hankyoreh

front of Cheongwoon Hyojadong Community Service Center in Seoul’s Jongno district

By Lee Jung-gook, staff reporter

Charges of “repeated infringements of media center independence” by a KBS newsroom chief who recently resigned are raising questions about just what has been going on under network president Gil Hwan-young.

The main focus of attention has been on the network’s coverage of sexual harassment allegations against former Blue House spokesperson Yoon Chang-jung. When former newsroom chief Kim Si-gon went public about Gil’s “reporting interference” on May 9, he gave the Yoon case as a specific example.

On May 10 of last year, the Blue House made a surprise announcement that Yoon was being replaced as spokesperson, after he was accused of sexually harassing a female intern at the South Korean embassy in Washington D.C. South Korea’s three terrestrial networks - KBS, SBS, and MBC - all led their evening news shows with the story that day. Indeed, the sexual harassment allegations were shocking enough to have all three networks covering them as a top story for days afterwards.

But that started to change for KBS on May 14. That evening, its top evening news story was about the administration proposing talks with North Korea at Panmunjeom. In contrast, the lead stories for the other networks were “Yoon’s whereabouts unknown for third straight day” (MBC) and “South Korean Administration requests swift investigation by US police” (SBS).

The following day, KBS led with a piece about euthanasia, titled “Administration pushes halt to prolonged treatment.” Meanwhile, the top story on SBS was “Yoon may have to return to US.”

The coverage would seem to support Kim’s contention that Gil ordered the network to “go easy” in its reporting on the Yoon case.

KBS also sparked controversy after sources reported an order not to use images of the Blue House briefing room or the South Korean flag in reports on the case. The order was “leaked” by the KBS chapter of the National Union of Media Workers, and the network responded by filing suit claiming 60 million won (US$58,600) in damages from the Hankyoreh and other news outlets for reporting on it, but lost the first trial in January.

Gil’s leadership has repeatedly faced the same charges of unfairness and bias that plagued predecessor Kim In-kyu, a former adviser for the presidential election camp of Lee Myung-bak, who served as President from 2008 to 2013. Just after Gil took office in Nov. 2012, an airing of the Presidential Candidate Truth Investigation Team’s “Current Affairs Feature: Talking About Candidates” was mysteriously delayed. The team’s chief, Kim Jin-seok, also abruptly resigned. In Feb. 2014, the media operations center’s investigative reporting team did a segment on allegations that then-Prime Minister candidate Chung Hong-won failed to report assets, but the episode was never aired.

Kim Sung-hae, a professor of media studies at Daegu University, noted the example of the BBC in the United Kingdom, where then-director Greg Dyke resigned in 2004 after friction with the government over a report claiming it had falsified intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

“Public broadcasting needs to represent the interests of the national community, not the interests of the administration,” Kim said.

Kim’s allegations have added steam to an ongoing campaign to boycott mandatory subscription fees for KBS. The campaign, launched on May 9 by a group called People Taking Action for the Sewol and Korea (http://cafe.daum.net/dontforgetsewol) that was organized in the wake of last month’s Sewol ferry sinking, had over 8,000 citizens participating as of May 11.

Meanwhile, the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP) sparked an outcry on May 7 when it unilaterally sponsored a bill to raise subscription fees in the National Assembly Standing Committee.

at the entrance road to the Blue House

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