hankyoreh

Convening a meeting on August 8, the KBS board of directors passed a resolution recommending the firing of KBS president Jung Yun-joo. Despite the legal controversy surrounding the measure, President Lee Myung-bak decided to accept the recommendation, dismiss Jung effective around August 11 or 12, and begin looking for a replacement. That same day, police entered KBS, the first time police have entered a broadcast media company in 18 years, sparking debate over the legality of the police action.

Jung released a press statement after the board meeting, saying the board had no authority to recommend his dismissal. Moreover, he said, there were regulatory problems, such as the board’s failure to tell him the date and time of its meeting in advance, and that he would not recognize its resolution. He will actively consider a legal response, he said. He added that the board would take serious responsibility for asking the police to enter KBS.

Some 11 company leaders, including the heads of KBS’s reporters association, producers association, management association and some union branch chiefs, held an emergency meeting to announce their decision to convene a general company assembly to defend public broadcaster KBS on August 11, struggle for annulment of the board vote and block the nomination of a new president. Scholars and media figures denounced the Lee administration for shaking press freedom by the roots through its naked and illegal attempt to gain control of the broadcast media.

The “Pan-national Action to Stop Government Control of Broadcast Media and Netizen Suppression,” composed of 530 political parties, press and civic groups nationwide, released a statement Monday saying it was like watching the military dictatorships of the Fifth and Sixth Republics, with their flagrant disregard for law and sense. It said the Lee administration, which “had lost its reason” in taking over the broadcast media, was clearly a dictatorship.

Kim Gyeong-ho, the head of the Korea Journalists Association, said the government had revealed its intention to forcefully control the press. He said the move is aimed at cowing other broadcast media like MBC.

Kangwon National University Professor Han Jin-man, the president of the Korean Association for Broadcasting and Telecommunications Studies, said the Broadcast Law does not give the president the authority to dismiss the KBS head because of a social agreement for the independence of broadcast media. He said history repeats itself, that the ruling and opposition parties would change once again, and the Grand National Party must not think shortsightedly.

Professor Kim Seo-jung of SungKongHoe University said the situation would boomerang on President Lee. He said that KBS staff and civic groups felt ashamed that they were not able to protect the values that have developed for the past 20-30 years. He said if KBS loses the credibility it has built up and establishment media cannot function well, the administration will have a tougher time talking with the people.

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