Back in 1987, when Korea began to experience true democracy, the nation’s journalists also resumed union moves for a free, independent media environment. What’s happening now at three major broadcasters and a news agency here shows the Lee Myung-bak administration has turned the clock back a quarter of a century for these outlets run or funded by the government.
Never have the journalists at the nation’s three state-run and public broadcasters ― not even during the dark days of military dictatorship ― laid down their microphones simultaneously. Joining KBS, MBC and YTN is Yonhap News Agency, the state’s flagship newswire service.
Despite differences in their respective corporate situations, the striking journalists’ core demand is one and the same: allow them to conduct fair, unbiased reporting that is free from government influence.
The Korean audience would readily agree. These official and semi-official news companies were often the last to report the government’s blunders or corruption and the first to carry the officials’ excuses. By watching their programs only, one would think naturally ― but wrongly ― the citizens protesting against major government policies are leftists or other ``impure elements” set about to deter social stability.
As lamentable as the situation is, it seems to be exactly what the incumbent administration wanted.
One of the first things Lee did upon taking office four years ago was to take firm control of media companies under direct and indirect influence of the government. Then the chief executive parachuted in his cronies to run major terrestrial TV networks. Kim In-kyu, head of state-owned KBS, was a media advisor to the President. Kim Jae-chul, a non-Lee camp man, could take the public broadcaster MBC’s top job by reportedly vowing to ``purge” 80 percent of the leftist program directors and reporters.
So we were stunned last week when Lee talked about the TV journalists’ walkout as if he had nothing to do with it. When asked at a media forum whether he has any intention to replace heads of these broadcasting companies, Lee said, ``If I comment on each and every strike broadcasters stage because of their internal situation, it will appear as intervention. The government only minds whether these walkouts are legal or illegal or if there are any complaints about them.” It was a pitiable and improbable attempt to bury his head in the sand.
Lee should solve the problems he himself created by replacing the chiefs of media companies in trouble with more neutral figures. The President is wrong to think his cronies can protect him in his final year in office. A far better way is to ease the burdens of media manipulation while he still can.
More fundamentally, the nation needs to overhaul the system concerning the management of state media outlets. Major political parties might well learn from France, where the incumbent president has tried and failed to appoint the head of national TV, and his opponents are winning popular support by pledging to abrogate the presidential right to name state-run TV heads.
The time has long past here, too, for politicians’ to let go of their grip on the media.