hankyoreh

It has been revealed that the Blue House is deeply involved in the KBS affair. It shows you how closely the Lee Myung-bak administration is plotting to manipulate the broadcast media when you learn that on August 17, influentials who constitute the inner circle of the administration met with KBS board chairman Yoo Jae-cheon and Kim Eun-gu, a former KBS board member and its presumptive next president.

On August 11 President Lee Myung-bak, while taking action of legally questionable legitimacy in firing KBS President Jung Yun-joo, said, “like other places, KBS must be reborn.” The best his administration could do to help it be reborn, however, was hold a strategy meeting to interfere in the choosing of the broadcaster’s new president. The people cannot help but be shocked at the inconsistency, since on the surface they have been talking about impartiality and political neutrality in broadcasting. Even more lamentable are the lies coming from those key administration figures, people who have repeatedly said they were not going to interfere. When the first news report exposing the Blue House’s involvement appeared, Kwak Kyung-soo, the Blue House’s senior public relations aide, expressed anger, saying the Blue House would demand a correction. It would have been more honest of him to just say the administration needs broadcasters favorable to it if it is going to succeed. Who will trust and follow a president whose administration lies with the regularity of a meal schedule?

Yoo Jae-cheon’s behavior is also inappropriate. As head of KBS’s board of trustees, he has the most serious authority of recommending to President Lee a candidate to head up KBS, all the more reason he should keep his distance from the powers that be. He is supposed to be a defender of independence in public broadcasting and yet dares to discuss what to do with key administration insiders at so sensitive a time, essentially meaning that he has given up his qualifications to lead the board. The day after the strategy meeting, Yoo told employees at KBS that the Blue House has never given him any orders. It is sad to see Yoo, a scholar by training, go so far as to lie in his attempt to fit in with Lee’s people. He should step down immediately for having done serious damage to independence in public broadcasting.

Korea Communications Commission chief Choi Si-joong and Blue House spokesman Lee Dong-kwan, who together organized the plotting session, should also resign immediately. Both men have long been suspected of leading the Blue House effort to control the media. Now that the suspicions have been confirmed, there is no justification for them to remain in their positions. President Lee needs to realize that the only way to prevent this scandal from growing would be to hold the meeting’s participants responsible and remove his hands from the KBS affair.

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