Korean broadcaster to face criminal charges over lies that led to US Beef fiasco.

The US beef hysteria in South Korea were given a huge credibility boost in the early days by the airing of a TV show (PD notebook – kind of like 60 minutes, but without the integrity) highlighting the dangers of importing beef from the US. This was a great piece of journalism that touched the country and perfectly illustrated just how dangerous the meat could be. Except it didn’t. The show was riddled with lies and inaccuracies.

The three biggest lies are now being targeted by the government and it is expected that criminal charges will follow:

1. Footage of a “downer” cow being illegally sent to slaughter was misrepresented as a typical case of Mad Cows being killed for human consumption. Downer cows are considered unfit for human consumption in the US, though not in Korea!
2. An interview with an American woman whose daughter had died was show talking about her death. The show translated her as talking about her daughter dying from Mad Cow Disease, when this is NOT true. They used somebody’s death in a horrible way in order to mislead the public.
3. They claimed that 94% of Koreans have a gene that makes them likely to catch mad cow diseases. To back this up they quoted a scientific paper entirely out of context and the scientist made a point of saying so.

So, they have misled the public and manipulated public opinion by using poor journalism, and now they are having to pay the price for that. Korea Beat have posted an article about this, and I am not sure if I agree 100% with their position that such piss-poor journalism should go entirely unpunished.

These journalists have abused their position, and neglected their duty to tell the truth. Sometimes, the truth is open to interpretation, and had they interpreted information in a way that I disagreed with, I would defend their right to do so. PD Notebook have not done that. They have not made a mistake. They have deliberately lied and misrepresented “facts” in order to cause a public panic. They have used the personal tragedy of a mother and manipulated it by representing it as something else, hiding behind a language barrier in order to avoid immediate scrutiny.

Korea’s libel laws are pretty harsh. Posting information that tarnishes the reputation of a person of individual is considered libelous, even when the information is true. Whatever I may think of that particular law, it is still the law and so it should be followed by all. These lies were conjured up to damage the reputation of the President, and the reputation of the US Beef industry, and so they should be punished for that alone.

The protests that followed were damaging to Korea’s international reputation. Re-negotiating trade agreements after they have been signed will make future agreements difficult to reach.

It now turns out that the US Beef protests have been organised by the pro-North movement, who have been using beef to rally support for their cause. They were doing this before the PD Notebook show, and their cause was given a tremendous boost by the propaganda published. Again, whether right or wrong, promoting a Pro-North Korea agenda is illegal in the South Korea, and is considered a criminal act punishable by imprisonment.

Tales of people being persecuted for debunking the lies in the show, show just how much faith the Korean people put in TV shows and newspaper reports. Journalists need to be held accountable for their actions. Ideally, an independent, self-regulating watchdog, similar to those in the UK would better serve the journalism industry. I am not an advocate of criminal charges being brought against honest journalists, and whilst I believe that PD have deliberately acted dishonestly and criminally, I fear that a precedent could be set by a criminal prosecution. There needs to be some system in place to monitor journalism and to ensure accuracy and integrity of reporting without restricting their right to report on current affairs. Having a journalism watchdog with powers similar to those of the PCC, one that forces journalists to adhere to their own guidelines, and to ensure that when guidelines are breached self-correction measures are taken, could work very well in a country where ‘losing face’ is considered more important than the truth.

At the moment, South Korea does not have any kind of regulatory body to ensure journalistic integrity. If the government decide to continue with criminal prosecution, the need to exercise some restraints. They need to make sure that the public and the media understand that they are being punished for deliberately misleading the public, and the prosecution should be made to prove that the dishonesty was indeed deliberate, and that it was done for profit. They should keep away from any opinion pieces, and instead focus on the lies that were backed up by false evidence. The penalty sought should be for all advertising revenues that the episode gathered, as well as any increase in revenues that may have resulted over the next few weeks. They should then use the money to help offset the cost of policing the demonstrations that resulted! The solution could help promote journalistic integrity, and will ensure that the media can continue with honest reporting on any issue they want.

Mooo!

I have been a little “slow” in creating new articles for this blog lately. My reasons for this are twofold. First of all, my child is just about ready to break out, and so I have been getting her new home ready for her. Expensive little shit! The bed is built, and the wife’s bags are packed, so now we just have to wait.

The second reason is, it seems that there is still only 1 issue dominating Korean news and blogs at the moment, and that is the one of Koreans protesting the resumption of US Beef imports. I had hoped to make a well informed and referenced posting about this some time last week. I had a long list of references at hand, and then was beat to the punch by a user called Howie2424 on Dave’s ESL Cafe, a forum for ex-pat teachers that I like to visit during downtime at work. The forums are not exactly the greatest to visit, and at times are a real freakshow showing off the worst kind of foreigner. That said, they can make an interesting read!

A thread kicked off about the current event: Protests against the import of US beef. It was pretty standard fare for the forums until Howie2424 sprung into action and gave the perfect debunking of the lies surrounding the protests. I have copied the three posts to this site as a backup. You can find them on the original post or my archives here, here, and here).

With these posts in the public domain, I felt that there was little more I could add. That said, people should read them, and they are relevant to this piece!

The lies surrounding the debacle have been clearly highlighted, but nobody has really asked WHY people are lying about this. At first, it was suggested that these protests were really about beef. This then changed to a claim that it was really about the way the President is running the country. (Apparently, 100 days in office is more than enough time for him to deliver on his election pledges!). At all times, people were maintaining that this was not about anti-American sentiment, though I was not so certain, and have expressed this in the past.

It seems I may have been correct.

Last week, the protesters decided to liven things up by linking the resumption of beef imports with the death of 2 schoolgirls that happened 6 years ago. The deaths of these girls were largely ignored at the time, as Koreans were more concerned with how the national team were doing in the World Cup, but 6 months later, the anti-US element decided to manipulate the situation. Armed with an arsenal of lies, they made things very uncomfortable for foreigners in South Korea. Protests against US forces and random attacks on foreigners, soon became the norm in South Korea.

ROKDrop, a great blog for US Forces in Korea, recently did a fantastic job of uncovering the facts of the case. Koreans still believe a lot of the lies surrounding this incident and it is an emotional issue for them. What happened was a tragedy, but (as the ROKDrop article shows), they US did everything right after the incident, and by the time the protests had begun, they had conducted an investigation, charged the soldiers with negligent homicide, paid the family a large sum of money collected by the soldiers, and were arranging a much larger sum of money as compensation. They have been apologised to on numerous occasions, the military had accepted full responsibility, and they had erected a memorial to the girls.

The lies surrounding the case? The soldiers had reversed back over the girls and then celebrated the kill. The Army had not apologised (in fact, the protestors were asking for “just one small apology”), and they claimed that the soldiers were immune from prosecution because the Army was protecting them. Madcowshit!

It now turns out that the people behind the Beef protests have been behind a number of other Anti-US protests. Again, ROKDrop has more information on this. It seems that these people are actually travelling to North Korea and meeting with people there to organise the protests.

These organisations pose a real threat to the freedom of the South Korean people. Whenever they get riled up about something, violence against foreigners increases (read the comments section on this one – it shows just how fucked up the law is in this country). I only hope that the Korean people realise that they are being taken for ride, and stop the insanity before it escalates further.

My Hero!

Korea beat translated this article about some foreigners attending the protests  candlelight vigil’s against a president who did exactly what he promised to do US beef. In the article I found a new hero!

Check out this kid. He apparently attends one of the International schools in Seoul, and managed to get himself snapped with a mate, wearing an anti-US Beef T-shirt.  He is posing for the camera in what the Koreans assume is a reversal of their typical camera pose. We Brits know differently though. Nice to see somebody telling these idiots to fuck off!

I have a feeling that the Korean reporters never exactly got the responses they were looking for when interviewing these people”

Mack, an Englishman who has been with an international school for 11 years, said, “American beef is safe. I enjoy eating it.”

Mr. Schmidt, a Canadian teaching English in a Korean university, said, “since I’m a foreigner I have no political rights in Korea. I don’t have any particular interest in the beef issue.”

These comments are a far cry from those given by this moron uninformed American. (She is spouting bollocks – pretty much believing the crap that the Korean Media have been publishing for the past month).