[Editorial] Roh administration stifles criticism and debate

Posted on : 2007-05-23 16:15 KST Modified on : 2007-05-23 16:15 KST

The cabinet met yesterday with president Roh Moo-hyun present, and approved the "Scheme to Elevate the News Coverage Support System." All the criticism and suggestions by the media, academics, and media watch groups were written off as "trying to justify the practices of old." Roh’s government is pushing to have its own way, despite the fact even media reform groups like the National Union of Media Workers and the Citizens Coalition for Democratic Media are expressing concern. This forces one to ask just what the government thinks the media is.

The government says its move is designed to expand the range of information disclosure and improve transparency in the relationship between it and the media. According to Blue House officials, the press rooms, or briefing rooms, that host journalists at government agencies are places of collusion between reporters and as such are relics of the past that must be done away with, as is the habit of having the media act as a power unto its own. Its justifications make enough sense, but that does not make its conclusions right as well. It now says it intends to get rid of some briefing rooms and merge others, and that coverage by individual news agencies is going to have to go through an "electronic briefing system," while journalists are generally going to be prohibited from entering areas where public servants have their workstations. If this happens, there will be a major change in the relationship between the government and the media, which need to maintain a healthy tension between them. The government will get to decide what information it gives out and what questions it answers. It is an act of deception to say that there will be more disclosure of information and increased transparency in such a situation.

Even without all this, Korea's "international transparency indicator" is as low as you can go among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member states. The country is still full of all sorts of corruption resulting from closed-door decision making. The Government Information Agency’s proposal for revising the Information Disclosure Law, supposedly something designed to improve things, would still mean that government functionaries would decide what gets disclosed and when, making the proposed change in legislation useless. The government’s view of the media here is nothing less than feudal and pre-modern for seeing the media as an "obstruction" and ignoring its service to the public good, because it says it is going to decide what the laws are when it is the one that needs to be the object of media observation.

Once again we feel compelled to note the problems in how the government makes policy. No media watchdog or civic group was invited to participate in public hearings or debates while the government decided what it was going to do. On a couple of occasions certain figures were invited to talk over meals, and that was it. Nowhere do you see any evidence that the opposition coming from various sectors of society were ever adequately conveyed to the president. All you have is the president’s "will" and there is no room for debate and criticism. The government must withdraw its decision and start over, next time inviting civil society, the media, and academia to participate in the discussion.


Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]

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