hankyoreh

2005

On Thursday, the Chosun Ilbo and the JoongAng Ilbo each ran editorials deliberately slandering the Hankyoreh for being chosen as a beneficiary of the new "Newspaper Development Fund." They used language like "a newspaper of the regime" and "a newspaper that sides with those in power." These are newspapers that a prominent veteran economist once accused of "turning a Korean society that had a third-year middle school student mentality into one that has a second-year middle school mentality," so it is nothing short of a provocation against the Hankyoreh for them to be issuing such reckless remarks.

The Chosun Ilbo wrote that the development fund is "the very same thinking behind the preferential financing the old dictatorships used to foster the growth of companies they fancied." It said that "media that try to be in the regime’s favor will see the day when they are judged by the principles of the free press."

"Everyone can see this is support for a newspaper that backs the government," wrote the JoongAng Ilbo. "A newspaper that is not critical has no reason to exist."

Just what kind of newspapers are these, and since when have they been so critical of those in power? The Chosun Ilbo earned its reputation for its collaborationist activities during Japanese colonial rule. Later, it was the first to praise dictator Chun Doo-hwan and labeled the citizens of Gwangju "rioters" when they protested Chun’s destruction of the constitutional government. The Chosun made a regular habit of falsely representing the democracy movement, and not once has it apologized for doing so. Even now that the country is democratic, the Chosun has failed to rid itself of its daily distortions and unfair reporting, such to the extent that it now faces civil resistance in the form of the "anti Chosun Ilbo movement." This is a newspaper that thinks it can preach about the neutrality and independence of the media?

The JoongAng Ilbo is not much better. Its longtime president Hong Seok-hun was recently shamed out of the appointment he had assumed as the country’s ambassador to the United States when it was learned that during the 1997 presidential campaign, he was involved in discussions with a high-ranking Samsung executive about the logistics of delivering illegal campaign donations to a ruling party candidate. It is enough to make a passing ox burst into laughter to see this newspaper pretend it is a martyr for the defense of the democratic media.

Both newspapers have essentially bought their readers by giving away a massive amount of gifts and free copies, causing the Fair Trade Commission to intervene in the newspaper market and inciting the enaction of the Newspaper Law. It is nothing short of the thief trying to make an arrest himself to have these papers misrepresent the Newspaper Development Fund, something that was created to normalize the market and guarantee a diversity of opinion. Thanks to the sacrifices of so many democratic citizens over the years, Korean society now enjoys so much press freedom that newspapers which pandered to the dictatorships fancy themselves to be media with a critical perspective. Both the Chosun Ilbo and the JoongAng Ilbo need to ask themselves how much they have contributed to improving the media climate in Korea.