I opened up my copy of the newspaper this morning and very quickly realized it was a slow news day. Or at least an editor at 조선일보(朝鮮日報) made that call.
Today the top right quarter of the front page of the newspaper was dedicated to introducing a series of new articles on prices in Korea, entitled “해리포터 책값, 서울>도쿄>뉴욕” (“The Price of Harry Potter Books: Seoul > Tokyo > New York”). This was accompanied by a chart comparing the price of Harry Potter books 6 and 7 in five major cities.
If there is any phenomenon or fact worth reporting about Korea in the media, there is a very good chance that we will also learn how a quantification of that phenomenon compares with other OECD countries somewhere early in the report or article. Price index comparisons are, of course, something more commonly presented with such comparisons, but I had to chuckle when I saw this above the fold. When I lived in Japan, headlines like these would always prompt a, “日本は平和だな〜” (“Japan is such a peaceful place…”) I realized Korea was fairly peaceful too earlier this past summer when 20 minutes of the first half of an hour’s worth of the daily news (I can’t remember which channel) was dedicated to how citizens of Seoul are mobilizing to address the dangerous irregularities found occasionally in the metal hand bars found on a path in a city park (along the Han river? Can’t remember exactly) which had given rollerbladers cuts on their hands. They have apparently been putting some tape over the offending areas. I remember this was around the same time that huge floods in China had left thousands homeless and many dead. The floods didn’t make the news at all.
During my last two trips back to Norway, I noticed that the evening news on NRK (Dagsrevyen) had relatively heavy domestic coverage in terms of a straight minute calculation, and I guess I assume that this is the case with most countries. The middle east and large humanitarian crises, however, did seem to get considerable attention. Some national TV channels such as the news on BBC in the UK, and NHK in Japan have excellent international coverage but I’m not sure if that is because they both have had sprawling empires. Of course, the more internationally active cable channels also have a far larger proportion of international news. I’m truly amazed, however, at the the small proportion given to it on the various evening news programs I have seen here on TV in Seoul. There is better coverage in the major Korean newspapers, which always have pages reserved for international news (in addition to the front page), but I wonder what readership is like compared to broadcast news. Online reading of news, which is widespread in Korea, of course complicates the issue.
This all does raise an interesting normative question, however. Does the discomfort that wandering nomads like myself feel when we travel places and think we find a relative lack of consciousness about problems elsewhere in the world translate into anything more than a reflection of our own insufficient lack of investment into the interests of a specific community?
Interesting way of looking at it. Two things that I have noticed in Taiwan are that:
1. People tend to read the newspaper and watch television news much more than I am used to seeing in the US.
2. There is very little international news in the newspapers, and even less on TV (almost non-existent).