hankyoreh

May 9. (by Kim Bong-kyu

By Kim Hyo-sil and Lee Jung-gook, staff reporters

With former KBS newsroom chief Kim Si-gon, blowing the cover on the Blue House’s control of broadcasters on May 16, pressure on KBS President Gil Hwan-young to step down is approaching fever pitch. If Kim’s testimony that the Blue House has been using Gil to control the broadcaster turns out to be true, it may cause considerable damage for the administration of President Park Geun-hye.

Kim attended the general meeting of the association of reporters held on May 16, along with nearly 100 KBS reporters, and dropped a bombshell revelation about the connection between the Blue House and KBS.

“It wasn’t that KBS was doing less reporting about the sinking of Sewol than other broadcasters, but the Blue House did instruct us once not to criticize the Coast Guard,” Kim said. “But when I ignored this and ran a critical report about the Coast Guard, Gil Hwan-young himself told me not to do that. He said that the instructions had come from the Blue House.”

While the bereaved families were visiting the Blue House in protest on May 9, Kim had voluntarily resigned, and he said that the Blue House had been directly involved in this process. “Gil told me that the Blue House had gotten in touch with him and instructed him to ask me to resign,” Kim told reporters. “He told me that if I left work for three months, he would find me another job.”

According to Kim, Gil burst into tears and told him that this was what President Park wanted and that if Kim refused these orders, Gil would be doomed as well. This claim implies that the Blue House directly intervened in personnel decisions at KBS. Kim gave several reporters evidence of the Blue House’s meddling at KBS, sources said.

“I had my suspicions that KBS and other public broadcasters had been controlled by the government since the administration of former president Lee Myung-bak, and Kim Si-gon’s remarks confirm my suspicions about these issues,” said Kim Seo-jung, a professor of broadcasting at Sungkonghoe University. “If Kim’s remarks are true, it is a not a question of Gil Hwan-young being responsible, but rather of the Blue House being responsible.”

staff photographer)

Even apart from this, there is increasing pressure inside KBS for Gil to step down. On the day of May 16, 18 department heads in the newsroom submitted voluntary resignations while calling for Gil to resign; that night, 46 team leaders in the newsroom added their voices to the call, releasing an emergency statement and expressing their intention to resign. Even Lim Chang-geon, media center chief, submitted his resignation, but this was refused, sources said.

But Gil seems to have no intention of stepping down. For the entire day, he declined to make any official expression of his position. When he met with Lim Chang-geon on Friday, he referred to the department heads who had voluntarily resigned, sarcastically asking whether news programming would really be suspended. Lim responded that the news might actually be suspended, at which point Gil said that he could live with that, the KBS branch of the National Union of Media Workers reported. If the union branch’s report is to be believed, Gil said that he would not step down even if it results in the suspension of news reporting.

In regard to this, a representative with KBS said that “allegations that [Gil] said he was willing to let the news programming be suspended are not grounded in fact.”

In addition, the KBS labor union held a press conference on the same day, alleging that KBS, on orders from above, increased coverage of the subway collision at Sangwangsimni Station in Seoul in order to help ruling party candidates in the local elections.

“We have almost identified the person who gave the orders to increase coverage. We have confirmed this person with multiple people in the reporting department and will reveal this at a later date,” an official with the labor union said on condition of anonymity.

“It is only natural to provide extensive coverage of a subway accident that could have caused great loss of life. This has nothing to do with interference in the local elections,” a KBS representative said.

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