International media coverage of Olympic athletes from Korea faced fallout in at least two incidences this week.
We Are Resonate reports a commentator from Greece covering a table tennis match between Jeoung Young-sik and Greece’s Panagiotis Gionis made an ill advised reference to the eyes of Koreans.
”Their eyes are narrow so I can’t understand how they can see the ball moving back and forth,” said ERT television journalist Dimosthenis Karmiris.
ERT Television announced shortly after that Panagiotis is no longer with the company.
”Racist comments have no place on public television,” ERT said in the statement.
”The collaboration between ERT and Dimosthenis Karmiris was terminated today, immediately after the morning show.”
The Korean Times also reports that viewers took offense to the chop suey typefaced used by the World Archery Federation in tweets about the Korean Olympic archery team.
The Times grabbed a screen shot of the tweet which appears to already have been replaced.
“These are world-class athletes, not manga figures. Celebrate them accordingly.”
Another tweet read, “Why are you using that typeface? It’s not readable, and the only thing you’re contributing to is the racist (and) Orientalist exoticization of competitors who happen to be East Asian.”
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