Silence is not necessarily golden: a message to Korean reporters

U.S. President Barack Obama offered a chance for Korean reporters to comment or to ask questions at the G20 Seoul conference in 2010.

The Seoul conference was an opportunity to boost the morale of the Korean people and burnish the image of Korea to the world.

I don’t know the exact timing of Obama’s offer to Korean reporters in the YouTube video to which I was directed, but I guess it was after the Korea-U.S. summit meeting or press conference. But, he specifically gave a chance for dialogue to the Korean reporters present after a speech or joint communiqué issued by the two presidents.

There were more than several Korean reporters on hand, but Obama’s offer was greeted with silence.

Then, he asked if the Korean reporters had any questions. Again, silence. The Korean reporters looked at each other and smiled in the YouTube video that my friend alerted me to from Korea.

Then, a patient Obama offered them one last chance. No one responded. In between the second and the third opportunities, a Chinese reporter raised his hand and attempted to ask a question. The YouTube video did not show anything further.

Such a silence on the part of the Korean reporters in, at or after the summit must have been awkward to the president, who provided an opportunity for a dialogue with the Korean reporters. He was, and is, a U.S. president who loves Korea and the Korean people.

Why did the Korean reporters respond with such humiliating and awkward silence? I don’t know. I don’t understand at all. When I visited the White House in the 1980s, press conferences were honorable opportunities for White House correspondents to initiate dialogue or put questions to the president or his spokesperson. Everyone tried to take advantage of that opportunity, but their time was always very limited.

Simply, it was a shameful scene. President Obama must have been disappointed with the Korean reporters’ silence in response to his offer to talk with them about pending U.S.-Korea issues such as trade, North Korea’s nuclear program or East Asian security in general.

I remember how Korean college students responded to my class-ending comment, “Do you have questions or comments?” Most often, there was silence.

The situation was quite different with the American college students I taught. Question-and-answer (Q&A) sessions were always fun for me and my students. I allocated the last 10 minutes of undergraduate classes for those Q&A sessions after my 40-minute lectures. Dialogue was the main component of my graduate-level seminars.

Why? Students in the United States and Korea were different. Dialogue on equal footing between teacher and students was not something to which people in Korea were accustomed. That was my discovery from a comparative perspective. Korean students assumed that they were not equal to their teachers in terms of intellect. I tried to break that “bias and prejudice.” Most recently, I saw a sign of hope in one student’s “thank you note” from the University of Seoul in a blog, “To Professor Choi Yearn-hong.”

Korean reporters are known as an elite corps within the nation’s intellectual society. They are the winners among candidates from very tough competitions. Those who accompany the president on the occasion of a summit conference must be the best of the best. But, they were all quiet. It is hard to figure out why they kept their mouths shut despite President Obama’s repeated offers.

Democracy is based on intellectual forums between and among citizens. Korean democracy is still weak, because intellectual forums are not yet institutionalized, so that one citizen or citizens’ group cannot peacefully conduct a dialogue with another citizen or another group in a public forum.

Violence often in the National Assembly, and street demonstrations by opposition party members and labor unions are very common political campaigns. Such sad political drama can be blamed on the absence of meaningful dialogue between opposing groups in Korea. When there is an absence of dialogue, democracy is jeopardized.

After peaceful dialogue and debate, the majority should prevail. That is so far missing. There is no perfect consensus between the ruling and opposition parties. But Korean politicians want perfect consensus. The current National Assembly is deadlocked for that reason.

Nonsense!

“Korean reporters, you are a shame!”

Someone captioned the above statement under the YouTube video. I don’t know who wrote that, but it was understandable. I wish this was all something left behind in 2010.

Korean reporters should learn how to engage in dialogue as part of their training to be foreign correspondents.

Media outlets should select reporters to travel with the president who will impress foreign presidents, prime ministers and foreign viewers, as well as their fellow Koreans, with their logical thinking and poetic rhetoric. By Choi Yearn-hHong The korea times