The trouble with virtual earth...
Published:
November 24, 2010 12:19
by
Hawkeye
Neighbourhoods: inchon_islands yellow_sea yeonpyeong
ITN reports Korean border dispute but gets maps hopelessly wrong.
On 23rd Nov 2010, ITN's flagship prime-time programme Channel 4 News led with a dramatic headline - "The most severe exchange of fire between North and South Korea since the war ended in 1953..."
Perhaps the most important basic information to report in a story of this sort is where it happened. In days of yore, the producer would have had a trained cartographer, who would have referred to UN charts, almanacs and standard atlases before tracing a graphic for a story such as this.
Not so in 2010, when it's much cheaper to delegate the work to a generic 'researcher' - often a student doing work experience, quite cheap to employ, protecting the shareholders' dividends at the expense of good reporting. Microsoft Virtual Earth, much beloved of cost-cutting directors everywhere, only takes a few clicks, a nod from the graphic designer and hey presto, there's your map of the border dispute.
Click on a thumbnail for a slideshow view
Scholars among you will have noticed that they have got the Northern Limit Line in the right place, but the site of the incident being reported is about 120km off. The island they've labelled as Yeonpyeong is in fact Baengnyeong. They've even enlarged the wrong island in their inset.
Solidarity with serious journalists everywhere! Keep the newsrooms staffed! No more cheap labour!
Contact email: hawkeye [at] riseup [dot] net
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geopolitical significance
It's a big difference between these two islands, Both of them are very close to the north korean coast, a long way from the south korean mainland. But the place where the south's miltary exercise was taking place, before the north opened fire, was shown very wrong by chanel four.
You got to think, if you were in north korea and you heard the south koreans and yanquis playing with their bombs just a few KM off your cost, you're likely to think your under attack and shoot back. But the way it was shown on chanelfour, people would think the north was the trouble maker. Its not right, the south was the trouble starter but chanel four was showing it wrong.