A Comparative Study on the Attitudes of Foreign Correspondents in Korea: Focusing on Their Views on North Korea

Because newspaper readers or television viewers cannot directly experience or witness events that are happening in foreign countries, they have to rely heavily on foreign correspondents for their perspectives on the world. But the views of foreign correspondents can never be fully objective. Their views are often shaped by the government policies of the countries their companies belong to. Also, their attitudes are affected by the editorial policies of the companies they work for. Particularly for such controversial issues as North Korea, foreign correspondents' viewpoints are highly influenced by their government and company policies. The question is how foreign correspondents react when their government foreign policy is different from their company editorial policy. To examine the impact of government and company policies on the attitudes of foreign correspondents, this paper interviewed eight foreign correspondents covering North Korea. The results show government foreign policy and company editorial policy strongly influence the foreign correspondents' attitudes toward the North.