Michael Breen

For several months, senior government officials, including the Prime Minister, have been complaining about foreign press coverage.

Not only, officials say, have international newspapers exaggerated Korea's economic troubles, but they have also used wrong data.

In truth, I can see no evidence that foreign press reporting has caused any damage to the Korean economy, as claimed. But even if it has, the appropriate response for the government of a sophisticated democracy is not to insult the professionalism of reporters of some of the world's most prestigious media, but rather to examine its own public relations effort.

Some steps have been taken. The working level handling of foreign press inquiries at the Ministry of Strategy and Finance has significantly improved and the main ministries are coordinating their announcements. Also, last week, the vice chairman of the Financial Supervisory Commission, Rhee Chang-yong, conducted a conference call on economic issues with foreign bank economists in Seoul and Hong Kong. The Commission says it plans regular calls and a monthly lunch with foreign correspondents.

These steps are welcome, but they appear as tactical responses based on the special talents of certain bureaucrats in place. As those officials are promoted and re-assigned, there is no guarantee that these initiatives will continue.

What the government really needs to do is deeply analyze its PR structure and do a strategic overhaul of how it communicates to the press, both domestic and foreign.

This should begin with an attitude change. The first thing to appreciate is that the world does not see Korea as the poor helpless victim that Koreans have been taught about at school. Korea is a major economic power and its leaders have to behave accordingly. The world needs honest information about Korea and it wants to hear what the government is doing and thinking about.

Secondly, we live in a world of ideas and debate. Democracy and the free market are about policies and persuasion and Korea's leaders should be out there arguing and explaining, not hiding from the press. (That goes for business leaders too).

It is important to accept that the press is not the "voice of the people." Its opinions do not need to be obeyed. The idea is to use it to communicate to and get feedback from society.

That means that when someone says something you disagree with, you do not insult them or attack them. You respond with your viewpoint. You give speeches, you write columns, you appear in debates, you issue press releases and you write letters to the editor, all in the spirit of debate.

One consequence of this debate is that information and ideas are more important in this case than relationships. You cannot drink your way around the fact that where the job of bureaucrat and the job of reporter meet, there is a natural tension. The best way to manage it is with respect and professionalism.

Ministers should not be making lower-level officials do all this work. They should do it themselves. We, the people, want to hear from our leaders. The reason for the low level of trust in government domestically is that senior officials are shy. To put it more rudely, the harsh performance assessment system and routine sacking of ministers for no reason turns them into intellectual cowards who lack the substance to support their own ideas.

As any official will tell you privately, no one wants to be in the PR department. They are experts in their own ministry's work, but are not professionally trained for public relations work. They are smart and do their best but get unreasonably blamed if newspaper coverage is negative as if it is their fault. They usually do not express themselves well because officials are trained to be vague(to dodge criticism from lawmakers).

Also, they are inclined to avoid work because of the way that their performance is assessed. This is even worse for senior officials whose assessment period is shorter than the one-year assessment of lower-level officials.

If these issues are addressed, then tactical solutions such as those being offered by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and the Financial Supervisory Commission, and others, will result in a significant improvement in overseas understanding of Korea.

Michael Breen is chairman of Insight Communications, a public relations consulting firm. He worked in Seoul since the 1980s as a correspondent for British and American newspapers and is a former president of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents Club.