Taking on The New York Times

By Michael Breen

When newspapers reported that the Dokdo campaigner Seo Kyung-deok had taken out a full page ad in The New York Times on Monday to argue for calling the water between Japan and Korea the ``East Sea," he did what journalists fear. He turned unfair criticism of their reporting into an interesting news story in its own right.

You have to admire him for that.

The ad, which was addressed to the paper's editorial staff and titled, ``Error in NYT," criticized the use of a map that referred to the "Sea of Japan" with an April 6 story about the North Korea missile launch.

It was a ``small but significant error," the ad said, claiming that the sea in question has ``actually been referred to as the 'East Sea' by many nations over the past 2,000 years." It went on to observe, ``There is no Sea of Japan in the world ― it only exists in the thinking of the Japanese government."

I have to confess that, as a Korea-based alien, my instinct is to argue against this. But I hesitate to do so because I recognize that this impulse is condescending. It comes from expatriate embarrassment, not consideration of the local viewpoint. Just as you might cringe when your friend speaks in a foreign language with a heavy accent, so we expatriates twist with awkwardness when ``our" Koreans take the issues that we tolerate here to our countries where, we fear, they will be laughed at.

Let it be said that this campaign of newspaper ads, letters and emails to publishers of maps, guidebooks and travel sites, promoting the East Sea name, is not unreasonable. It is, from the perspective of those undertaking it, an attempt to erase the legacy of a colonial past and there's nothing wrong with that, except that it's rather late.

That said, it's hard to resist pointing out flaws in the execution. First journalists don't read ads. It's possible that the news story that Seo has created is only being read back in Korea, in which case he, or his netizen supporters, paid tens of thousands of dollars to preach to the choir.

Second, the title is chiefly Konglish. Only Koreans call the paper ``NYT." New Yorkers call it "The Times." Talking about different names for things, I could take issue with Americans here, given that the real ``The Times" is a British newspaper, established in 1785, when people in New York were still living up trees. But I won't, because for them, it is The Times. It's their Times. And it's not the only one in America, for The Washington Times and The Los Angeles Times are also called ``The Times" in their respective communities. (They all call the British one "The London Times," which is pretty cheeky).

Third, Seo took an extremist position when he said the Sea of Japan is a Tokyo fantasy. The Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK), a group that campaigns internationally to clear up what it sees as errors and distortions about Korea, more moderately recognizes the widespread use of ``Sea of Japan" in English and simply requests that the Korean usage be included (i.e., ``East Sea/Sea of Japan" or vice versa) until the two countries (or three, if you include North Korea, which calls it the ``East Sea of Korea") can agree on a single name.

But the flaws do not detract from the effectiveness of Seo's strategy. Already, as a result of lobbying, National Geographic and Lonely Planet acknowledge ``East Sea." Google Earth has adopted a policy ― when countries dispute the name for a body of water ― of using both, with each placed closer to the country that uses it.

One irony, though, is that by papering over poor scholarship and ill-reasoned argument with emotion and energy, these activists may well themselves be damaging the image of Koreans.

We will see. As I said, I doubt many reporters will have read the ad, but my money is on the ``East Sea" eventually making it into The New York Times stylebook.

Michael Breen is chairman of Insight Communications Consultants, Exclusive Partner of FD International. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.

[출처 : 코리아타임스]