‘Don’t give up, Japan’ vs. ‘Japan sinks’

The front page of a South Korean newspaper on Saturday reporting The front page of a South Korean newspaper on Saturday the disaster in Japan.

After the devastation of the earthquake that hit Japan on March 11, some news outlets have been lambasted for the way they portrayed the tragic developments.
Some Korean national newspapers are under fire for using a provocative headline; in contrast, a British paper sent a much-needed message of hope encouraging the Japanese to keep going, a move that prompted unanimous public praise.
A growing number of Korean bloggers and Twitter users are posting comments comparing the methods used by media in Korea and elsewhere to depict the situation in Japan.
On Saturday, two national daily newspapers in Korea both used “Ilbon chimmol” (“Japan sinks” or “Sinking of Japan” in Korean) as their main headline. With the death toll surging at an alarming pace, the headline immediately generated complaints from many readers. Hundreds of Twitter users called the headline “insensitive” and “overtly provocative” at a time when millions of Japanese people are suffering from the tragedy.
Media Today, a local news outlet covering the media industry, said that the “controversial headline” used by the newspapers appears to evoke a Japanese movie of the same title depicting a fictional scenario of a total disaster.
Media Today quoted several social network users, whose comments mostly criticised the newspapers’ decision to opt for a “sensational headline”.
The newspapers have removed the headline from their websites, but neither of them has offered an apology.
A major broadcast network also came in for severe criticism as it filed a report predicting that the Korean Wave in Japan might suffer a setback due to the quake and tsunami, instead of focusing on the suffering of the Japanese people.
Elsewhere, Malaysian newspaper Bertia Harian published a cartoon showing Japanese manga character Ultraman comically running away from the tsunami. After confronting a wave of criticism from readers calling the cartoon distasteful and insensitive, the paper issued a formal apology in its Monday edition.
Chosun Ilbo, a conservative daily, said in its editorial on Monday that the local media should approach the situation of Japan from the perspective of the Japanese struggling with an epic disaster, exercising caution in their choice of words.
The Independent on Sunday a British paper, used a different approach: It posted a big message of hope saying that “Don’t give up, Japan. Don’t give up, Tohoku” in both Japanese and English. The paper’s front-page instantly circulated throughout the local social networks, with users praising the company’s decision.
The Independent’s editorial decision is being cited by Korean Twitter and Facebook users as an exemplary case in sharp contrast to some Korean newspapers.
The dispute surrounding the reporting of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, however, is likely to go on for a while as one of the two newspapers embroiled in the provocative headline put another controversial article on its website on Sunday, predicting that Japan’s debacle could benefit Korea’s semiconductor, petrochemical sectors in the short term. The article was posted on a Japanese Internet portal, leading to negative comments by Japanese users.

source: asianewsnet

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