US: Tsunami survivor copes with ten-day media barrage

By Saqib Rahim
AsiaMedia Staff Writer

Santa Monica resident receives bevy of media inquiries, emphasizes importance of "human contact" and "respect" for journalists covering tsunami survivors

Thursday, January 20, 2005

He and his wife tried to be accommodating in their responses to news media organizations as long as they were respectful, tsunami survivor Eugene Kim said at a UCLA International Institute event last Thursday.

In the immediate aftermath of the natural disaster that killed over 150,000 in South and Southeast Asia, Kim and Faye Linda Wachs were among the first American survivors discovered and questioned by the news media.

Kim, 35, and his wife were scuba diving along the coast of the small Thai island, Ko Phi Phi, when the wave struck. Confused and disoriented, they and other nearby divers surfaced quickly and boarded a patrolling boat. There they received word of a text message that someone had received: "CATASTROPHE."

In the days that followed, Kim and Wachs participated in the rescue effort, escaped to the mainland, and secured the passports they needed to fly home. At the airport in Thailand, Kim was approached by a correspondent from CBS who had been tipped off by Kim's brother. When they arrived at the Los Angeles International Airport, the pair was greeted by cameras and held an impromptu 15-minute news conference.

In the next ten days, Kim and his wife experienced what he calls a "media blitz"--the couple was interviewed by three major American network news outlets (ABC, CBS and NBC) and two cable television giants (CNN and MSNBC).

Kim admitted that media attention--and competition--was intense in the first few days following his return.  "We felt very much that [the reporters] would have done anything, trampled over each other to get our story," he said.

Nevertheless, Kim said he and his wife were very receptive to press sources if they were "respectful to us"--that is, if the press liaison was not pushy or presumptuous. He cited one particular outlet, Fox News, whose interview he denied on those grounds. If "the human contact of it is fine," Kim says, "I don't have a problem with [being interviewed]."

But after a few days passed, Kim also began to consider whether different outlets were more interested in "telling [their] viewers what happened" or in ratings alone. He and Wachs soon agreed to provide interviews only if they could appeal for aid on-air. According to Kim, media organizations generally complied with this request.

Kim thinks the media's interest in him was based largely on convenience. When he asked reporters why they picked up his story, they generally responded along the same lines: "one, [Kim and Wachs] were good on television; two, we were semi-articulate; and three, we lived in Santa Monica."

Reporters also told Kim that his tale has tremendous "human interest." A January 2nd interview with KCRW, a Southern California public radio station, centered on questions such as "How scared were you?" and "Are you going to be living with this the rest of your life?"

Media attention snowballed after his brother divulged the pair's e-mail address--without their consent--to several major news outlets, Kim said. Their phone number was discovered shortly thereafter, and "before we knew it, everybody had it. So our phone was ringing off the hook at that point."

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See the UCLA Today article about the campus event in which Eugene Kim and Faye Wachs spoke.

Date Posted: 1/20/2005