[Editorial] Uniting against media suppression

Posted on : 2008-09-23 13:13 KST Modified on : 2008-09-23 13:13 KST

Nine organizations composed of news media professionals issued a statement yesterday titled “An Emergency Declaration by Korean Media Professionals in Defense of Popular Sovereignty and Press Freedom.” Groups that joined in authoring the statement include, among others, the Korea Journalists Association, the National Union of Media Workers, and the Korea Producers and Directors Association. Together, they called for members of the media to join in defense of press freedoms and fight the suppression of the media on the part of the administration of President Lee Myung-bak.

As noted in the statement, the situation faced by the Korean news media is most serious indeed. The procedural democracy our society worked so hard for has been significantly hurt in just months of the Lee administration. It is as if the ghost of military dictatorships past have returned -- freedom of thought and conscience, expression, and public assembly are all being trampled on. The administration is doing what it wants in enacting polices that benefit small numbers of individuals and ignoring reasonable criticism. The situation is more in need of being watched critically by the media than ever before.

It is at precisely such a time that the Lee administration is trying to gag the media. He made “parachute appointments” for the presidents of KBS and YTN, men who then went about vendettas against in-house critics. Current events programs that have been critical of the administration have either been done away with or otherwise changed. It is trying to give pro-administration broadcasters and print media the advantage by redrawing the media landscape with a revision to the Broadcasting Law. It is attempting to control the Internet by putting all sorts of controls in place. Diversity in public opinion and media freedom will have a hard time breathing if these efforts work out as the administration intends them.

The statement also says that press freedom is an absolute requirement for keeping the abuses of power in check and that media professionals have an obligation to defend these freedoms. Korean society has already experienced, quite painfully, what it is like to be under military dictatorship and authoritarian government. If people fail to criticize those in power and keep them in check, and if they stand by while press freedoms are pillaged by the administration, then they might as well be working for it. The behavior of the KBS labor union is one example of this. The union has failed to say a single word about the retaliatory personnel shuffle there against employees who have protested the administration’s attempt to seize control of the media. Being a spectator threatens our democracy and the responsibility for it is by no means light.

The emergency statement is going to be available for signing by current and former news media professionals until the day before October 24, the day 34 years ago when reporters at the DongA Ilbo decided to make a stand against the suppression of the news media by the military dictatorship at the time. We would call on the Lee administration to give serious thought as to why journalists are going to the extent they are in making this protest.

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

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