hankyoreh

Yesterday and the day before, things happened that should never happen in a normal democratic country. The day before yesterday, the Korea Communications Standards Commission decided to hand down what is officially considered a “heavy penalty” to MBC’s “The Producer’s Notebook” (Pidi Sucheop) by ordering it to issue an apology to its viewers. The decision was approved by only those commission members appointed by the administration and the ruling Grand National Party, with opposing commission members absent. Yesterday morning, the cable news broadcaster YTN held an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting that lasted for only about 40 seconds, essentially to choose Gu Bon-hong, formerly President Lee Myung-bak’s special aide for broadcasting during his campaign, voting to do so while private security guards prevented employee shareholders from entering the meeting and speaking.

These events each happened in a flash and remind you of a coup d’etat. Both moves were things the administration had been working on with a lot of interest, so it shows you that the Lee administration had been hanging low because of public opinion expressed, as it has been, with candles, but has now come out in earnest to seize control of the media, without the slightest concern for what anyone will think.

The only way to interpret the YTN shareholders’ meeting, and the way it involved private security and rushing the vote through in a blitz, is that the administration is making it clear that it will use any means it deems necessary to take control of the media.

It would be hard enough to find a case in which a close aide to a president became the head of a broadcasting company at anytime since the struggle to democratize broadcasting in the 1990s, but it was the first time anything like this ever happened at a broadcasting company’s shareholder meeting. The kind of rashness that wants to realize the administration’s goals, despite having to use such violence, is tearing at the spirit of the constitution, and the freedom and independence of the press, and at what is considered common sense in our community.

It was disappointing to learn that there were some executives at YTN who aided the administration-sponsored monopolization. These people aided in the making of a “parachute” appointment with the authority of the major shareholder and stood back and watched when younger media professionals shed tears while being held back by hired security guards. They should be ashamed of themselves.

You worry even more about what is to come. Since a presidential aide, who during the presidential campaign went around to broadcasting companies asking for more favorable coverage for his candidate, is now the head of a broadcasting company, he surely will not tolerate coverage that is disadvantageous to the president he once served. News coverage will have its political neutrality and impartiality questioned if he creates taboos and sacred territory to be avoided as subject matter. The public trust in itself that YTN has built in the approximately ten years since it began as an exclusive news channel will collapse. Its basis for existence will be shaken. That would lead to deeper distrust of the media as a whole.

The effects of the crippled shareholder’s meeting will last a long time to come. The union and other parties related to YTN are not recognizing Gu as the company’s choice for president, and a campaign to block him from coming to the company, and problems with the company’s actual broadcasts, are to be expected. Procedural problems, such as the way employee shareholders were prevented from entering the meeting and having a chance to speak and the way the approval procedures were circumvented, will lead to controversy over whether the meeting was legitimate. It will therefore be hard for Gu to have his authority recognized and perform a proper role there. There are others set to “parachute” in to other broadcasting companies, so the cost of this reversal of history will only increase.

The Korea Communications Standards Commission’s censure of “The Producer’s Notebook” is questionable for its basis, substance, and procedural legitimacy. More than anything else it is terribly dangerous to be taking issue with the content of news coverage.

The question of how impartial and “public-serving” the report the commission is taking issue with is one that should be resolved through debate and mutual criticism between the news program, viewers, and interested parties, and is not something that should be the object of discipline by a government body. In the many countries that value press freedom, agencies such as this review programs only for pornographic or otherwise sexual content and exclude current events programs from that which they review. The moment you take a sword to news programs, you hurt their independence and impartiality, and the social consensus is that the independence of the spheres of public debate must be thoroughly protected.

Indeed, as the government applies the sword of censure to “The Producer’s Notebook” with reviews and an investigation by the prosecution, there has reportedly been a noticeable reduction in the amount of investigative reporting and news coverage that exposes problems to the public. The commission’s decision has seriously hurt press freedom. The resulting collapse of the public sphere of debate will impede the healthy development of our society.

The commission’s review is itself essentially state censorship. Its actions against MBC’s “The Producer’s Notebook,” and news coverage at KBS, is state censorship and there is no other way to express it, even more so if the administration expressed its displeasure with the substance of the news and had differing views. Furthermore, the commission’s decision was made by commission members who were appointed by the administration and ruling party - all the more reason to suspect political interests were in play. Procedurally, it is first supposed to determine whether or not guidelines were broken and then decide what action should be taken, but it went about that backwards. In other words, brute strength works at the commission. That being the case, it is only a matter of course that you hear people saying that normal news coverage is going to be impossible because each and every story about politically-sensitive subjects is going to face censure and censorship.

It is not going to stop at what we have seen so far. The pressure is on to change the head of KBS, and they are working on privatizing MBC. If these things are happening to seize broadcasters to make them serve the will of the administration, it will be a fundamental infringement on the freedom of the press, which has the role of keeping watch on the powers that be. It is the natural duty of both the media and of the country’s citizens to resist this and prevent such attempts.

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