hankyoreh

Han Seon

By Han Seon, professor of journalism at Honam University

South Korea isn’t the only country in which trust in the traditional news media continues to decline.

“Journalism, Media, and Technology Trends and Predictions 2021,” a report published by the UK-based Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, found that as populism surges and as resistance to inequality and unfairness spread, people around the world tend to have less confidence in public institutions and dismiss conflicting ideas as conspiracy theories. According to the report, many journalists in countries worldwide are locked in a desperate struggle with double-edged media technology and with an unprecedently politicized political and social environment.

But the lack of trust in the Korean media can’t be ascribed to a global trend because the circumstances here are qualitatively different from those in other countries.

More specifically, there are troubling signs that the Korean press is starting to become the target not only of distrust and scorn, but also of hatred and loathing. There are more reports of doxing, in which individuals publish and share the personal information of reporters they don’t like and organize collective attacks on those reporters.

That speaks to an intensifying “anti-press” movement that’s weakening the foundations of democracy.

An even more painful result of the survey is that, following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries saw a modest increase in confidence in traditional media. 68% of respondents said that concerns about fake news and inaccurate news had bolstered the values of journalism.

The complexities of a pandemic highlight the importance of journalism that can marshal a high degree of expertise to adequately check the facts and then explain those facts through articulate reporting tailored for audiences. Survey respondents also said that traditional media companies are best equipped for abiding by those journalistic principles.

What’s unfortunate is that Korea remains an exception to the recent recovery in confidence. The decline in trust in traditional media is no doubt the result of a complex mixture of causes. But the greatest blame lies with the media itself.

When recent press activity is analyzed for the basic journalistic values of accuracy, credibility, and diversity, analysts say it fails to distinguish itself from news information provided by non-journalists. When the fundamentals of journalism are ignored in reporting practices, the result is distributing propaganda. That includes complacently quoting famous people without checking their remarks for accuracy, relying on anonymous sources without caring about the transparency of information, and laziness in presenting diverse viewpoints.

But journalistic organizations themselves aren’t solely to blame for falling trust in the press. The public is also clearly responsible for its failure to distinguish between quality journalism and the yellow press. Sensational journalism, whether practiced by traditional media outlets or by non-journalists, thrives among undiscriminating readers. As long as the masses are content to remain in prejudiced communities that filter out anything they don’t want to hear and indiscriminately attack what runs counter to their opinions or preferences, good-quality journalism cannot become established.

Trust in the media can only be restored through the joint efforts of journalists who constantly work to defend the basic principles and values of journalism and of discriminating readers who recognize and support that kind of journalism.

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