Terry Anderson (Image courtesy of the May 18 Memorial Foundation)
GWANGJU, Apr. 23 (Korea Bizwire) – Terry Anderson, a former Associated Press correspondent who risked his life to report on the Gwangju Democratic Uprising in South Korea in 1980, exposing the brutal crackdown to the world, died on April 21 in Greenwood Lake, N.Y. He was 76.
According to the Journalists Association of Korea’s May 18 Special Correspondent Report and the former Jeonnam Provincial Government Restoration Promotion Team under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Anderson spent 10 days in Gwangju in May 1980, directly covering and reporting on the uprising.
In an interview with the Journalists Association of Korea, Anderson recounted how he and other foreign journalists ventured into Gwangju, struggling to report from the harrowing scene as citizen militias clashed with troops from the South Korean military.
Anderson and a colleague said they had to use a payphone 10 to 15 kilometers away to file their dispatches, as they were barred from using phones at the U.S. military base due to officers’ concerns.
The original articles Anderson filed to his American office vividly depicted the South Korean military’s merciless atrocities, containing the details he witnessed and reported on the ground, which were then transmitted worldwide.
Anderson’s harrowing experiences were also recounted in the book “AP, Eyewitness to History,” which documented the reporting process of correspondents who braved danger.
Anderson spent 10 days in Gwangju in May 1980, directly covering and reporting on the uprising. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
In an interview featured in the book, Anderson said, “The military said they killed ‘three rioters,’ but I counted at least 179 bodies myself.”
He also shared an anecdote about citizen militias welcoming foreign journalists, eager to spread awareness of Gwangju’s plight. “When we drove around the city in a car with ‘Press’ and ‘AP’ markings, all the crowds cheered us on,” he said.
Anderson described the events as a “military riot,” testifying that troops chased and assaulted young people, even in shops and city buses.
Some of his original dispatches surfaced in 2020 when the Jeonnam Provincial Government Restoration Promotion Team received article drafts and clippings from former journalists. Thirteen pages of his reports and newspaper clippings quoting them are now exhibited at the Jeonnam Provincial Government Memorial Exhibition Hall.
After covering the Gwangju uprising, Anderson was posted as the AP’s chief Middle East correspondent in Lebanon in 1983. He was then taken hostage by armed groups and held captive for seven years before being released.
He later served as the dean of the journalism school at Ohio University and taught journalism at the University of Florida before retiring to a farm in Virginia.
A representative from the May 18 Memorial Foundation said, “Terry Anderson upheld the spirit of journalism to reveal the truth about the Gwangju uprising.” They added, “We are discussing ways to mourn him, such as sending a condolence wreath to his funeral.”
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
