Tag: Journalism

https://twitter.com/CurtisMelvin/status/650824237184385024

https://twitter.com/CurtisMelvin/status/650825007451533312

In fairness in my opinion the Korean media has actually gotten better since its low point in 2008 when they intentionally caused the US beef mad cow crisis that led to weeks of protests and violence all based on media lies:

President Park Geun-hye on Monday stressed the need for media to provide accurate and unbiased information, seemingly backing up the ruling party’s offensives against Korea’s major Internet portals for “prejudicial” delivery of news.

While attending an event hosted by one of the country’s major daily newspapers, Park also highlighted the role of media outlets in pursuing her key initiatives such as labor market reforms.

“The digital revolution brought significant changes to the media outlets … and we are exposed to the danger where inaccurate information could spread out momentarily. In this situation, the media should play a more important role in discerning accurate information and offering it to the public,” Park said.

“Now we are making a big stride toward overhauling the nation. I believe that media outlets play a significant role in steering the nation toward disruption and innovation. I sincerely ask them to serve as a beacon that can act as a guide for the rest of us,” Park added.

Her remarks came shortly after Saenuri Party claims that major Internet search engines such as Naver and Daum Kakao had skewed news coverage from media outlets in favor of the opposition.  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link.

The Korea Times has come to the conclusion that they were had by the article that was published recently on their website that included a profile picture of a sex offender.  What I love about the apology is that it written by Oh Young-jin the paper’s chief editorial writer who uses the email addresses “foolsdie@gmail.com and foolsdie5@ktimes.com”.  It seems if you want people to take your paper seriously than using a professional email address would be a start.

We want to explain to our readers three “incidents” regarding articles published on our editorial pages and share our thoughts about them.

The three, in counter-chronological order, include a contributing article which an unidentified person submitted with the mug shot of a registered sex offender; a column with a touch of plagiarism; and a piece about East-West cultural differences. We don’t identify them to prevent copycatting of the first case and to protect their privacy for the second and third cases.

The bogus article was submitted to our paper’s longest-running series of essays that are open with few restrictions to people of all walks of life. This triggered many inquiries and tips from readers, prompting us first to take the photo off our website and then the article after it was obvious beyond any doubt that it was a practical joke.

First, we concluded it was beyond an apology and is inexcusable so we intend to take this occasion as a bitter lesson. As a result, we will double our vetting process and, if necessary, consider resorting to law enforcement authorities if this kind of prank takes place again. This is an effort to protect our paper’s integrity so as to live up to our stated mission of keeping our readers informed to the best of our ability. At the same time, we thank readers for reporting the bogus article to us and sharing their concern. [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link.

Market Watch has recently published one of the most atrocious articles yet that is promoting the cutting of military retirement by someone named Anne Tergesen who according to her bio has never served a day in the military, but has suddenly become an expert on military retirement.  Let’s deconstruct her article:

In recent years, countries including the U.K., Poland, Ireland and Sweden have raised the age of eligibility for military pensions.

The U.S., on the other hand, is sticking with the status quo—and at a time of strained budgets, that’s a potentially costly problem.

How is this even relevant?  Is Ireland responsible for maintaining global security and their soldiers facing repeated deployments?  If the servicemembers in these nations are not asked to do the same amount work, deployments, strain on the body, etc. of a US servicemember this is a irrelevant comparison.  The country that comes the closest to the US military that she points out is the UK military which we will discuss later.

The military retirement system permits members of the armed forces who serve full time for at least 20 years to retire as early as age 37 with a defined-benefit pension. On Jan. 29, the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission released a report that recommends no changes to the benefit eligibility requirements for the military’s pension plan, though it did recommend some significant changes in its structure.

Notice how these civilian writers looking to cut military retirement always throw in the phrase that servicemembers can retire as early as 37.  They make it sound like all these 37 year olds are chilling at the beach with scantily clad waitresses/waiters serving them mai tais.  What they never mention is how much a military retiree is making.  The vast majority of retirees are in the E6 – E7 range.  An E6 at 20 years is making $3,724 a month before taxes and other deductions.  Yes military pay has deductions for things such health care and family dental plans.  So people retiring at these ranks at 20 years are not the millionaires getting ready to chill out on the beach that Tergesen is alluding her readers to believe.  In fact using the military retirement calculator an E6 retiring in 2015 at 20 years of service with a high 3 would make $1,640 after taxes.  Yes retirement pay is taxed and also this number does not include deductions for health care.  Yes health care is not free for military retirees unlike what most people think.  For those that retire higher in rank they will have a larger monthly benefit.  Due to the up and out system few people are able to stay in long enough and achieve the higher ranks where the military retirement is quite good.  Most people retire with enough extra money coming in every month to pay the mortgage while they find a job to make money to live on.  So military retirees are not all out on the beach at age 37 getting back rubs and drinking mai tais.

Let’s continue with Tergesen’s article:

John Turner and Bruce Klein, economists at the Pension Policy Center in Washington, D.C., subsequently released their own report, arguing that the military needs to “modernize” its pension system. Their principal recommendation: To raise the eligibility age for benefits.

Note that when you hear the word modernize that is a code word for cuts not beneficial to servicemembers.

This has always been a strange murder suicide case and the speculation from this reporter a court has decided is not slander:

A Seoul appellate court acquitted a reporter on Friday of falsely claiming that the younger brother of President Park Geun-hye may have been behind the murder of his nephew.

In 2013, a lower court had cleared Joo Jin-woo, a reporter of the monthly news magazine Sisa IN, of charges that he spread false information about Park Ji-man in an article published in December 2012.

At the height of President Park’s presidential campaign, Joo’s article revisited a 2011 case in which the body of Park’s nephew was found on a hiking trail near Mount Bukhan in northern Seoul. Just three kilometers from the scene, another one of her nephews was found hanging from a tree.

Police concluded that one of the nephews had murdered the other after getting into a financial dispute, and then hung himself.

But Joo alleged that Park Ji-man may have ordered the murder, citing a legal dispute between Ji-man and his brother-in-law, who is the father of the two nephews.

Joo also faced charges that he slandered the president’s late father, former President Park Chung-hee, during a book event in 2010.

Upholding a lower court ruling, the Seoul High Court said Joo was not guilty of spreading false information since he’d tried his best to uncover the truth behind the murder.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

I have always found this amazing how this Japanese journalist is tried for reporting in the Japanese media what the Korean media was reporting themselves about President Park:

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A trial has begun for a Japanese journalist charged with defaming South Korea’s president by reporting rumors that she was absent for seven hours during a ferry disaster in April because she was with a man.

A spokesman from the Seoul Central District Court said Thursday that Tatsuya Kato of Japan’s Sankei Shimbun was present in court as his lawyers and prosecutors introduced evidence.

The indictment has raised questions about South Korea’s press freedom. Critics accuse South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s conservative government of clamping down on journalists in an attempt to control her image.

Prosecutors indicted Kato in October over his Aug. 3 article about Park’s whereabouts on the day the Sewol ferry sank and killed more than 300 passengers, mostly teenagers on a school trip.

The article repeated rumors in South Korean media and the financial industry about a relationship between Park and a former aide who was said to be married at the time. (Associated Press)

You can read more at the link.

Yes the headline is accurate, you can’t make this stuff up:

Japan expressed “deep regret” over the South Korean prosecution’s decision to indict a Japanese journalist for allegedly defaming President Park Geun-hye, underscoring the different stances toward press freedom and signaling that the nations’ already soured bilateral ties might hit another rough patch.

“(The indictment) is deeply regrettable in terms of the freedom of press and relationship between the two countries, as Korea ignored voices of concern repeatedly expressed by our government and by media inside and outside Japan,” Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

“It is in stark contrast to the common value of the international community, which is to respect the freedom of speech as much as possible and carry on with law enforcement only in a reserved manner.”

Later in the day, Tokyo’s Foreign Ministry called in diplomat Kim Won-jin from Korea’s embassy in Japan and expressed deep regrets for the indictment while adding that it was “deeply concerned about the situation.

Tatsuya Kato, head of the Seoul bureau of Japan’s Sankei Shimbun newspaper, was indicted Wednesday on defamation charges after he put out a report speculating that Park and an unidentified man might have had a secret meeting on the day of the deadly ferry disaster in April.

Citing an earlier opinion piece by Korean media, the 48-year-old said that Park’s whereabouts were unknown for seven hours, which incited rumors on the supposed secret meeting.  [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link, but I think the Park administration is actually using this reporter as a preemptive strike to stop online rumors like the mad cow lies passed around online by the Korean left that deeply damaged the prior Lee Myung-bak presidency.  Notice that this Japanese reporter simply passed along rumors that the Korean media had already reported.  However, the Park administration knows that it is unlikely that anyone on the Korean left will come out and defend a Japanese journalist which is why they are indicting him and not anyone in the South Korean media.  This then will allow them to move forward with their planned Internet crackdown.

It seems like every few months someone in the Korean media feels the need to make sweeping accusations against foreigners in Korea to drive page view traffic I suppose to their site.  Via the Marmot’s Hole comes this latest example from the Donga Ilbo:

Image via Popular Gusts.

The Dong-A Ilbo warns ladies to be careful of foreigners offering you drinks.

In May, a young man by the name of Kim got a urgent Kakao Talk from a female acquaintance of his who’d gone to a club in Yongsan. She was passing out and worried something might happen to her. He went to the club, found her passed out and surrounded by two foreigners, and rescued her. The next day, she told him that the foreigners gave her something to drink which had apparently been spiked.

She was rescued, but the Dong-A reports that there are women, defenseless against foreigners will ill-intent, who have been sexually assaulted. For instance, on Sept. 10, a 20-year-old woman was sitting at a Gangnam club with two foreign guys and a Korean guy. They gave her a drink which they’d spiked with sleeping pills. They brought her to a nearby motel, where they began filming parts of her anatomy with a cellphone. When she protested, they beat her. After a two week investigation, the cops arrested three guys for sexual assault, including a French guy and some model. [Marmot’s Hole via a reader tip]

You can read the rest at the link, to include a lively discussion on this topic in the comments section.  I just like how the article makes no mention about sexual assault in Korea by Koreans which has been a significant issue that has gained increased attention in recent years. By the way this is not the first time the Donga Ilbo has been spreading lies, I called them out a few years ago when they were spreading lies about GI crime in Korea.

What else I found of interest is how the Donga Ilbo has pretty much did a recycle of the reporting done on the English Spectrum incident. I guess their reporters are even too lazy now to find new xenophobic angle to report on.

Thanks to the ROK Heads who have shared this article with me which is one of the biggest examples of shoddy journalism I have seen in quite a while in the Korean media.  This article is in the Donga Ilbo in response to the recent GI crime incidents.  I will quote the article in full and then provide my comments after various passages:

The string of sexual crimes committed by American soldiers in Korea in recent weeks is known to have resulted from reckless recruitment of men with criminal records, mental disorders or other problems.

According to U.S. Defense Department data released in 2008 by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, the number of U.S. Army recruits convicted of felonies such as robbery or assault more than doubled from 249 (based on U.S. Army statistics) in 2006 to 511 in 2007.

Waxman blamed unconditional recruitment of soldiers amid a shortage of military manpower due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Felony Recruiting Myth

First of all the two soldiers accused of rape were both 21 year old Private First Classes so they were not recruited in 2006 so the linkage to felony waivers that year is irrelevant.  Since the Donga-Ilbo wants to bring this subject up I have already debunked the felony recruiting myth years ago but I will address it again here.

Over 180,000 soldiers were recruited into the military in 2007 and only 903 recruits needed a waiver.  That is .5016% of all recruits that needed a waiver which is hardly of concern.  Also the claim that felony waivers are needed to meet recruiting numbers doesn’t hold up either.  In 2007 the US Army recruited 80,635 soldiers.  511 of the soldiers had the felony waivers.  If the US Army did not allow in every recruit with a felony waiver they still would have met the recruiting mission of 80,000 soldiers in 2007.  The other important thing to realize is that these waivers are only issued on a case by case basis and signed off on by a senior field grade officer.  The vast majority of the waivers are thefts and drug crimes.  So if a teenager writes a bad check, shoplifts, or gets caught smoking marijuana, they shouldn’t be allowed in the military?  If anything these are probably people that need to join the military to learn discipline.  Out of all the felony waivers in 2007 only five were for sex crimes.  Yes five people out of 80,000 recruited that year by the Army and this is something that is supposed to be leading to increased sexual assaults in Korea?  By the way anyone wonder how many servicemembers in the ROK Army have felony convictions especially sex crimes?  Maybe the Korean media has looked into this before, but I sure haven’t seen it.

The GI Crime Myth

The Donga Ilbo article goes on:

Analysts say crimes committed by American soldiers in Korea have increased in number because a considerable portion of inexperienced soldiers are deployed to Korea. The number of crimes committed by American soldiers in Korea surged from 207 in 2007 to 316 in 2010.

First of all young men whether they are in the military or not cause more crime than older men.  So it is no surprise that younger enlisted Soldiers commit the majority of the crime.  However, sending nothing but older personnel to Korea is unfeasible.  You cannot have a military force filled with nothing but NCO’s and officers.  Any military that is effective needs to be filled with young men trained to fight.  The second thing I will point out from this passage is that these stats are not attributed to anyone.  Where did the Donga-Ilbo gets these stats from?  As ROK Heads know I have compiled USFK crime stats for years here on the ROK Drop from the USFK court martial results published every month just to be able to respond to blatant media fabrications which this obviously is.

Here is the real number of crimes committed by USFK servicemembers the last two years:

Number of Crimes Committed

• 2009: 98 crimes
• 2010: 153 crimes

As you can see this is much lower than what the Donga-Ilbo is claiming.  So once again where did they get their stats?  Also here is the number of USFK servicemembers convicted of crimes in Korean courts for the past 4 years:

USFK Servicemembers Convicted In Korean Courts

2007: 48 criminals
2008: 66 criminals
2009: 87 criminals
2010: 128 criminals

So overall there has been an increase in USFK crime, but not as bad as what the Donga-Ilbo is claiming.  Also something else the Donga-Ilbo doesn’t point out is that the increase in crime is caused mostly by the fact that USFK is allowing more of its personnel to drive cars which means increased driving infractions that are handled by the Korean courts.  Here is a list of traffic related crimes from 2010 compared to 2007.  My one caveat is that bodily injuries are usually from injuries sustained from a traffic accident, but this is not always the case.  Unfortunately the criminal prosecution results published by USFK don’t specify why the servicemember was convicted for bodily injury.  So all bodily injuries being traffic related is an assumption on my part.  Anyway here are the statistics:

Traffic Crimes from 2009 Compared to 2010

• Bodily Injury – 2007: 8 – 2010: 22
• Traffic Law Violation – 2007: 0 – 2010: 11
• Hit & Run – 2007: 1 – 2010: 9
• DUI’s – 2007: 13 – 2010: 28
• Violation of Auto Management Act – 2007: 0 – 2010: 3
• Total Traffic Crimes – 2007: 22 – 2010: 73

The driving change can be linked to an increase of up to 51 crimes in 2010 compared to 2007.  This is important context when talking about GI crime that is not reported by the Donga-Ilbo.  With that said that is why I have always believed that the best way to judge GI crime is to look at major crimes committed.  The Korean National Policy Agencyconsiders Murder, Burglary, Rape, Larceny, & Assault as major crimes when compiling Korean crime statistics.  So lets compare the number of major crimes from 2010 to prior years:

USFK Rate of Major Crimes from 2007-2010

• 2007 – 23
• 2008 – 15
• 2009 – 21
• 2010 – 48

So what crimes is causing the numbers to increase?  When the numbers are analyzed the major crimes increased in 2010 because of because of burglary and assaults.  Why are these crimes increasing?  I don’t have the data to prove anything but it could be the curfew change has allowed servicemembers to be out later and thus increasing the amount of time available to get into altercations with Koreans.  Like I said before this is just a theory with no data to support it since the court martial results do not provide any times when the incidents occurred.

The most important fact to point out is that despite the increase in GI crime, USFK still has a lower per capita crime rate than the general Korean population:

• Korea: 1 major crime out of every 128 people
• USFK: 1 major crime out of every 594 people

What is also interesting it was just back in July when it was reported that overall crime in the 2nd Infantry Division had dropped over the past 12 month period which the police chief of Dongducheon said was because of better educated Soldiers coming to Korea.

The SOFA Myth

Anyway the shoddy journalism from the Donga Ilbo continues:

Despite mounting crimes committed by American servicemen here, no effective measures or regulations are in place to punish them. Clause 5 under Article 22 of the Status of Forces Agreement on the deployment of U.S. forces in Korea suggests that even if an American soldier commits a violent crime such as murder or rape, Korean police can take the suspect into custody only when they directly catch him at the crime scene.

All the Korean authorities have to do is fill out paperwork requesting that a USFK servicemember be handed over to Korean custody.  This is done to ensure that the rights of the accused servicemember are protected. A SOFA is a document signed between the United States and the host country of US military personnel in order to clarify each side’s rights and responsibilities in regards to a variety of issues that arise with the stationing of US troops in a foreign country.

A SOFA between different nations is never the same because each nation has different legal and political systems that influence the way in which a SOFA is written. For example in the United States people expect that someone accused of a crime should have the right to remain silent and have access to lawyer. With that it is important to realize with Status of Forces Agreements is that unlike civilians, troops are ordered to go overseas. Since troops are under orders they are owed the legal protections they would find in the United States. Ambassador Thomas Hubbard summarizes this best, “we sent them under our system, and we owe them those protections.”

Not all countries the United States has troops in respect these rights. For example the SOFA between the US and Japan allows the military to hold servicemembers accused of crimes until they are indicted by a Japanese court, to which then they are handed over to Japanese authorities. This holding of the servicemember prior to indictment is to protect their rights to remain silent, not to have coercive interrogation tactics used against them, and have access to a proper lawyer, which is not something readily available to them if held by local Japanese authorities. It is legal differences such as this that make detailed status of forces agreements necessary.

You can read more analysis about the SOFA at this link:

• GI Myths:  The Unfair US-Korea SOFA

The Donga Ilbo’s criticism against the SOFA is especially ridiculous considering that USFK just handed over the Soldier accused of rape in Dongducheon just like all other GI criminals after the Korean authorities submitted the proper paperwork for his transfer.

The Donga Ilbo goes on:

In other cases, Korean police must hand over the suspect to U.S. authorities if requested.

Moreover, the U.S. military has the right to reject Korea’s request to put a suspect in detention if and when it finds even a slight chance that the soldier’s rights could be infringed on in a Korean criminal investigation or trial by a Korean court. For this reason, U.S. soldiers who commit crimes are detained mostly by military police of their own units rather than Korean authorities.

In addition, if the U.S. demands that Korea hand over jurisdiction, the latter has no choice but to do so except in cases in which the crimes are deemed “exceptionally serious.” For this reason, Korea has used its jurisdiction over a U.S. military suspect in less than 5 percent of all crimes committed by American soldiers stationed here.

Why doesn’t the Donga-Ilbo provide one example of when USFK refused to hand someone over?  Just one please.  Also once again, where did the stat of 5% come from?

Shady Statistics

Here in the final passage I think we can probably attribute all these shady statistics to this well known anti-US group:

A source at the National Campaign for Eradication of Crimes by U.S. Troops in Korea said, “To minimize punishment, U.S. authorities arbitrarily judge that most crimes were committed while on official duty and thus take away jurisdiction over cases from Korean authorities,” adding, “Even in cases where Korea holds jurisdiction, only one to two U.S. soldiers as defendants are given prison sentences per year.”

The utter lies allowed to be published in the Donga-Ilbo is really astounding.  Once again can the Donga Ilbo provide examples of all these people getting away with being tried in Korean courts because USFK says they were on duty?  The only examples I can think of are traffic accidents while driving military vehicles with the most famous example being the 2002 Armored Vehicle Incident.  I would like just one example of a non-traffic related incident such as assault or rape where a GI was declared on duty to avoid being tried in a Korean court.  I would like just one example.  Then the claim that 1-2 servicemembers are given prison sentences per year in Korean courts is more lies.  Just looking back at the ROK criminal prosecution results for this year, 7 GI’s were given prison sentences.  So once again where did the anti-US groups stat come from?

USFK Needs To Do More

So I think I have made it pretty clear that this article is filled with lies that the Donga-Ilbo should be embarrassed by, but I’m sure they could care less because they are out to promote perceptions of American GI’s instead of facts.  I just wish the USFK public affairs office would do more to counter this blatant propaganda instead of allowing it to circulate unchallenged in the Korean media.  As long as USFK doesn’t dispute these lies by engaging the Korean media in Korean then the false stereotypes that many Koreans have of American GI’s will continue perpetuate.

Popular South Korean news website, Oh My News has apparently been hacked:

The well-known Korean online news service OhmyNews, which is written by its readers, has reportedly been infected with a “Trojan Horse,” a malicious code that allows hackers to steal personal information. Internet security firm Geot (ww.geot.com) and Manian.com (manian.dreamwiz.com), a club of Internet users, said Sunday OhmyNews was hacked on Saturday afternoon.

The Trojan lurking on the website will install itself on the computers of readers logging on to the site, and will leak their ID and passwords when they log onto online game sites.

Apparently a Chinese hacker did this to get online game passwords. I wonder if this is going to start a cyber war?