Passion of the Veteran Journalist

作者: The AsiaN Editor on 27 January , 2012.
类别: All, News, People

We had the pleasure of meeting Mr K. C. Hwang, former president of Seoul Bureau of Associate Press at his residence in Seoul. At 89 years old , he is the oldest active journalist in Korea if not in the World.

He talked about his experience of working with Associate Press for 30 years from 1957 to 1987. Adding that it was quite an enriching experience for him as Korea was under military rule during that time, so they didn’t have the kind of freedom that the journalist of today enjoy. Also he was detained for 3 days for covering the Kwang-ju tragedy.

Intially he started working from Japan as there was no bureau in Korea. Also he is very fluent in Japanese as most of his schooling was in Japanese.

Also back in the day there was no Press bureau in China, reporters used to cover China from Tapei. But now he said a lot of Chinese reporters are here in Korea. During his tenure he visited various countries and met dignitaries like Jimmy Carter. He travelled around the world covering major events in different parts of the globe but never really got the opportunity to visit India.

In 1987 he moved on to TIME magazine as they wanted to establish a formal bureau in Seoul before the Olympic Games.

He told us that in those days foreign press did not give as much salary as the Korean press but it was his passion for journalism that kept him going and that is the reason he still writes article as a freelancer. Just recently he covered the 1000^th demonstration of the Korean Comfort Women in front of the Japanese embassy.

He mentioned about today’s journalism that earlier Korean newspapers used to have Chinese characters which made the news very through and concise but now, Korean papers don’t really use Chinese characters. Korean characters are sometimes unable to express the layers of meaning and dimensions.

He is still very active as a journalist. He writes articles for various publications, including “Free Column Group” covering the current events with the same zeal that he had several decades ago.

In regard to the future of media, as all the major publications like the New York Times are seeing their print circulation and advertising revenues decreasing he believes that online subscription will be the order of the day.

He is truly a source of inspiration for the young generation especially those working or intend to work in the media industry. Work hard and never give up.