hankyoreh

outside KBS headquarters in Seoul’s Yeouido neighborhood

On June 5, the KBS board of directors passed a resolution calling for the dismissal of KBS President Gil Hwan-young. While final approval must be given by President Park Geun-hye, who holds the ultimate authority for appointments, Park would not seem to have a reason to reject the board’s motion, which passed by a decisive margin of 7 to 4. While Gil’s termination was long in coming, it goes to show that justice prevails in the end.

Nevertheless, the board’s decision is not the end, but rather the beginning, of bringing a resolution to this crisis. The most important task of all - repairing the reputation of public broadcasting - still remains.

Perhaps Gil’s dismissal was preordained. Gil had chances to step down on his own will, but he remained defiant until the bitter end. The internal opposition at KBS to Gil that started to emerge after the families of victims in the Sewol tragedy visited KBS in protest at the beginning of May soon spiraled out of control. In addition to junior reporters and producers, KBS managers, including the department heads in the reporting office, resigned from their appointments en masse to join the ranks of the opposition. In addition, the two KBS labor unions voted to go on strike by overwhelming margins.

Amid all this, Gil forced managers in KBS branches in Jeju and Gangneung to step down for refusing to swear an oath of loyalty to him. Then he made a punitive personnel decision, suddenly assigning six department heads at the reporting office to humble reporting posts in the countryside after they called for his dismissal. In effect, Gil’s house was on fire, and he kept pouring gasoline on the blaze.

In the end, it reached the point where virtually all of the employees and managers at KBS were calling on Gil to step down and refusing to produce new programs. In the end, the board of directors had no choice but to conclude that Gil was incapable of leading the vast organization known as KBS.

Whatever the case, the passage of the motion to remove Gil has stopped KBS’s mad dash toward the precipice and helped it transition from a tense showdown to recovery mode. Nevertheless, the KBS board of directors and the Blue House need to acknowledge that Gil’s removal is merely the first step in finding a real solution to the problems at KBS. The fundamental cause for the strike at KBS was the interference and meddling of the Blue House, which treated KBS like its own private broadcaster.

Given that, the question of who will become Gil’s successor as KBS president is an important one. The authorities need to appoint someone with the balance demanded by public broadcasting. If the position is given to another figure like Gil Hwan-young who is beholden to the Blue House, KBS is sure to find itself back at square one.

Most importantly, the Blue House must pay attention to scholars pointing out that one of the causes of this crisis was a lack of adequate institutional safeguards to guarantee the independence of public broadcasting. In order for KBS to return as a public broadcaster that genuinely operates on behalf of the public, it needs institutional independence. It is only by taking this opportunity to resolve this issue that the Park Geun-hye administration can restore its damaged credibility. The staff at KBS must remain vigilant and pay close attention to how the situation unfolds.

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