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Joong-Ang Ilbo and Dong-A Ilbo

By Choi Won-hyung, staff reporter

Conservative newspapers are changing their tune on the National Intelligence Service’s (NIS) misbehavior in the Yoo Woo-sung espionage case.
The newspapers, which previously defended the agency by downplaying accusations of evidence falsification, have now started belatedly demanding responsibility from the beleaguered NIS and prosecutors now that the charges are being proved true. Having joined the public security witch hunt, the conservative news outlets are now finding themselves having to make a U-turn.


■ Playing up the espionage angle amid allegations of evidence falsification


On Jan. 21 of last year, the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper became the first to report on the arrest of Yoo, an ethnically Chinese North Korean refugee who was employed as an official for Seoul Metropolitan Government. At one point, the newspaper used the story as a basis for a special three-part series on “refugee spies.” Similar reports were also printed in the Chosun Ilbo and Joong-Ang Ilbo newspapers.
All three conservative newspapers generally ignored allegations of evidence falsification as they began surfacing during Yoo’s first trial. They gave short shrift to the testimony of Yoo’s younger sister - who said, when presented as a chief witness by the NIS, that her older brother had “falsely confessed after being pressured and cajoled” - as well as proof that photographs submitted by the NIS had been falsified. And when the first court ruled Yoo not guilty of espionage last August due to a lack of evidence, the newspapers mentioned the verdict only briefly.

The forgery allegations began gaining real momentum when Chinese authorities sent a Feb. 14 letter claiming that three documents submitted in Yoo’s appellate trial were fabrications, prompting prosecutors to launch an investigation. The three newspapers quoted sources with the prosecutors and NIS as admitting the possibility of “procedural flaws,” arguing that the falsification uproar may have been part of a Northeast Asian intelligence “turf war” between Chinese authorities and local intelligence agencies. Despite mounting evidence that the falsification allegations were true, the media downplayed their seriousness.

In the wake of the Chinese government letter’s release, the conservative newspapers printed pieces that suggested they were less interested in getting to the truth than in defending the NIS and prosecutors. In essence, they acted as mouthpieces for the authorities rather than as watchdogs.
In the Dong-A Ilbo’s case, NIS claims were a major source for the content and headlines of articles. A Feb. 18 piece reported “some accounts suggesting that the Chinese government was merely ‘warning’ the NIS against acquiring information related to the identity of its citizens without going through official judicial cooperation procedures.”

Two days later, it quoted the prosecutors’ explanation in the headline of another article: “Problem was different stamps when two original border crossing records were issued at same time for two different jurisdictions.” A reporter’s column printed the same day called the evidence falsification outcry a “political campaign” and quoted a “security authority” as saying that the “network of intelligence resources that we have established is being compromised by this public campaign.”

Meanwhile, the newspaper worked to give additional proof of Yoo’s guilt. On Feb. 24 and 25, a refugee who reportedly implicated Yoo was quoted as saying, “He’s definitely a spy.” The same refugee's claims had previously been ruled admissible by the court in the first trial. The Chosun Ilbo and Joong-Ang Ilbo also printed pieces defending the NIS by tying the unfolding scandal to “national interests.”
In its Feb. 17 edition, the Chosun Ilbo reported analysts as saying Chinese authorities “may have ruled the documents falsifications to draw attention to the procedural irregularities of prosecutors and the NIS, which contacted the issuing organizations directly without going through the official line of the Chinese embassy and foreign ministry.”

A guest contributor column on Feb. 26 said that “spies disguised as ‘refugees’ are rampant” and accused Yoo’s attorneys of “making it out as though only their claims are true and the NIS manufactured everything.” 
The Joong-Ang Ilbo printed a Feb. 24 article titled “Falsification allegations turning into S. Korea-China intelligence war?” The text suggested an alternate explanation for China’s letter, highlighting the NIS’s claims that the incident was a “reflection of Chinese government controls on the NIS’s overseas activities.”


■ Calls for NIS responsibility come after suicide attempt


The newspapers’ change of heart came after the Mar. 6 suicide attempt of an NIS “informant” surnamed Kim following his testimony to prosecutors that he had acquired falsified documents at the agency’s behest. The increasing evidence of falsification had forced them to demand accountability from the NIS.

A Mar. 8 editorial in the Dong-A Ilbo declared, “If a state institution neglected the judicial procedure with falsified documents, then this is without question a breach of the national order.” In a Mar. 10 editorial, the Chosun Ilbo demanded that NIS director Nam Jae-joon “assume responsibility” and opined that “immoderate convictions are lurking at the roots of all the current issues involving the NIS.”

Kang Sang-hyun, a professor of mass communication studies at Yonsei University, said the conservative newspapers were “turning tail now that there’s nothing more to be gained from drumming up security fears and shielding the NIS against charges of evidence falsification.” “They really seem to take whichever side suits them under the circumstances,” Kang added.

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