hankyoreh

By Choi Sung-jin

Controversy is growing over a five-part series on South Korea’s first president Rhee Syngman scheduled to air on KBS on Aug. 15.

KBS’s new union is criticizing the series as purposed with lending strength to the New Right’s attempts to boost up Rhee, saying the program could unilaterally beautify the first president, whose merits and demerits were clear. KBS, meanwhile, says the series deals with Rhee’s achievements as they were, and since they plan on spotlighting other figures in modern history later, there should be no problem.

KBS revealed Friday that Rhee would be the first person covered in its documentary series “People Who Moved the Republic of Korea.”

According to KBS, the series, which will begin on the Aug. 15 Liberation Day holiday, is as follows: Part 1: Enlightened Youth Rhee Syngman; Part 2: Joining the Independence Movement; Part 3: Founding the Republic of Korea; Part 4: Rhee Syngman and the Korean War; Part 5: Light and Darkness of the First Republic. Each segment is 60 minutes long. KBS Public Relations Director Han Sang-deok said the series will first focus on Rhee, and that reporters have begun full-scale coverage amongst the Korean population of Hawaii.

KBS’s new union is firing back, saying the program reveals KBS’s intent to boost up Rhee. Looking at the titles, with the exception of Part 5, the others could simply beautify Rhee, they say.

Eom Gyeong-cheol, chairman of the new union, said, “Looking at the titles, the intent of the production team to teach both sides of history by dealing with Rhee’s merits and demerits together is missing.

The new union points out that things haven’t been fair from the process of selecting Rhee as the first figure to be covered by the series. In a poll of experts and ordinary people on who to choose for the program conducted in September of last year, Kim Gu came in first. Rhee came in third and eighth place, respectively.

The union also criticized that KBS was not saying who it would cover next, despite stressing that the Rhee series was only part of a larger series. They suspect KBS is talking about the “People Who Moved the Republic of Korea” without a specific plan for the series just to put out the program on Rhee.

In response, the KBS production team said it has already selected about 10 figures for later programs, and is now at the stage of materializing those plans. They say, however, that since the series is not entirely decided yet, it would be difficult to reveal the plans for later programs ahead of time.

Kim Deok-gi, executive producer of KBS's Documentary Team 2, the team leading the production of the series, said, “Rhee was selected as the first person of the series because he was the first president of Korea, and that the order of the poll taken in September did not mean the figures would be broadcast in that order.”

About criticism that the series would amount to unilateral beautification, Kim said, “The program focuses not on directly judging Rhee’s merits and demerits, but rather on showing a historical figure just as he was.” Kim added, “The segment titles have not been finalized.”

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