Books on South Korea
Korea Witness edited by Donald Kirk and Choe Sang Hun
While in Korea, someone asked what I did. “Writer. Journalist,” I replied. The person then told me a Korean woman in the group wrote for the Los Angeles Times. When I approached her and said, “I heard you were a writer!” She replied with, “No. I’m a reporter.” I was perplexed by the clarification. To me all reporters were writers (although I realize not all writers are reporters). Reporters write, therefore, they are “writers.” However, as I got further into reading Korea Witness I realized maybe there is a necessary clarification there. They are different. One is simply there to get the facts and hammer them out as quickly as possible. The other crafts a story. Some people can do both, but sadly the two-fold talent is not in every person who gets a byline. And Korea Witness is written mostly by reporters.
The tome is filled with stories from and about the foreign correspondents who covered South Korea, mostly since the Korean War. It describes a bit of history of correspondents there and then gives free reign for many of those still living to tell a moment or two they remember most. Sadly, though, these moments usually drift from fact to fact, and it is often clear the story-teller succeeded in the field because he was a “reporter” and not a “writer.” And including so many voices talking about such a short period of history means that the reader must endure reading about the same assassination attempts, kidnappings, and protests again and again.
Although the book has its repetitiveness, the journalism student in me enjoyed it because I learned how reporters came about stories or built their lives around a beat. Alas, though, I know that the ordinary reader won’t get a kick out of the facts of how some veteran reporter gets a president’s first official interview; they’re going to want a well-written story about it. And to read 472 pages, even I have to admit I’d rather read something written by a writer than a reporter.
Rating: 2 out of 5
