Sure, it sometimes seems the Hani operates on a different planet — bitching about right-wing violence while saying nothing about left-wing violence (check that: contrasting the “unplanned” nature of leftwing violence with the premeditated acts of rightwingers) takes some serious stones, even if the police explanation for why said rightwing groups have not been designated as illegal violent groups also leaves you scratching your head.
That said, they’re right about this. Who the hell thought bringing back Daehan News would be a good idea?
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
If you thought you’d seen shoddy journalism, wait’ll you see the Daehan news.
No news left unstaged.
Funny thing is, I love watching the old Daehan News clips on TV. EBS, I think.
Yes, it’s quite cute and kitsch like those War time broadcasts before the cinema presentation in the West, but I’ve said this already as well in the comment which got spam filtered. – Find my comment for me, Robert, please..
How about students being forced to read textbooks that have undue political commentary and bias that is factually unsound? Well, having read of the Korean History that was taught during KDJ and Roh’s tenure, one could easily make the same complaint regarding the textbooks during that time. Can you spot the dictator? I can certainly spot the idiot in the article.
The Hannara-dang guys also have much to learn about public discourse and PR and as it is, they are very often outclassed in terms of PR, which hurts their credibility and alleged leadership.
sigh. Do you know what they had changed FROM? which is what I used to learn from? My God I was just a 9 year old kid with no reactionary upbringing but I remember thinking the textbooks and the exam questions were a joke. And anyways, the new government are changing it back.., which led to a lot of protests by the teachers.
The Government’s unfunny joke of a campaign and 2MB trying to get pointers from the late Nomuyun pictures of being all neighbour/friendly ajossi-like is as comfortable as a cactus down your throat – painful.
Seeing as no one is going to fish my comment out I will try to repeat some from memory.
I made one long comment with links about Chosun columnist Kim Dongkil’s (of the “Nomuhyun should kill himself fame”) writing a 6.25 commemoration piece by saying “KDJ should also jump to his death”
I also wrote that MBC is complaining that it got left out of Government’s dosh handout for running the health campaign ads (the ads were put on KBS,SBS and ChoChoonDong and some other conservative sites) because they’ve now become 2MB’s 미운털 박힌 equivalent of Roh’s Chosun.
I’m leaving out the links because I suspect that too many links might have been the cause for the comment being filtered out in the first place. There are lots of Korean articles on the issue if anyone wants to look it up.
This is relevant because it’s about the art of spin doctoring and the media play. Korea is so so behind with regards to the maturity of the press. But maybe, first should come real freedom. By that, I don’t mean the one mentioned by Breen once before in an older Marmot’s post – i.e. a competition between the press for exclusive scoops, but less of that absolute control of what can go into an article exerted by the Teamjang, Kookjang, the Pyunjibjang, the Sajang all the way up to the Narajang.
LMB should build himself a time machine and zap himself into Park Jung Hee’s era. I’m sure he’ll feel right at home.
Yuna: “Korea is so so behind with regards to the maturity of the press. But maybe, first should come real freedom. ”
Maybe someday the Korean press can rise to the state of mediocracy of the American media: CNN Headline News with its superficial broadcasts that repeat the same insipid stories every 30 minutes, or Fox News with its endless stream of opinionated right-wing distortion mongering. Serious news gatherers in any country need to start with the print media and do intensive research online.
As for “real freedom”, what is “real freedom” and why is it desirable? Noam Chomsky analyzed the NY Times advertising content and made the point that, seeing that various corporate interests represent the real revenues of the paper, why would anyone expect that the content isn’t influenced. This is the real story people who incorrectly read the NYT as leftist or the Wash Post as rightist miss – both papers represent pretty much the same interests, but do so in a way that reflects the sensibilities of the readership base. The real goal is to move product. There’s your freedom of the press.
Korea is not far behind.
The Hankyorae is lockstep with the nutzo leftist conspiratorial bias of the young to mid age readers, while the mainstream papers reflect the biases of the more mature readership. And they both fall in line on ubernationalist, anti-foreigner propaganda.
With regard to freedom, the press is not the problem – Public opinion is. The public needs to become more nuanced and sophisticated.
In Korea, I decry kneejerk liberals, while in the US I decry kneejerk conservatives, who are are cut from the same cloth – people lacking critical thinking skills who are content to let others do their thinking for them while they fall in line lock stock and barrel. The cynical Rush Limbaughs in the US and anti-American, pro-NK NGOs in Korea are just con men and muck rakers. The lack of critical thinking skills is the real impediment.
Right now national health care has come tothe forefront of the congressional agenda. Once again we are being treated to the spectacle of sound bite politics – rightwingers invoking the mantra of “the govt. can’t do anything right.” However, they never provide a concrete example supporting this on a systemic level, and the public fails to hold their feet to the fire. The best they can do is point to an isolated boondogle project as supposed evidence that the govt. cannot run health care. In fact the evidence is in – medicare and medicaid, both of which have functioned admirably, and involve private insurance companies as providers.
But the American public finally stood up against the right wing gobledegook and elected someone with a brain. That is, they overturned the influence of the media and thought for themselves.
Polititians and the media have their own agenda. It is the public that must hold their feet to the fire – not through worthless demonstrations, as in Korea, but by promoting a candidate who represents real change. No My Hyeon was the wrong guy, as is Lee Myeong Park, because they were both too much aligned with the opposing camps. If Koreans really seek want real political change, an alternative must be cultivated – and alternative tothe mindlessness of public demonstrations and political favoritism. Pardon me for saying so, but leave the media alone and cultivate a Korean Barach Obama who speaks plainly and stides the middle ground in the interests of the nation.
Mizar, if you’re going to go over 500 words a post, please go back and review blueballs’ performance in this LPGA thread to see how it’s done. Lay down the LAW, don’t sit down for tea.
I give up, Linkd. What’s the difference? Is it because I brought up the healthcare debate? Too specific an example?
I certainly feel nostalgia for Daehan News, and not just because the first time I kissed a girl on the cheek in a movie theater it was while Daehan News was running.
But really… isn’t this some sort of joke, or will LMB really stop at nothing to make it feel like the Fifth Republic all over again?
What’s wrong with a good rant about the polarization of american “politics”? The entire problem with the u.s. today is the right-left-no middle political shitwave we have these days. The entire world has an enormous pile of centrist apathetics. I wish they’d wake up, look behind the curtain, and reject the rejects that try to get us all to believe that the extremes are what’s best for all.
Quite so. Sorry, Mizar.
Don’t mention it, Kinkd, I was only inquiring because I was hopeful that you had exposed some of the submerged piece of the iceberg that is my own bullshit.
Unlike you, most people manage to miss the person for the persona. Mizar 5 is a sock puppet, but not an entirely unreasonable one. Not any less reasonable than someone that people attempt to perceive as white, yellow or black, American, Iranian, Korean, Hindu, Christian, Moslem. These are only skins, and skins in the sense of a lens through which people are perceived. Because no one is inherently black, white, latino, American, Iranian, Korean, Hindu or Moslem; they are just perceived as such. The person is the person, and if you peel away the layers, you are left with nothing – emptiness – the true essenceless essence of humanity.
It just so happens that because my skin is opaque (blue), people want to peek beneath to color the hand. But the hand is colorless – because in the absence of light and perception, color does not exist. Get it?
Let’s spank Mizar 5 for sayingthings that make us uncomfortable. And the best way to spank him is to unmask him, and reveal him to be nothing more than the product of our own imputations. He’s a typical white/asian/black/American/expat/Korean. Now that we can live with. By tagging him, he’s now “it”, and we again escape having to look any further.
Hey, disagree with Mizar if you like – just be clear about what – not who – you are disagreeing with (you in the general sense that is). It’s not the opinion being argued that matters, all opinions being mere mental constructs, but the facts that we must argue our way to. Along the way, opinions, like other mental constructs should fall to the wayside.
So are Mizar’s assertions wrong? Indubitably. But do you really understand where he has been wrong, or have you simply faulted the falseness of the skin? Don’t stop at superficial insults, but seek the very nature of the wrong. Dig deeper.
“Mizar” does have a point. Our views of news and history are seemingly more so skewed by ideology nowadays and by labels, rather than a genuine attempt to understand what is going on. As per this thread, both alleged conservative and leftists in Korea are polarized in their biases when it comes to their national history, often at the expense of truth or insight.
It is amazing how plain dumb Han-nara dang is regarding its attempt to enter into public dialog and to justify or explain its aspirations. I will not go further in considering the lack of professional-minded leading politicians on both sides either. Likewise, Han-nara still needs to clean up their party before it is too late, say four years from now and we end up with some “son-of-Noh-Moo-Hyun” horror movie plot.
I sympathized with the JoongAng quote, regarding the punishment of eighty-eight teachers who have dabbled in politics once too often:
Per Jang Gi-won, head of the Education Ministry’s planning department. Just what do these alleged teachers teach?
Thank you for putting my name in quotations, Elgin. I only wish I could have been there to see you using air quotes. I love air quotes. In fact I love air – I’d die without it. Have you noticed how air sells nowadays?
Nike charges extra for packing it into their sneakers. And that’s mostly what you pay for when you buy a bag of potato chips these days. Then of course there’s the media – magazines and prime time news – mostly air. Bubble wrap.
Korea’s brought air marketing to a new level. How much do Koreans spend each year just to get away and comment on how clean the air is? And “air bread” – what genious thought that one up?
I really have to marvel at the stupidity of the Cheong Wa Dae at times. Granted, I was no fan Roh’s, but the Lee Administration seems to have this uncanny ability to shoot themselves in the foot time after time. The left has been caterwauling ever since LMB took office about how this is nothing more than the bad, old Chun regime brought back to life. Then, they go ahead and try to bring something back which was very much associated with the administrations of Park, Chun, and Roh.
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