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www.groovekorea.com / November 2014 32 Controlling the airwaves Choi Kyung-young joined KBS in 1995, working his way to the status of a high-profile investigative reporter at the country’s largest broadcaster over a decade. In 2005, he was part of a team that uncovered massive tax evasion by a raft of public figures including judges and lawmakers. The story sparked the first resignation of a Supreme Court justice in Korean history and saw Choi and his colleagues shortlisted as finalists for the Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards held in the United States. But Choi’s position at the peak of investigative journalism wasn’t to last. In August 2008, he and fellow journalists protested former President Lee Myung-bak’s appointment of Lee Byung-soon as KBS president. They saw the move, along with the earlier removal of former chief Jung Yun-joo for alleged mismanagement, as an attempt to influence output at the broadcaster. Before long, Choi was pulled out of investigation and transferred to the sports desk, a reassignment he considers a demotion. Three other journalists and producers at the broadcaster lost their jobs after protesting the appointment. Choi is convinced that he, too, was targeted for his opposition to the conservative former president’s choice of chief. “My investigative team was literally disintegrated, disappeared,” says Choi. Frustrated, Choi took a career break in 2009 to study in the U.S. for a master’s degree in journalism. After returning to find the atmosphere at KBS little changed under yet another CEO, Choi left the broadcaster for good in 2013. Accusations of political interference at Korea’s broadcast networks have been relentless in recent years. In 2012, journalists at KBS, MBC and YTN, as well as wire service Yonhap News Agency, went on strike to protest management appointments and the quashing of stories critical of the government. The KBS president at the time, Kim In-kyu, had been a media adviser on the campaign of former President Lee. MBC chief Kim Jae-chul, meanwhile, was also known as a close associate of the president. KBS journalists went on strike again this May, accusing yet another KBS chief, Gil Hwan-young, of taking orders from the Blue House at that point occupied by incumbent President Park Geun-hye. The protests came after news chief Kim Si-gon claimed that Gil had attempted to control Sewol coverage at the behest of the presidential office. Just a week prior, junior reporters at the broadcaster had released a statement claiming coverage had been manipulated to give a favorable impression of the government. Allegations of state meddling seem endless, in part, because of how broadcasting is set up in Korea. At KBS, the chief executive is appointed directly by the president upon the recommendation of the company board. At MBC, the Foundation for Broadcast Culture, the largest shareholder, chooses the chief executive. But the board of the FBC is appointed by the Korea Communications Commission, whose makeup is stacked in favor of the government. “The conservative government so far has been very, I must say, shameless in appointing people very close to the presidential influences as the CEOs or as the executives of KBS and MBC,” says Park Kyung-shin, a law professor at Korea University and former member of the Korea Communications Standards Commission, a body under the KCC that regulates broadcast media and Internet Edited by Elaine Ramirez (elaine@groovekorea.com) COVER stORy content. Not only does the government exercise strong influence over management, it decides who gets on the air in the first place. Park says the government tightly controls news programming by requiring a special license for current affairs. Among countless cable and free-to-air channels, only 10 are allowed to broadcast news. “What other liberal democratic countries regulate, by licensing, those who want to do broadcast news?” he says, noting that any licenses are freely given out, especially as there is no scarcity of bandwidth with the advent of cable. More so than for other media, television in Korea has been heavily regulated from the start, University of Sydney Korean Studies professor Kwak Ki-sung writes in his book “Media and Democratic Transition in South Korea” (2012). KBS, originally the Kyeongseong Broadcasting Commission, was established in 1961, shortly after former President Park Chung-hee came to power in a military coup. The then-Ministry of Information required the station, along with the first two commercial stations established later during the decade, to submit regular reports on its programming and finances. The Basic Press Law, enacted in 1980 under the Chun Doo- hwan administration, established a long list of reporting “guidelines” that, among other things, forbade criticism of the government, support for North Korea and attempts to “confuse” the national economic order. Such naked censorship is no longer confided in law. In its place, the KCSC exercises wide discretion to censure reporting deemed objectionable through warnings, fines or suspension of broadcasting licenses. Like many other Korean institutions, it is predisposed to following the government line: The president and the ruling party each nominate three of its nine members. One of many broadcasts to fall foul of the commission this year was a KBS report on a verdict that the prosecution framed a North Korean defector as a spy for Pyongyang. The broadcaster was slapped with a warning, the second-highest sanction, for the report. “That exposé was severely sanctioned by the KCSC for broadcasting something that may affect the prosecutorial ability to reverse the decision in the higher court,” says Park. “All the program did was report on why the prosecutors lost in court in the first place.” He says that the commission only takes action against reports that clash with the government’s agenda. Another recently sanctioned report, broadcast on cable news channel JTBC, featured a professor critical of the Justice Ministry’s speedy moves to ban the far-left Unified Progressive Party after it was accused of plotting against the state. The strong hand of government may also be encouraged by the political aspirations of some media people themselves. Heo says that one of her former bosses at OBS later ran as a National Assembly candidate for the ruling Saenuri Party in Incheon. “Many politics section editors and deputy editors, society section editors and deputy editors, bureau chiefs and presidents of broadcasters have a dream of being a politician in the near future,” she says.