tvN’s ‘Seol Min-seok’s Naked World History’ apologizes for misinformation

Producers of tvN‘s “Seol Min-seok’s Naked World History” apologized for inaccuracies after an archaeologist, who served as an adviser to the show, criticized the program for inaccuracies.

“Naked World History” is hosted by popular lecturer Seol Min-seok, who approaches world history in an entertaining way. Seol gained fame as one of the first internet lecturers in the early 2000s, specializing in Korean history. Seol has remained silent on the criticism raised since the airing of the second episode.

“First, we sincerely apologize for the partial error that occurred while we researched the vast ancient history. Since the program covers grand stories in world history, we film an average of four to five hours per episode. As we edit the story to 85 minutes to present an immersive story for the audience, it is difficult to include everything that was filmed, we try to present the big picture,” the show‘s producers said in a message posted on the show’s website on Monday.

At issue is part of the second episode that aired Saturday, which dealt with Cleopatra.

After the show aired, archaeologist Kwack Min-soo, who specializes in Egyptology, said on his Facebook page on Sunday that the show contained many facts that were distorted or incorrect.

“While discussing historical facts with historical rumors is a good strategy to capture people‘s interest, if the purpose is to ‘talk about history’ and not ‘lay out lies,’ the two need to be distinguished,” said Kwack.

Problems addressed by Kwack included errors in Seol‘s drawing of the map and the pharaoh responsible for the construction of the Library of Alexandria.

The producers promised to bring aboard more experts as advisers and include captions and computer graphics to make sure information can be delivered without confusion.

Meanwhile, the show’s second episode reached a high viewership rating of 5.9 percent, according to market researcher Nielsen Korea, while the first episode which dealt with Hitler had a 5.2 viewership rating.

By Lim Jang-won (ljw@heraldcorp.com)