hankyoreh

Democratic Party lawmaker Park Ju-min (right), acting chairman of the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee, and People Power Party lawmaker Yoon Han-hong have a sideline conversation during the plenary session of the committee on Tuesday. (Yonhap News)

The looming passage of an amendment to the Press Arbitration Act over objections from opposition parties, journalists and civic groups has prompted growing concerns about politicians forcing through legislation without a social consensus.

Even those who have stressed the need for media reforms in the past have pointed out that the current amendment fails to adequately reflect the original aim of providing restitution for damages resulting from media reports — and could potentially undermine the media’s role of monitoring and criticizing those in power.

This explains the growing calls for the Democratic Party to hold more of a deliberation process amid proposals for approaches such as forming a National Assembly special committee.

On Tuesday, a pitched battle between ruling and opposition party politicians unfolded into the late evening over whether the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee should approve the amendment to the Act on Press Arbitration and Remedies, etc. for Damage Caused by Press Reports.

The Democratic Party insisted that the committee should pass the amendment, maintaining that the issues previously raised by the opposition had been largely resolved. The People Power Party (PPP) staged a protest in front of the committee’s meeting site, saying that it would fight the amendment to the bitter end.

The Democratic Party reaffirmed its intent to pass the amendment during the National Assembly’s regular session Wednesday, stating that there had been “no change in the situation.”

“There have been concerns expressed [even within the Democratic Party], but my understanding is that those concerns have to do with things like the timeline issue and whether [the amendment] is sufficiently ‘ripened,’” a Democratic Party official said in a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh.

“The reason behind this legislation’s pursuit is the fact that so many people have been harmed by fake news and questions about whether people are taking enough responsibility for this,” the official said, adding that “most of the lawmakers are on the same page about this situation.”

The PPP, Justice Party and other opposition parties met with journalists and civic groups, sharing criticisms over the Democratic Party’s move to force the Press Arbitration Act through.

“We need to fight to show the public how reckless the Democratic Party is being in assuming that they’re going to stop people writing things through money or punitive targeting,” said PPP leader Lee Jun-seok.

“It’s a shameless double standard for them to try to subject legacy media to vague regulations solely because they report inconvenient facts,” he added.

Yeo Yeong-gug, leader of the Justice Party, said the Democratic Party’s Press Arbitration Act terms “go beyond the essence of reforms” to penalize the media.

“For them to take advantage of their numerical advantage in seats to force [the amendment] through despite the objections of the opposition and many media groups recalls the days of the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations,” he said.

While the Democratic Party said it had removed the “toxic provisions” through previous revisions, observers are still voicing concerns that certain mechanisms in the Press Arbitration Act could be abused to protect vested interests rather than providing restitution for damages to members of the public.

“The definitions in terms of presuming ‘deliberateness’ and ‘gross negligence’ or ‘false’ and ‘manipulated’ information and the restrictions on reading are provisions that will lead to a proliferation of lawsuits by the same vested interests that have raised issues with media reporting and made it more difficult, rather than to prompt restitution for victims,” said Kim Dong-won, director of the policy cooperation office for the National Union of Mediaworkers.

“Instead of helping victims, the Democratic Party’s Press Arbitration Act is closer to being a law that benefits the people trying to silence media reports,” he said.

Chong Eun-ryung, director of the SNU FactCheck Center at the Seoul National University Institute of Communication Research, said, “When they paint the same media that have to battle false information as being the chief offenders [in spreading false information], that weakens our society’s ability to resist false information.”

“We shouldn’t muddy the waters by mixing the two things [restitution for victims and measures for false and manipulated information],” she added.

Seong Han-pyo, chairperson of the Chosun Committee for Defending a Free Press, said, “When it comes to media reforms, you have to proceed very cautiously and surely, one step at a time.”

“Hopefully, the Democratic Party will hold off on forcing this legislation through and spend some more time gathering opinions,” he added.

By Noh Ji-won, staff reporter

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