[Copy Editor’s Comment] A controversy from which lessons can be learned - on all sides

Posted on : 2018-02-11 08:11 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
President Moon Jae-in shakes hands with Matthew Pottinger
President Moon Jae-in shakes hands with Matthew Pottinger

Over the weekend, a controversy erupted in political and media circles over a Hankyoreh editorial that appeared on the newspaper’s English edition website. The editorial in question referenced an article from that day’s Korean version of the newspaper in which Matthew Pottinger, the White House National Security Council’s senior director for Asian affairs, reportedly said that a US strike on North Korea might be beneficial to President Trump in the midterm Congressional elections. This quote was picked up by the Wall Street Journal’s Seoul correspondent, Jonathan Cheng, whose Twitter post about it set off a firestorm, particularly after it was noticed by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Sanders denied that Pottinger had ever made such a statement, while excoriating Cheng for his “reckless” action of retweeting the quote without checking with her first. Many American media members then joined in the pile-on, while offering various interpretations for how this could have happened. One reporter placed the blame on a translation error, while another dropped a not-so-subtle reference to the paper as “left wing,” and subtly implied that the ideological perspective of the editorial board had played a role. After 24 hours, Cheng felt sufficiently chastened to offer an apology before deleting the offending tweet. It seemed as if everything could go back to normal.

This story continues to bother me for a number of reasons, not least because I am responsible for copy editing all of the material that appears in the English edition. Having gone back and looked at the original article, the Korean editorial, and the version that appeared on the English website, I am confident in saying that this was not a translation issue. Our translation team is among the best in the business, and the translator of that particular editorial has over a decade’s worth of Korean-English translation experience. Anyone who suggests that this was an error on his part is either ill-informed or doesn’t speak Korean.

It’s true that in the original English version of the article, the phrase, “to the effect of” had been removed. At the same time, no quotation marks were used to denote this as a direct quote, so readers should have been able to deduce from the context that Pottinger may not have made the remarks exactly as stated. Regardless, in this instance, whether those exact words were used or simply something to that effect seems like an unnecessary splitting of hairs.

There was also some concern over whether we should have initially used the word “reportedly” to describe the quotes in question. However, since the sentence explicitly mentioned Pottinger meeting with a group of US experts on Korean affairs in Washington, D.C., it should have been obvious to readers that our Hankyoreh correspondent was not at the meeting and instead got his information from a third-party source; a source that has refused to identify out of a sense of journalistic responsibility and integrity. It should be pointed out, however, that he has continued to vouch for the authenticity of the quote both in articles to Business Insider and, more importantly, to the Hankyoreh editorial staff.

The real issue here concerns the lack of context. The original Korean article does not specify whether Pottinger made the alleged remarks by prefacing them with something like, “There are some people saying that...,” or “I don’t agree with this, but...,” or some other variation. To this point, it’s important to note that our job at the English edition is simply to publish English translations of the articles as they appear, and as such, we are somewhat limited in presenting the original text.

That being said, context here was clearly important, and by conveying the impression that Pottinger himself was suggesting a limited attack on North Korea, or that he condoned this line of thinking, we did a disservice both to him and also to the field of journalism. This was a mistake on our part, and one that we will learn from and take every effort to avoid in the future.

At the same time, the approach that the American media took in following up on the story was hardly a shining example of responsible journalism, either. For the most part, those reporters covering the story or following along on Twitter simply took the word of the White House press secretary at face value and then looked for reasons to discredit the Hankyoreh’s reporting rather than reaching out to Pottinger and others who were present at the meeting. They also unfairly criticized Cheng merely for retweeting a story of interest that appeared in a major newspaper of the country he is charged with covering.

Based on published reports that subsequently appeared in various US news outlets, there seemed to be precious little effort made to try and verify the story by reaching out to Pottinger directly and seeking clarification. To his credit, Pottinger is a former journalist who became a Marine and then later went into government service because of his belief in American democratic values, one of which is presumably a transparent and responsive government. On an issue as serious as this, surely he would have some interest in setting the record straight.

And this surely is a serious issue. American history is replete with instances of politicians ginning up wars to help their reelection prospects: we only need to look back to 2002 for the latest example. Given that the political climate is not currently favorable for Republicans and with Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump administration progressing by the day, Pottinger's comments would seem to be plausible, particularly if he was just referencing this fact rather than agreeing with it.

Equally important, one of the primary reasons that the US got involved in the Iraq War was due to the gullible and uncritical nature of the US media in taking government sources at their word and failing in their fundamental job of providing the truth to the American public. The stakes of a new conflict breaking out on the Korean Peninsula are far too high for reporters to go through the motions of reporting news based solely on official statements and Twitter threads. Sadly, I saw little evidence over the past week to make me believe that they have learned much from the mistakes of the past.

By Geoffrey Fattig, English Edition copy editor

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

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