hankyoreh

Cheong Wa Dae senior secretary for public affairs Lee Dong-kwan refuses to let go of his bad habit of trying to distort and manipulate the facts. Now he is brazenly attempting to impose a “reporting embargo” on the press and pressuring those news outlets that do not comply.

At the National Assembly two days ago, Lee denounced a Hankyoreh report stating that the issue of postponing the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) to South Korea would be on the table at the South Korea-U.S. summit this weekend. In his words, the Hankyoreh “broke the embargo.” Lee also stated that the accredited Cheong Wa Dae (the presidential office in South Korea or Blue House) journalists were not opposed to the embargo on discussing the wartime operational control issue.

This statement is clearly false. When the Cheong Wa Dae requested an embargo, the Hankyoreh made it clear that it would not comply, and communicated this fact prior to printing the report. It is an established journalistic practice for an embargo to be decided upon with the agreement of the accredited journalists, so in this case, the embargo never existed to begin with. Lee twisted this common-sense fact.


It is also necessary to examine the background of the Cheong Wa Dae’s embargo request. If, as Lee requested, news outlets were to report on the wartime operational control issue only just before the summit, any public discussion would become effectively impossible.

Instead, there would just be a demonstration of “surprise diplomacy” with an announcement that the South Korean and U.S. presidents had agreed to the decision. It is of no help at all to the nation to rush to a conclusion in secrecy on such a momentous issue that is the subject of a tense division between those in favor and those against, and that involves complex calculations of its merits and demerits. If the embargo was intended to forestall critical discussion and reporting by providing information in this way, in line with the administration’s intentions, it should be roundly rejected.


This is far from the first time we have seen such an attempt at manipulating public opinion. In the wake of the “massage” flap involving the abridgement and distortion of the president’s statements regarding an inter-Korean summit early this year, the office of the senior secretary for public affairs has already incurred a great deal of distrust and unfavorable opinion by revising the content of conversations with foreign leaders as it saw fit. This latest business is no different, in that it was an attempt to cover the people’s eyes and ears. With such people left in place, who is going to believe what the president says, either inside or outside of South Korea?


One also cannot avoid placing responsibility on the press for its own part in this. That the Cheong Wa Dae was able to cheerfully make a habit of controlling reports, as though its request for an embargo effectively meant one was in place, owes itself to certain news outlets putting a good relationship with the administration ahead of the people’s right to know. Lee Dong-kwan even spoke as though journalists were of the same mind as himself. As a result, the journalists themselves wound up contributing to this attempt at distorting public opinion. It is time for the press to remember its proper duty.

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