hankyoreh

By, Kim Hyo-sil, staff reporter

Reporters at broadcaster MBC issued a public apology for coverage of the Sewol ferry sinking and the recovery process.

The move comes amid an outpouring of reflection on the coverage from reporters at another of the country’s three terrestrial networks, KBS. The apologies and criticism from reporters at the public broadcasting networks are a response to public anger over the disaster’s coverage, which has been marked by inaccurate reporting, sensationalism, and “cooperation” with the administration.

On the morning of May 12, 121 members of the MBC journalists' association released a statement titled “Mortified and Ashamed.” In it they declared, “Far from consoling parents who lost their children because of the state’s irresponsibility, we have lectured them and painted them as ‘impatient’ and ‘unpatriotic.’”

“We think that we, the reporters of MBC, are responsible for the bad reporting,” the statement continued. “We now stand with lowered heads, beating our own chests.”

As an example of bad reporting, the journalists pointed to a May 7 segment of “Newsdesk” titled “Desk Reporter: Beyond Anger and Grief.” In it, the network described the death of a civilian diver working on the rescue as resulting from the “impatience” of the family members of missing passengers.

Signatories to the statement represented every segment at the network, from deputy directors who joined with the 30th recruiting class in 1997 to the most junior reporters. The journalists’ association currently has around 230 members, representing the majority of MBC reporters.

Other issues since the sinking that the statement apologized for included the downplaying of content concerning the government’s responsibility, including the sluggish early response and search efforts by the Coast Guard, along with the failure to cover inappropriate behavior by senior officials and confusion resulting from inaccurate reporting and verbatim quoting of government announcements.

Meanwhile, individual recruiting classes at the network put up their own statements on the internal bulletin board. A statement titled “A Demand for Professional Ethics,” posted on May 12 by the 35th class, declared, “We are public broadcasting journalists who receive a salary to develop and produce news segments for a terrestrial network, which is the property of taxpayers.”

“We have failed to observe the standards of professional ethics because we have made poor quality contents,” the message continued.

But union sources reported that an executive in the MBC newsroom called reporters after the May 12 journalists’ association statement was released and told them that anyone confirmed to have participated would “pay a price.”

The person in question told the Hankyoreh that the message was “that they need to take responsibility for what they say.”

“It wasn’t a threat,” the person added.

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