Back in South Korea, I'm told that the Korea Daily shares the spotlight with the Korea Times in a perennial battle over who's the biggest and best. The Korea Times also has a bureau in metro Atlanta.
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
New Korea Video
My latest video project for GlobalAtlanta.com is a report on Korean media outlets in Atlanta and how they highlight Georgia's thriving Korean community. It particularly focuses on the Korea Daily, a nationwide newspaper in South Korea with a circulation of nearly 2 million. The JoongAng Ilbo, as it's called in Korean, opened an Atlanta bureau in late 2007 and now has 80 employees, though it's struggling along with other print papers like the AJC.
Back in South Korea, I'm told that the Korea Daily shares the spotlight with the Korea Times in a perennial battle over who's the biggest and best. The Korea Times also has a bureau in metro Atlanta.
Back in South Korea, I'm told that the Korea Daily shares the spotlight with the Korea Times in a perennial battle over who's the biggest and best. The Korea Times also has a bureau in metro Atlanta.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
August Access Recap
I don't do this to put more notches into my belt or to tout my accomplishments, only to show how much God continues to bless me by putting me in situations where I can meet prime decision makers on the world stage. I still don't know what God's preparing me for in the big picture, but for now, I'm enjoying the ride as an international business reporter at GlobalAtlanta. Here's an August recap of the officials I've been able to meet or cover.
-Lord Mayor of London David Lewis, an alderman elected to a one-year term as head of the City of London, a small area within Greater London that handles the city's financial institutions. I conducted an e-mail Q&A with him. Article here.
-U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, the first Asian-American to serve in a cabinet position. She's been in President Bush's administration for more than seven years and has a great story that goes from immigration at 8 years old to one of the highest offices in the land. Article here.
-Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue. On his second trip to China, Mr. Perdue called back for a conference with media to tell us what he was up to. Turns out he was representing Georgia at an international forum called the Regional Leaders Conference in Jinan, Shandong province. Article here.
-Presidents Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, Elias Antonio Saca of El Salvador and Alvaro Colom of Guatemala, along with U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. All the men were in Atlanta for the Americas Competitiveness Forum, a gathering of government and business leaders from around the Western Hemisphere to share knowledge on how to cooperate to better the region's standing in the world economy. Read my article here.
-Chilean Economic Minister Hugo Lavados, also in town for the forum. Conducted a video interview with him at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta. For video and article, go here.
-Alessandro Teixeira, head of Brazil's export promotion agency, ApexBrasil. He gave a speech at the forum and a presentation about the Brazilian economy at a local law firm. He cited ethanol as one of the largest areas for potential trade between Brazil and Georgia, already the South American powerhouse's third largest state trading partner. Click here.
-A long-anticipated Brazilian consulate opened in Atlanta. I was on the scene. Click here for my coverage.
-Indonesian Ambassador Sujadnan Parnohadiningrat (I can actually spell his name by heart now.) He serenaded an audience with his saxophone at a gala I attended last weekend. He needed something to break the ice after the stat-filled speech he gave. My job is to make his comments interesting. See the article and video here.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Protesting the Press on the Tibet Riots
China's state news agency aimed to temper harsh foreign news coverage of Tibet with one of its strikingly childish journalistic rebuttals today. But Xinhua's response, though immature, raises a serious question: With so little known about the events in Tibet, have the foreign media been totally fair?
China has been under fire recently for its "crackdown" on the protests in Tibet and riots in other regions where there are significant Tibetan populations. From a variety of jumbled news reports, I've gathered that hundreds have been killed in the rioting, but sources can't agree on the death toll.
AFP reported today that the Tibetan prime minister-in-exile in Dharamsala, India, is saying 130 have been confirmed dead. Xinhua, China's official news agency, says 18 "innocent" Chinese were killed by protesters and has confirmed that more have died in neighboring Gansu province, but it hasn't acknowledged the Tibetan government's official count as accurate. No matter the disputes, news agencies have been singing one chorus in unison throughout the entire ordeal: any toll is impossible to independently verify.
That sentence seems to sum up the press's knowledge of the entire incident. The questions of Who killed whom? What provoked such vehement protests? And is this really a "crackdown" or just stern enforcement of the law? are largely going unanswered, even as the story remains a top fixture in every major newspaper.
The uncertainty is partly because China has restricted access to the province. All foreign reporters have been banned from visiting Tibet in another one of China's futile attempts to keep the press silent as the Olympics approach. The Chinese government hasn't caught onto the fact that most reporters in today's era of 24-hour news never stop writing. They keep on, but in doing so resort to speculation and sensationalism rather than hard facts.
In that sense, the government is partly to blame if indeed there is misinformation being circulated about Tibet. But I have to say that I agree with the government that Western media reports do seem to have a been a little biased thus far.
Even in their own reports, many media outlets have noted that Tibetans seem to have initiated the March 14 violence and stoked it with repeated attacks on Han Chinese cars, places of business and even people. Granted, these people were reacting to almost 60 years of oppression as a vassal of the Chinese, and it's understandable that they have some anger to release.
But sending in troops to quell an uprising seems to be understandable if protests turn violent, as long as those troops don't use excessive force. I seem to remember a certain Democratic convention in 1972 where police got a little nightstick practice on rioters that crossed the line. The first amendment guarantees the right to "peaceably" assemble, not to throw rocks and set things on fire. As the heroes of our Revolutionary War were, you have to be ready to endure the consequences if you undertake acts of violent rebellion.
There have been incidents of beatings and rumors of shots fired into crowds, but the real stories are still elusive, and firsthand reports are scarce. The journalist's job, even here in the land of the free, is not to overtly side with the oppressed group and condemn the government before the facts are in the open. It's to get the facts. China has plenty of human rights abuses to criticize without having to make things up.
And that's what bothers me about the whole situation. For one, we like to carry the banner of freedom in Tibet, but we turn a blind eye to other regions of the world where people are being oppressed more harshly. Tibet has become a trendy cause, the convenient human rights flag to wave. I think a top Chinese official was partly right when he said smugly today that some people treat the Dalai Lama as if he's a god.
It's not that I think Tibetan rights are less important than those of other groups; it's just that I don't think they're more important. Where are the calls for peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Where is the outrage over continued oppression in Myanmar?
And within China, what about the people in the Northwest, the Uighurs, who have also seen their homeland overrun with Chinese immigrants? What about the Christians and Falun Gong practitioners and Buddhists that continue to experience discrimination daily?
And don't forget, regardless of Tibet's unique cultural brand, the Chinese see the Himalayan region as a part of their motherland. Call them crazy, but as Peter Hessler wrote in this article in 1999, the issue is not settled in their eyes, and they have some convenient historical methodology to justify their beliefs. They're developing their wild west, and it seems to me that the Tibetans and Uighurs (among others) are to China what the Native Americans were to the white man. As far as I can recall from history classes, we didn't wave the same banner of freedom for native peoples during those days.
All that is to say that we'd do well to look at the other side of our calls for freedom. We don't want to lose our ideals, but we don't want to sacrifice one (truth) for the sake of another.
China has been under fire recently for its "crackdown" on the protests in Tibet and riots in other regions where there are significant Tibetan populations. From a variety of jumbled news reports, I've gathered that hundreds have been killed in the rioting, but sources can't agree on the death toll.
AFP reported today that the Tibetan prime minister-in-exile in Dharamsala, India, is saying 130 have been confirmed dead. Xinhua, China's official news agency, says 18 "innocent" Chinese were killed by protesters and has confirmed that more have died in neighboring Gansu province, but it hasn't acknowledged the Tibetan government's official count as accurate. No matter the disputes, news agencies have been singing one chorus in unison throughout the entire ordeal: any toll is impossible to independently verify.
That sentence seems to sum up the press's knowledge of the entire incident. The questions of Who killed whom? What provoked such vehement protests? And is this really a "crackdown" or just stern enforcement of the law? are largely going unanswered, even as the story remains a top fixture in every major newspaper.
The uncertainty is partly because China has restricted access to the province. All foreign reporters have been banned from visiting Tibet in another one of China's futile attempts to keep the press silent as the Olympics approach. The Chinese government hasn't caught onto the fact that most reporters in today's era of 24-hour news never stop writing. They keep on, but in doing so resort to speculation and sensationalism rather than hard facts.
In that sense, the government is partly to blame if indeed there is misinformation being circulated about Tibet. But I have to say that I agree with the government that Western media reports do seem to have a been a little biased thus far.
Even in their own reports, many media outlets have noted that Tibetans seem to have initiated the March 14 violence and stoked it with repeated attacks on Han Chinese cars, places of business and even people. Granted, these people were reacting to almost 60 years of oppression as a vassal of the Chinese, and it's understandable that they have some anger to release.
But sending in troops to quell an uprising seems to be understandable if protests turn violent, as long as those troops don't use excessive force. I seem to remember a certain Democratic convention in 1972 where police got a little nightstick practice on rioters that crossed the line. The first amendment guarantees the right to "peaceably" assemble, not to throw rocks and set things on fire. As the heroes of our Revolutionary War were, you have to be ready to endure the consequences if you undertake acts of violent rebellion.
There have been incidents of beatings and rumors of shots fired into crowds, but the real stories are still elusive, and firsthand reports are scarce. The journalist's job, even here in the land of the free, is not to overtly side with the oppressed group and condemn the government before the facts are in the open. It's to get the facts. China has plenty of human rights abuses to criticize without having to make things up.
And that's what bothers me about the whole situation. For one, we like to carry the banner of freedom in Tibet, but we turn a blind eye to other regions of the world where people are being oppressed more harshly. Tibet has become a trendy cause, the convenient human rights flag to wave. I think a top Chinese official was partly right when he said smugly today that some people treat the Dalai Lama as if he's a god.
It's not that I think Tibetan rights are less important than those of other groups; it's just that I don't think they're more important. Where are the calls for peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Where is the outrage over continued oppression in Myanmar?
And within China, what about the people in the Northwest, the Uighurs, who have also seen their homeland overrun with Chinese immigrants? What about the Christians and Falun Gong practitioners and Buddhists that continue to experience discrimination daily?
And don't forget, regardless of Tibet's unique cultural brand, the Chinese see the Himalayan region as a part of their motherland. Call them crazy, but as Peter Hessler wrote in this article in 1999, the issue is not settled in their eyes, and they have some convenient historical methodology to justify their beliefs. They're developing their wild west, and it seems to me that the Tibetans and Uighurs (among others) are to China what the Native Americans were to the white man. As far as I can recall from history classes, we didn't wave the same banner of freedom for native peoples during those days.
All that is to say that we'd do well to look at the other side of our calls for freedom. We don't want to lose our ideals, but we don't want to sacrifice one (truth) for the sake of another.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)