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President Yoon Suk-yeol takes questions from reporters while heading into his office in Yongsan in this undated file photo. (pool photo)

Groups representing media workers are blaming President Yoon Suk-yeol and others after an MBC reporter who engaged in a verbal tussle with a presidential secretary following one of Yoon's routine Q&A sessions with reporters received online death threats.

They believe the targeting of a particular media company by Yoon and the ruling party is leading to unjust attacks on a journalist.

In a joint statement issued Wednesday, the Korea Broadcasting Journalist Association, National Union of Media Workers, Journalists Association of Korea, Korea Producers and Directors Association, Korea Video Journalist Association, Korea Broadcasting Engineers and Technicians Association and other groups said the Yoon administration's “continued attacks to suppress the media” are ultimately “leading to threats of terrorism and murder against a journalist by [the administration’s] extremist supporters.”

“Statements by the president, who has blamed a media company for a series of incidents, including the banning of certain journalists from the presidential plane and attempts to suppress advertising in retaliation for a report on President Yoon's use of an obscenity [during a visit to the United States], have sowed the seeds of the trouble,” said the statement.

During one of his so-called doorstep interviews on his way into the Yongsan presidential office on Friday, Yoon responded to a question regarding the banning of MBC journalists from the presidential plane by citing his presidential responsibility to protect the constitution, and by claiming that the ban was because MBC “had engaged in very malicious behavior” to “alienate an allied relationship, the core of Korea's national security, with fake news.”

With Yoon mentioning MBC by name and adopting a hostile attitude, even brandishing phrases like “fake news,” “alienate” and “very malicious,” and with ruling party lawmakers joining the attacks on the broadcaster, online attacks began appearing on YouTube and other internet communities against the MBC reporter who engaged in a verbal confrontation with Lee Ki-jeong, the presidential public relations secretary.

More specifically, a post appeared on the far-right website Ilgan Best — commonly known as simply “Ilbe” — on Monday morning physically threatening the reporter in question.

The previous day, lawyer Kang Shin-up, the former chairperson of a fan club dedicated to first lady Kim Keon-hee, said on YouTube that the reporter had engaged in “treason,” and called on presidential security to “subdue the reporter who caused a riot, or slap him in the face.” He later deleted his comments.

In their joint statement, the media groups said Russia and other dictatorships are facing international criticism for “mobilizing regime supporters as a means to tame critical media.”

“It's deplorable that under the Yoon administration, which has clamored on about ‘freedom’ every time they've opened their mouth from Yoon's inauguration to his address before the UN, the ruling forces are agitating their extremist supporters by targeting particular media companies and journalists,” they said.

Stressing that responsibility for the situation rests with the presidential office, the groups called on the administration to cease its unjust suppression of particular media companies and journalists.

“The responsibility for stirring up these threats of White Terror clearly rests with the presidential office of the Yoon administration,” said the statement.

“It has consistently engaged in harming and suppressing press freedom, doggedly shifting onto the media blame for a matter it could have ended with a simple apology. And now, it has stirred up terror threats from its extremist supporters.”

The media groups told Yoon that “no matter how much he launches attacks targeting particular media companies and journalists, attempts to destroy press freedom and control broadcast media will never find justification, and he will only accelerate public alienation the more his extremist supporters stir up trouble.”

“He must send a clear message that he will severely punish and crack down on those who engage in threats of violence and terror,” they said.

By Choi Sung-jin, staff reporter

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