In 2008, Stephen Revere, an expat who has lived 15 years in Korea, wanted to start a magazine that would help expatriates adjusting to a new country get around the inevitable roadblocks.
Ironically, he quickly ran into a big one himself. Revere discovered he couldn’t establish the magazine without help from Korean natives.
According to current Korean media law, foreigners cannot become chief executive officers or executive editors. The media ownership law also states that foreigners cannot own a majority share of any media outlet in Korea.
So to establish his English-language magazine called “10,” Revere had to look well outside the expatriate community whose audience he sought.
“Because I wasn’t a citizen, I had to find Koreans who were willing to represent the magazine,” says Revere. “Without my Korean friends’ help, 10 Magazine couldn’t have come alive.” Because of that, today he’s listed as the “managing editor,” despite being the founder.
They also talked with Craig White of Daegu Pockets.
8 comments:
Remember a few months back when South Korea and other countries were criticizing the U.S. congress for considering "protectionist" policies in order to fix the economy? The whole time I just kept thinking, "If Korea didn't have the most racist, protectionist policies I've ever heard of..."
Sad day.
An interesting law, especially considering that in the U.S. foreign nationals own several high profile media. Fox and the WSJ are owned by Austraia's Rupert Murdoch (or at least by Newscorp, in which he is the largest shareholder) while the Washington Times is owned by Korea's own Moon Sun Myung.
Erik, that's true however Rupert Murdoch renounced his Australian citizenship some time back in order to gain a stronger foothold in the States.
In countries where such media ownership laws subsist and expats found magazines (notably Korea and China), the magazine inevitably comes a cropper when the founder-"owner" runs afoul of the ambition of the legal owner-local stooge. On the plus side, the situation does allow a Firefly fan to use the phrase "Curse your sudden but inevitably betrayal!" So it's not all bad.
The United States has media-ownership laws, too. Rupert Murdoch naturalized as an American citizen in order that News Corporation could own Fox and Dow Jones.
I have run into this problem before, when I helped start a magazine in Ulsan. We had the help of one of the founding members wives, to start the business. They would not even talk to her husband (a foreigner), she had to negotiate the business license and everything by herself.
Once the found that there were foreigners writing for it, each issue had to be sent in to the governing office (not sure which one or who it went) to make sure that there was "no offensive material" that would make Korea look bad. It was a hassle to get the magazine off the ground and suffice to say that it only lasted 6 months.
I think it is strange that foreigners need publications like this and each city has had their own fledgling enterprises start up and fail. In order to maintain the operation you need income from advertising and in order to get that income legally, you need a business license. These are hard to obtain for any foreigner.
To take these protectionist laws even one step further, it is also interesting to note that foreigners cannot start up any charitable organizations with hopes of making the an actual legal NGO in Korea. Not even the Korean husbands or wives can be in control.
I wish 10 Magazine the best of luck and I enjoy reading it a lot. I hope they succeed amongst all of this protectionist red tape.
Protectionist and Nationalist. I personally lean more towards the latter...then again I wasn't going to start giving the media here any serious respect even if they did have some competition that was noteworthy. Divide and conquer too I guess...but thankfully we have blogs and the Internet is great for getting around to some obstacles...oh wait, Korea censored some blogs a few years back too.
Mike said, "If Korea didn't have the most racist, protectionist policies I've ever heard of..."
I am little confused about 'racist'.
What makes you think Korea have the most racist? I am asking very politely...
Some other examples in The Marmot's Hole write-up.
Post a Comment