pyongyang `Summit News Is Well Received
By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
The press center for the inter-Korean summit located at Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul was bursting at the seams with hundreds of journalists from Seoul and 17 countries around the world.
During the summit, the government published about 1,000 sets of an eight-page tabloid newspaper daily, officially named ``Summit News,'' from Monday through Friday.
It was distributed at the Seoul press center with the aim of offering background information about the face-to-face meeting of the two leaders of South and North Korea in the North to foreign journalists.
``We made the special newspapers to provide foreign journalists, who often lack information over the summit, with detailed information about the meeting to help their reporting,'' said Yoo Jae-woong, assistant minister & director of the Korean Overseas Information Service.
``I've heard from many overseas journalists that it was quite helpful and useful. We plan to review the newspaper in terms of contents and publication processes in preparation for similar situations that may occur in the future,'' he added.
Most foreign journalists also spoke highly of the official newspaper.
``Some of the news was quite helpful because it covered several aspects of the summit,'' said Peter Kujath, chief reporter of the German radio service ARD Radio Network.
``Especially for the foreign correspondent, we get so many different points of view, so it was quite helpful.''
On the Korean-English translation service, which was introduced for the first time here, Annie Bang, TV news producer of the Associated Press, said, "It was quite useful when we compare stories we translated into English on our own with official English documents the authorities publish.''
Some foreign reporters pointed out that the translation service was mainly focused on written material, excluding other forms of news materials such as video and audio.
``It would be very helpful to get some audio material,'' a foreign journalist said.
``I think it would be more helpful if organizers provided a translation system for video and audio news,'' said Petra Kolonko, chief reporter of the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine.
A total of 1,377 journalists from 239 media outlets around the world ㅡ 373 foreign journalists from 90 media outlets and 1,004 Korean journalists from 149 local media ㅡ have spent extremely busy three days covering various stories on the historic South-North summit that ended Thursday.