translation alone. Even when dealing with Korean-language source material, they have either misrepresented fact or lied.
That any other news source reported something of a similar nature is immaterial. They did not simply report that another news source had reported it previously. Instead, they made their report and reached conclusions of their own. And, whereas the foreign sources you list seem to have made no real impact on the Korean public, PD 수첩’s report did. As such, they are being ridiculed here for their actions.
As the War of the Worlds analogies indicate, we are really talking about what amounts to a hoax by MBC here. If I recall correctly, there were a couple of self-immolations during the beef panic. Could the network be held accountable for those?
The Korean media has a strong sensationalistic streak. At times, I have gotten perverse pleasure out of it, especially concerning that long running drama, namely the life of Shin Jeong-ah and her various crimes. (I really think that KBS should make a drama out of it. It has just about every necessary ingredient for a Korean drama, except having the main character developing the ebola virus or some form of aggressive cancer at age 28.)
MBC, of all companies, ought to be a little more concerned with accuracy in reporting. In retaliation for some of their news reports on the Gwangju democracy protests, their studios in downtown Gwangju were set on fire at the height of the protests.
The Roh government seemed especially easily swayed by the news media. One of the reasons that they gave for the stricter E-2 visa controls was a series of reports on the secret life of English teachers on KBS. The Roh government hastily conconcted a reform plan that was well-meaning, but ultimately ill-planned. The Lee government has subsequently reformed it and who knows if it will be reformed yet again.
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