U.S. political leaders rely on South Korean media: Nelson Report editor

Posted on : 2006-09-18 21:03 KST Modified on : 2006-09-18 21:03 KST

The U.S. government and political leaders rely heavily on South Korean media reports to learn about issues related to the Korean Peninsula, the editor of Nelson Report said Monday.

Christopher Nelson, the founder and editor of the U.S. daily briefing on international policy issues, was a guest speaker at a forum in Seoul organized by Citizens' Coalition for Democratic Media.

"The fact is, U.S. policy-makers and commentators nearly all rely on primarily on their own, or other's interpretations, of Korean media, rather than original work by the U.S. media," Nelson said.

The Nelson Report is a blog-style briefing of international issues and their relationship to politics in Washington. It is widely read by U.S. policymakers and politicians.

Nelson said he had once taken a survey of about 30 influential figures in the U.S. government, Congress and media to find out how American decision-makers were kept up-to-date on Korea.

Nelson quoted an unidentified former U.S. journalist, now academic and commentator, as saying, "Mostly I rely on the Korean media, supplemented by the Japanese media and some online resources. I read the major Korean newspapers on line, along with Yonhap."

Nelson said the U.S. journalists depends basically on "all of you, (his) colleagues in Japan, China and South Korea collectively" to tell what is going on in the Korean Peninsula.

He also quoted a U.S. State Department official as saying that he tries to read a mix of a South Korean right-wing paper and a left-wing paper to get an accurate sense of the real situation.

"I can usually figure out the real story and avoid getting spun, manipulated by either South Korean government or papers," he quoted the same State Department official as saying.

Seoul, Sept. 18 (Yonhap News)