More journalism follies

The other Korean English-language newspaper is the Korea Herald. Despite the basic rule of journalism that you never, never, never report something in advance as if it already happened (don't even assume the sun will rise), that's what they did.

On the night of National Assembly elections, before the polls closed, here was their headline: Uri sinks lower into crisis after election debacle.

They cited election polls. But the truth is, the Grand National Party -- Korea's other major party -- fell way short of expectations. This was the REAL story, their headline the next day: GNP reeling from election setback.

We wuz robbed!
I still can't believe this happens, but this gives a sense of the quality of Korean journalism here. The Korea Times, an English language newspaper which is loaded with typos in headlines almost every day and shoddy journalism, actually stole a story from us.

Our newspaper, the JoongAng Daily, is part of the JoongAng Ilbo, Korea's second-largest newspaper, with a circulation well above 1 million. Anyway, we translate many of their articles for our paper. (JoongAng means central in Korean and Ilbo means daily).

On Monday, the JoongAng Ilbo (Korean version) printed a story about spouses using spyware to spy on their husbands or wives. Apparently, that is getting much more common here. Anyway, the story appeared first in Korean on the JoongAng Ilbo Web site. We assigned a reporter to translate it, and were holding the story to use on a slow news day. It was on our budget for Wednesday. The only problem, the Korea Times translated the JoongAng Ilbo story and used it as their own, in the Tuesday editions. The reporter used her own byline. The story was exactly the same with two slight exceptions: in the anecdotal lede about an anonymous couple only known by "Kim," it was changed to "Ahn." The age of one of them was changed from 38 to 37. The rest of the story, including the quotes by a named consultant and lawyer, were identical.

I pushed hard to do a story of our own about this outrage, but it hasn't happened -- yet, anyway. We'll see what comes out of this. I still can't believe the blatancy of it.

Temple, temple

I went out to the beautiful Jogye Temple for a freelance story for Newsday about Koreans' reaction to the Virginia Tech shooting. Basically, I went up to about 80 people and said "Yong-euh haseo?" Which means, do you speak English? Hardly anyone did. I got my best interview, finally, when I talked to a guy I knew who lives in our building. I guess Koreans aren't crazy about some strange-looking foreigner asking them a bunch of personal questions :) Hmm, maybe that would apply to Americans, too?

Anyway, here are a few photos. The temple hung white lanterns to remember the dead, and from the lanterns were the names (in Korean) on yellow cards of the people who had been identified as of last Saturday. Inside, a monk chanted and banged on a drum in front of three giant Buddha statues. It was quite beautiful. The woman in the photo is bowing before a shrine dedicated to the Va. Teach victims. There was a big banner that said in English "We pray them peace."

Also, here's a link to the story

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wokore042

Stop, it. Really. Please stop.

First, a U.S. state senator of Korean descent apologized to his colleagues. Then, the Korean envoy to the United States said he'd go on a 32-day fast to show his grief. And then, this embarrassment: The Korea Times, an English "newspaper" in Seoul, ran a front page unsigned box saying how the newspaper "deeply regrets" the fact that the shooter of the massacre was Korean. Folks, THERE IS NO REASON TO APOLOGIZE!!! Koreans here seem to feel a sense of shame about this. Yet, this is not a race or ethnicity issue. There are millions of successful, well-adjusted Korean-Americans, and some that get into trouble, just like any race, ethnicity, religion or other background. It was one messed-up kid. We should be able to leave it at that.

Birthday fun
I've been in journalism for almost 20 years (including in New York on 9/11) and last night was one of the craziest. I was running the paper because our chief editor is out of town. The big stories of the night were the Va. Tech shooting and -- in something we've followed for a while -- the selection of the host of the Asian Games in 2014, for which the Korean city of Incheon had a strong chance to win.

We expected a news conference about 6:30 p.m. to announce the winner of the Asian Games, and we had a strong story out of Virginia with vivid quotes from a Korean student who'd been shot, but not seriously injured. So, as the night went along, our page 1 was in good shape.

Then, came news about the Asian Games, which is a major event in these parts. The ceremony was dragging on, and the delegates were going to have dinner before announcing the results. That meant the decision was due about 10 p.m. That's our deadline.

Then, about 9:15 p.m., we started getting word that -- it was possible -- a Korean was the shooter in Va. Our original story quoted the Chicago Sun Times as saying the guy was a Chinese national. About 9:45 p.m. -- 15 mins. before deadline -- we learned that it was pretty sure a Korean was the shooter, but it wasn't confirmed.

We got an extension to about 10:20 to close page 1. At 10 p.m., I was standing in the middle of the newsroom watching 2 TVs (both with clusters of editors around them). One had the Incheon result. The envelope was on a pillow. Someone carried it over. More words. More speeches. "Just say it!!" I was yelling, with a smile.

The other TV carried the Virginia press conference. It didn't start until 10:05, of course. Come on, come on ... Slowly, the news trickled out with details about the shooter.

Then the frantic rush. We'd prepared several stories with the possibilities about Incheon, so that was an easy swap when Incheon won the games.

However, the updates to the Korean shooter story (now the lede of the paper) kept coming. We were updating and polishing and rewriting and redoing the headline until the last possible second. But we got it all in. Whew.

During the whole process, I felt amazingly calm. When it was over, I sat back and actually started to sweat and maybe tremble a little bit. Quite a 37th birthday ...

Simple, black and white

I find it fascinating, living in another country, when something that is widely accepted in fact in one country is the opposite in another. Consider the egg. Koreans have come to believe that brown eggs are fresher than white ones; Americans think the other way around. Thus, you can't find white eggs here -- except at Easter -- just like you can't find brown ones in the States, except at your friendly neighborhood farm stand.

Pancakes at 4 a.m.

And plenty of them ... We arrived back into Seoul on Tuesday morning. Still battling jet lag, we all went to bed about 9 a.m. and were up by 3:30 a.m. Early bird special, anyone?

We dove into our massive amount of pancake mix that we brought back from the trip. Breakfast food in Seoul can largely be found only on the black market, so we came back with 15 pounds of pancake mix and 27 pounds of oatmeal (only $6 for a 9 pound box in the USA). Along with some real maple syrup we found at a Mennonite store in southern Wisconsin, we should be set for a while.

Speaking of the trip, it was phenomenal. It was crazy to fly into Chicago, then to Washington, then drive to New York before flying home. But we wouldn't do it differently again. It was so good to see all of the family and friends ... we can't wait to go back. The best news is that everyone tells me they read the blog, although hardly anyone comments, so I'm newly inspired to make new posts. Highlights included steak at Pederino's in Chicago after Wisconsin squeaked by Texas Corpus Christie in the 1st round NCAA (thanks Adam), a day trip to Monroe, Wisconsin, Tuesday night in Madison with TGEED and my family, Baby Anne's baptism and party in Rockford, Her 100-day celebration in Washington with Patty's sister's family and her parents, cherry blossoms on the mall in Washington, meeting up with Eli, Theresa, Sumathi and Tomoeh (all formerly from Newsday) and our short trip to New York with Lorna and Asandon and the Hyo Shin crew.

When I got back, in true Korean tradition, my boss told me I'd gotten fat on the trip and needed to lose weight :)

Here are some photos: Baby Anne's baptism in Rockford, her 100-day celebration in Rockford, the Korean War Memorial (a few hundred yards from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington) and a gratuitous shot of Jack goofing around.