By Hahm Hee-eun

The Korean Culture & Information Service (KOCIS), part of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, announced on May 25 that it has found and modified 312 errors about Korea in 253 articles worldwide.

KOCIS has been giving extra effort to find false information about Korea in non-Korean media, especially in light of the recent 2018 Inter-Korean Summit. In April and in the run-up to the 2018 Inter-Korean Summit, KOCIS investigated false instances about Korea in non-Korean media for six weeks. The investigation reviewed a total of 66 major media outlets in 10 languages, including Korea, English, Mandarin and Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, Vietnamese, Russian and Arabic.

KOCIS operates the Facts Korea website so that any inaccuracies about Korea can be directly reported online.

https://www.factsaboutkorea.go.kr/mwelcome.do?ln=en

Major informational errors were found regarding the venue of the 2018 Inter-Korean Summit. For instance, the address of the Peace House on Google Maps indicated that it was located in Gaeseong, North Korea. Also, it was reported in some non-Korean media that there were no accomplishments made at all during the 2000 and 2007 Inter-Korean Summits. Such false information was found and corrected immediately.

Kim Jae-hwan, head of the Foreign Media Relations Division at KOCIS, said, "Articles from major media outlets in other countries and data sources from government agencies should be credible. If there are informational errors, they are more likely to be cited and spread. It's the role of KOCIS to help reduce false perspectives and to lessen incorrect information about Korea all around the world."


hehahm@korea.kr