Yoo Choonsik, Reuters’ deputy Seoul bureau chief, gave fellow Seoul AAJA-ers Sean Lim, Jack Ackerman and Jennifer Chang a wonderful tour of one of Seoul’s biggest foreign media operations this week.
Jennifer recaps the tour:
Once we got inside the tightly guarded and monitored reception area inside the front doors, Mr. Yoo started off the event with a slide presentation outlining the history of Reuters, the world’s largest international news wire agency, and how it offers superb print and TV coverage of North and South Korea through a variety of methods including text, photos, graphics and video.
He then took us around the enormous newsroom, which was around half the length of a soccer field, where reporter and editors work side by side in a high-tech, real-time news environment that features state-of-the-art monitors and a TV studio, which had a backdrop featuring a cityscape.
The newsroom was so intensely quiet that even a pin dropping would make a sound. Journalists were working at their crowded, yet amazingly neat and organized, cubicles. They were plugging away quietly not only on the quick news stories that the general public sees on the Internet, but also on longer exclusive stories that can be accessed only by subscribers.
We were also privileged to get a sneak peek inside the office of Reuters TV, a key supplier of video to networks like CBS and CNN, where we saw Mr. Hong Ki-soo, the longtime chief of that outfit, supervising cameramen and a reporter from his desk in a back corner.
Many thanks to Seoul AAJAer Yoo Choonsik for this unforgettable visit to a truly impressive press organization!
