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Floor leaders of the two major parties, People Power Party lawmaker Kim Gi-hyeon, left, and Democratic Party lawmaker Yun Ho-jung, right, shake hands at the office of National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug, center, in Seoul, Tuesday, after they agreed to form a discussion body to debate a potential amendment to the Press Arbitration Act. (Yonhap News)

After forming an “eight-member discussion body” to discuss a potential amendment to the Press Arbitration Act, the Democratic Party and People Power Party (PPP) reached an agreement Tuesday to present the amendment at the National Assembly’s plenary session on Sept. 27, just after the long Chuseok holiday.

Given how extreme the battle over this amendment was becoming, it’s fortunate that the two sides managed to buy some time to pass it on a consensus basis. This establishment of a broader discussion framework beyond the realm of the political establishment is also a welcome development.

But there are also questions about whether this eight-member discussion body will have the right membership and enough time even to deal with this one contentious issue.

There doesn’t seem to be any cause either for failing to reflect calls from civil society to form a special committee as a social discussion body within the National Assembly. That’s why additional discussions by the two sides will be so crucial.

In some respects, the agreement Tuesday was based on political calculations and the two parties’ attempts to avoid the burdens of a National Assembly crisis without conceding on their convictions.

The Democratic Party may have been concerned about a media backlash, with the amendment’s passage being framed as using its large numerical advantage to “railroad” legislation. At a time when even members of the press reform movement have been opposing the amendment’s unilateral passage — citing the potential for the punitive damage system and other provisions to be abused — fears that voters could turn their backs in next year’s presidential election if they continued pushing ahead also seem to have played a part.

The PPP, for its part, would have had a tough time carrying on with its tactics of simply opposing the amendments without suggesting alternatives while ignoring the public’s very real demands for press reforms.

Hopefully, both sides will bear in mind the severe media backlash that awaits them if they focus solely on their own political interests in the composition and activities of the eight-member discussion body.

The Democratic Party and PPP need to recognize clearly that the agreement Tuesday came out of a situation where the Press Arbitration Act furor has turned press reforms into one of the key tasks of our times.

Campaigners for press reforms have made great efforts to raise the need for reforms and suggest a larger blueprint for them, even in a situation where the narrow framework devised by the two parties leaves them with a limited voice.

Quite a number of things need to be reformed to restore trust in the press and create a stronger sense of responsibility: changing the governing structures of public broadcasters, regulating portal news services and addressing social networking services like YouTube that have emerged as powerful platforms for making and spreading “fake news,” to name a few. All of these efforts need to be supported by legislation.

Under the current agreement, the discussion body would consist of two lawmakers, each from the two parties, as well as two press community members and experts each as recommended by the two sides.

It’s the kind of structure that leaves ample potential for both parties to simply represent and magnify their own interests. This sort of composition does not appear very conducive even to reaching an agreement on the Press Arbitration Act amendment’s more controversial terms.

It’s also evidence that they continue to view this issue only through the narrow lens of their political rivalry. It wouldn’t be at all difficult for them to bring on board figures recommended by consensus among media groups as people who possess expertise on press reforms while remaining free from practical political interests.

Those media groups have declared plans to establish their own social consensus body, even if only on an independent basis. There’s no reason it can’t be incorporated into the framework of a National Assembly discussion body — if anything, that would be more efficient approach.

It also doesn’t make a lot of sense for this hard-won discussion body to be simply disbanded once it has focused on just a few provisions in the Press Arbitration Act amendment.

In technical terms, there wouldn’t be any problems if they were to first focus their deliberation on the amendment by the assigned deadline — coming up with sophisticated mechanisms to provide restitution for damages to members of the public from malicious reporting while allaying concerns about encroachment on freedom of the press — and also take the opportunity to select certain key press reform tasks and establish a discussion body that has enough time to reach a societal consensus on them.

It goes without saying which of these approaches is better suited to achieving the press reforms that have emerged as a historical imperative.

The journalism community also carries a heavy burden of responsibility. It doesn’t inspire much trust when they remain out of view while the media are becoming an object of ridicule rather than trust, only to emerge now to voice their opposition.

If they hope to play a key role now that we are finally getting around to press reforms, they need to show a greater willingness to reform themselves.

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