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www.groovekorea.com / November 2014 30 Edited by Elaine Ramirez (elaine@groovekorea.com) COVER stORy Murky sources Anyone who opens a Korean newspaper or tunes in to the TV news is likely to be confronted with an abundance of anonymous sources. Information from unnamed government officials routinely forms the basis of articles, as was the case with reports during the recent Asian Games that the South Korean government intended to pay the cost of North Korea’s participation in the sporting event. Ordinary citizens, too, are regularly identified with nothing more than “Lee” or “Kim” when speaking about their experiences or an issue of public concern. “This is because of ... the environment that requires each reporter to write so many articles,” says Cho Soong-ho, a diplomacy and North Korean affairs reporter with Dong-A Ilbo, one of the country’s largest newspapers. “There is no time to meet multiple sources for double- and triple-checking. Most journalists try to double-check, at least, but there isn’t always time for even that. In that case, even if only one source confirmed something, if that source is reliable, reporters would often cite the source anonymously and go ahead and write the article.” The most prestigious names in news worldwide, such as the Associated Press and Reuters, strongly discourage the use of anonymous sources except in exceptional circumstances. Including a source’s name holds both the interviewee and journalist to account, making it much more difficult for either to lie or pursue a hidden agenda. Korean media outlets, by contrast, often appear indiscriminate in withholding the identities of their sources. Even convicted criminals are routinely not named in the media, in what is often an example of overcompensating for the dearth of privacy and human rights in past dictatorships, according to professor Lee. Reports also often fail to identify businesses or organizations that form the basis of the story — even when they are implicated in unethical or criminal behavior. In the wake of the Sewol disaster, the Joongang Ilbo reported on lax safety standards at businesses including a Seoul night club. Despite claiming the club was putting patrons’ lives at risk by failing to provide sufficient fire exits, the article declined to name the venue. Similarly, a rash of articles in August about a bar that briefly banned Africans over Ebola fears declined to identify the venue, JR Pub in Itaewon. “Every time I would write an article, when I quoted someone, I referred to them by their name, but some colleagues and superiors thought this was not a good idea,” says Heo, who worked as a reporter for SisaIN magazine after leaving OBS. “I disagreed with that.” In addition to strict defamation laws, advertising pressures fuel this endemic neutering of reporting, Lee suggests. “Korea is a very small country. If you name a person or a branch of office, then you could immediately identify what kind of company (or) government branch is related to the issue,” Lee says. “So there is a little more caution on the part of the press and it has to do with the commercial pressure, the advertising situation. There used to be lots of deals between major corporations and the news media on how much identity is expressed in a story.”