hankyoreh

Yesterday the MBC program “The Producer’s Notebook” apologized on the air for its mad cow disease report, giving in to the Korea Communications Commission’s binding order to do so. Procedures do exist for challenging the order, but the broadcaster chose against that option and has reassigned the producer responsible as internal censure. The management’s decision goes directly against the position of the news media professionals who have resisted the prosecution’s investigation and the commission’s sanctions, seeing them as suppression of the media. It is also a betrayal of the country, which has trusted and supported the program.

MBC’s management seems to think its decision is a compromise that comes after much agonizing over the various issues involved. “The ‘Producer’s Notebook’ program brought up issues in a way that ultimately contributed to the country’s health and the public interest,” says Eom Ki-yeong, adding, however, that things like “MBC’s future” were taken into consideration in the overall scheme of things, and you can see the agonizing that management went through in saying it had decided to “rise above the fray and accept” the commission’s order. The administration and the ruling Grand National Party are still determined to restructure Korean broadcasting, a move that would include privatizing MBC. It’s been said that this MBC management decision was not without various forms of serious pressure from the administration. The prosecution’s arrest of KBS President Jung Yun-joo the same day can be seen as a “warning.”

MBC’s management may be expecting to free itself, however little, of those challenges. It has accepted the commission’s sanctions but will appeal the court order to issue a correction and allow a rebuttal and refuse to agree to prosecution questioning. It is taking that route because it wants to give consideration to both the administration and its viewers.

Such hopes, however, look naive. The Lee Myung-bak administration has already made it clear it wants to seize control of the media and manipulate it according to its wishes. He puts his shallow understanding of the role of the freedom of the press and the role of broadcasting on display when he openly says his approval ratings have suffered because of television broadcasting. Moves like those coming from the administration are not going to stop here. Look at it closely and you see that the prosecution’s investigation and the commission’s sanctions are nothing more than an attempt to tarnish MBC’s reports. If MBC makes people suspicious of the legitimacy of its own reports by giving in, it will become all the more easy for it to give in to political pressure that seeks to manipulate it further.

One worries the decision is going to hurt the freedom to cover and report the news. If MBC’s management gives in to political power with this compromise decision that tries to hold back “outside winds,” is going to make it hard to function properly as a news medium. The management says it is going to keep a closer watch on program production. That must not lead to self-censorship. This decision is most regrettable, and in many ways.

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