hankyoreh

Newstapa producer Choi Seung-ho shakes hands with a member of MBC following his appointment as the network’s president at the MBC headquarters in the Yeouido District of Seoul on Dec. 7. (by Park Jong-shik

Newstapa producer Choi Seung-ho was selected as the new president of MBC. Choi’s “reinstatement” to the presidency comes 1,997 days after his dismissal from the network.

Following a review of interviews with three candidates, the Foundation for Broadcast Culture (FBC), MBC’s majority shareholder, voted on Dec. 7 to appoint Choi as network president.

The meeting that day was attended by five of the FBC’s nine directors: Lee Wan-kee, Yoo Ki-chul, Choe Kang-wook, Lee Jin-soon, and Kim Gyeonghwan. All four directors nominated by the previous ruling party (now the Liberty Korea Party) abstained. The four directors – Kim Kwang-dong, Lee In-chul, Koh Young-ju, and Kwon Hyuk-cheol – maintain that the previous vote to remove MBC president Kim Jang-gyeom was improper. But the remaining majority of directors proceeded with the meeting, following by a general shareholders’ meeting to officially appoint Choi as president.

Choi, the new appointee as president, went to work at MBC in 1986 and joined the “PD Notebook” in 1995, earning Song Geon-ho Press Award and Ahn Jong-pil Free Press Award honors for unsparing investigative reporting in segments such as “Prosecutors and Sponsors” and “The Four Major Rivers: A Six-Meter-Deep Secret.” In 2003, he became president of the MBC labor union. He was dismissed from the network amid a 170-day strike in 2012. While he had been unable to return to work at MBC for the past five years, he continued his investigative reporting working for the online investigative site News Tapa and directed the documentaries “Spy Nation” and “Criminal Conspiracy.”

Choi’s first order of business as president will be the reinstatement of other dismissed employees. The network and union planned to hold a joint declaration on the immediate reinstatement of all dismissed employees in the lobby of MBC’s office in Seoul’s Sangam neighborhood when Choi reports for his first day as network president on Dec. 8.

“It is of exceptional significance that the new president is a network member who was illegally fired five years ago during a labor union general strike to demand fairness in broadcasting,” the MBC chapter of the National Union of Mediaworkers (NUMW) said in a statement titled “Our Hopes for a Dismissed Worker-Turned-New Network President” released soon after Choi’s appointment.

“We look forward to a greater sense of responsibility in achieving fair broadcasting,” the statement said.

“As we face the historic task of restoring press freedom and democracy, we hope the union and network will both appreciate the seriousness of the final opportunity granted to MBC and do their utmost to cooperate,” it continued.

During his bid for the presidency, Choi pledged to form a “labor-management joint reconstruction committee” to investigate past corruption and abuses of power within the network and hold the individuals involved accountable.

The FBC also disclosed most aspects of its selection process to journalists and the public, naming “transparency” as its paramount value in selecting the schedule and procedures last month for bids for the network presidency.

Following a policy briefing on Dec. 1, the full interview review process on Dec. 7 was relayed on the MBC website and social media. Questions from “citizen interviewers” were also shared with candidates. Between Dec. 1 and 5, the FBC gathered questions online to ask candidates for the network presidency; over 500 were received. When director Lee Jin-soon shared a question from one member of the public asking if he was “critical of the current administration,” Choi replied, “I never criticize administrations out of hand simply based on the belief that you must always criticize power. And I should not be interfering in reporting [as network president].”

By Park Jun-yong and Kim Hyo-sil, staff reporters

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