Incheon Asiad PR howlers
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By Andrew Salmon
The Incheon Asian Games are drawing to a close and, judging by some articles in this newspaper, not a moment too soon.
Granted, the 2014 Incheon Asian Games were always under a shadow of one kind or another.
First, there was a burst of national angst when Incheon won the hosting rights. Many people believed this decision would dent Pyeongchang’s bid to host the Winter Olympics ― a more prestigious event, ergo a higher national priority. As it turned out, this angst was misplaced: Pyeongchang won the rights for 2018 after a never-say-die third bid.
Still, allegations of underfunding persisted, and there was a sense in some quarters that Incheon, which held a mayoral election months before the Games, was not quite prepared.
Given that these various challenges were added to the colossal organizational burden that any major global sporting fixture requires, Incheon is to be congratulated for making the Games work at all.
Even so, reports of event organization indicate considerable shortcomings. And in one area, I can confirm some very dubious organization indeed: arrangements for media coverage by Seoul-based correspondents.
For those unfamiliar with Korea’s international media landscape, the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club is an organization that accredited reporters based here can join once their bona fides are established. It is via this organization that Korea’s private and governmental bodies customarily liaise with the Seoul-based international press corps; as such, it is a well-used channel of communication and cooperation.
Early this year, Seoul correspondents were contacted by the Incheon Asian Games Organizing Committee, or IAGOC, and advised to seek official press accreditation for the Games via their respective National Olympic Committees (NOCs). Fair enough. But given that only Asian countries were competing, this was hardly feasible for many Seoul-based reporters.
So, seven days before the Games began, an IAGOC representative sent an email message about coverage arrangements to those who had not received earlier accreditation. These arrangements were, well, you be the judge.
Seoul-based correspondents were told that to cover an event, they had to travel to Incheon and submit application forms at the Main Press Center the day before the event they wished to cover. Alternatively, these application forms could be mailed ― but unfortunately, it was not stated how journalists could obtain these forms, nor who they should mail them to, or at what address.
So this process had to be done by snail mail or in person, necessitating a trip to Incheon. In one of the most wired countries on Earth, the lack of provision for email or other electronic communication was extraordinary.
Moreover, the message continued, the forms in question could not actually be submitted by journalists themselves. Instructions stated: “You are not allowed to apply directly. Either any of your colleges (sic; I assume this meant “colleagues”) that have already possessed media accreditation or the (sic) IAGOC staff member should sponsor your application.”
This odd requirement smells like a vetting process to establish bona fides. If so, it overlooks, as noted above, the existence of the SFCC ― an organization about which most organs of the Korean government are fully aware. I have certainly never been asked to have my credentials verified by a colleague before.
Those who managed to leap over these various hurdles would then have to wait until 7 p.m. that day to see if their application had been successful. If so, they could then pick up their one-day press pass the following day. (I did not bother to apply, and I do not know any of my colleagues who did either.)
In more than a decade of working as a reporter in this country ― during which time I have lost count of the number of high-profile events I have covered, ranging from the ASEAN, G2O and Nuclear Security summits to presidential interviews and press conferences ― the IAGOC accreditation process can take pride of place as the most shambolic media “arrangement” I have encountered.
This is a little worrying as Korea ― and indeed, the world ― is now in the countdown to Pyeongchang 2018. I sincerely hope that Pyeongchang’s organizing committee will take a more professional approach to international public relations, and to other forms of marketing communications, than Incheon appears to have done.
And I am reasonably certain that it will. As proven by the experience of the 1988 Olympics, the 2002 World Cup and other fixtures too numerous to mention, Korea tends to carry off high-prestige international events very efficiently indeed.
But of course, this very record of prior competence makes the Incheon 2014 amateur-hour media relations even more baffling.
Andrew Salmon is a Seoul-based reporter and author. Reach him at andrewcsalmon@yahoo.co.uk.