Yonhap News is reporting that prosecutors have begun an investigation of MBC’s “PD Notebook.”
The investigation was requested by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, which claims PD Notebook intentionally distorted facts in its report on US beef and Mad Cow Disease.
47 Comments
LMB strikes back? It is sad to see government resort to “investigation” instead of alternative/opposition view points to counter what PD Notebook claimed. Unfortunately, damages have been done and I hope LMB stikes back and show them who is the daddy…
Intent will be difficult to prove if that is what the case is being based on.
Now, the Prosecutor’s Office can look forward to candlelight vigils by duped teenagers!
IMHO, an investigation into PD notebook by the PO is entirely appropriate considering MBC is:
at least partially publicly funded,
utilizes publicly controlled airwaves
could be guilty of criminal libel and slander
The next thing I’m hoping 2MB will do is cut off subsidies for ALL NGO’s. If the lefties and NoSangMo crowd want to jam up the streets of Seoul, they should do so on their own nickel.
#2.
Agreed, but if I were an investigator looking for intent, I would immediately impound all email traffic and history in and out of the involved offices. That should turn up something……
Of course it’s inappropriate for a government to use the courts to stike at its critics or opponents. It undermines the public’s faith in its justice system, mocks the rule of law, and provides an indirect justification for people,companies and organizations to ignore the law - since they reasonably believe it to be cynically and unevenly applied.
Someone sagely commented in another of this blog’s many beef threads that Korea was failed by its academic community. Where were the scientists, the SKY university professors, the KAIST statisticians, and the educated class in general when the mad cow hysteria was infecting the minds of the young and the dense? This is the quarter from which the counterarguments to PD Notebook should properly come from. I don’t know who has set ‘the prosecutor’ in motion on this project, but if it’s LMB, then it is just another disgraceful chapter in an already embarrassing national circus.
there’s already been plenty of debate on this over at koreabeat.
and.. I suspect that all of the emails are long gone, memos shredded and burnt. Korean companies are very proactive at that.
#5 Just curious if you were as outraged when Roh embarked on his campaign of stifling the print dailies a few years back? Hope so.
The point I was trying to make earlier is that MBC in particular is a PUBLIC entity headed by a GOVERNMENT APPOINTED board. (Guess when the current board was appointed and by whom?)
http://www.pressreference.com/.....Korea.html
This is not the same circumstance as a privately owned daily coming under attack by the government. The PO is in effect, investigating an arm of the government: MBC.
Dare I opine, that government investigating itself is usually a good thing?
I’d be oversimplifying to state that MBC’s sensational reporting has been an effort by disgruntled 386ers to accomplish what they failed to do at the ballot box last December, but I’ve probably got some company here.
I seem to recall that 2MB promised to privatize KBS and MBC. I wish him luck. He’s getting a taste of how perilous this will turn out to be.
#5 P.S. Agree with your first paragraph 100% that the Korean intellectual community has failed the people in the latest debate. They’ve been AWOL quite a while, though….
Most Koreans dont care about this beef fiasco. People are blaming academia but the reality is most of these protesters and protesting netizens are kids in high school and some not even that.
Before this fiasco South Korea was the 3rd biggest importer of US beef, behind Canada & Britain(i think), no one cared. Alot of you dont seem to know this simple undeniable fact.
Whats more is you are basing the entire situation on media and web sites giving you an incredibly skewed overview of the situation.
Yes these kids are stupid for blindly following but they are a victim of the liberal education system.
Ask most baby boomers and they are generally neutral or higher in their opinion of America, its the kids who think less and its a direct result of Roh and his predecessor’s education system with anti-American propaganda.
“the Korean intellectual community”
hahaha~~~ Is this the 15 people in Korea who can read the “No Parking” signs?
Anyway, the gov’t can’t hope to go after all of the Neti-freaks for brainwashing the other 50 million non-”intellectuals” over the Internet.
So a good strategy would be for the gov’t to use this high profile case with PD Notebook to set a precedence of prosecution for negligently slanderous activity of the nature PD Notebook partook.
One can only hope the prossies give them the full Lone Star treatment.
Stacked, there’s a huge chunk of the 386er’s who are very, very anti-American and very sympathetic to Kim Jong-Il and the Norks.
They are responsible for the loud airing of ridiculous ignorance and hatred based on blind stupidity. They are responsible for voting the bonehead lefties into office, for creating a very anti-American education agenda that influences kids who don’t know any better, and for fanning the flames of anti-American hatred with lies and smear campaigns based on rumors and half-truths.
Also, they greatly encourage very damaging witch hunts against those in the media, scientists, thinkers and educators who disagree with them.
They are to blame for this ridiculous state of ignorant rebellion while they try to lable it as ‘democratic people power’.
Pure B.S.
So, it’s sad that the ones who disagree with the ignorant hysteria are too afraid to speak out for fear of being hunted down by the crazy nutizens!
The Korean education system has been a breeding ground for anti-American/pro-Nork ideologies since the 80’s. It was only under Kim DJ and Roh that it was really allowed to flourish out in the open- even celebrated. Before, they had to be a bit quiet about it. I guess they are really afraid of LMB trying to stifle their agenda of ‘educating’ the youth!
#5, that’s a really good point and one I had not considered myself.
#5 and subsequents:
I think the intellectual community has been hiding in the woodwork because serving as the voice of reason carries with it the very real possibility of career suicide.
I left Korea in 2003. When I came back a couple years later Roh was already hugely unpopular. I caught most of the real estate fiasco, don’t recall any campaign against the dailies.
Government investigating itself may or may not be useful. What is certainly useful is a uniform code of transparency in government appointments, budgets, spending decisions. That’s part of a record that voters can then remark on and vote on, and possibly influence during the process.
But siccing the public prosecutor on a person or organization that has irritated the president is abuse of power, and goes back to my first paragraph in #5. If that is what is happening, or even if it can be reasonably assumed to be happening, then that is not a good thing.
#15. …siccing the public prosecutor on a person or organization that has irritated the president is abuse of power, and goes back to my first paragraph in #5…
Well, I certainly have to agree that it carries the taint of abuse of power, and that is absolutely how it will be taken by the 386ers. 2MB is in a mine-field here. Small detail, 2MB did not initiate the investigation, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries did, for what little that is worth…..
“What is certainly useful is a uniform code of transparency in government appointments, budgets, spending decisions.” Agree 100%
Again, I wish 2MB luck in privatizing KBS and MBC. Their bureaucrats have already won the first round and 2MB is in damage control. 2MB is in sore need of a better tactician seeing how MBC’s strength was so woefully underestimated.
Generally I agree with Linkd’s perspectives and even with many of Linkd’s points above. But MBC may very well have crossed the line if in fact it had maliciously and knowingly aired falsehoods with a political agenda in mind. Even Korean journalists need to be culpable for blatant and cynical dishonesty.
I’m a big believer in the freedom of the press, including those who push or selective cherry pick facts in ways I may fundamentally disagree.
But when it comes to any journalist or organization that purposely misleads the public in a big way, knowlingly harming the various, legitimate interests of the community, hiding behind some kind of “freedom of the press” curtain doesn’t cut it.
With a democracy comes responsibilities, and that is particularly true of mass media professionals. In this case, 2MB is well within his right and - I might add - responsibilities of his office to pursue this matter. Even though I’m something of a libertarian, I wish him well on this venture.
‘But when it comes to any journalist or organization that purposely misleads the public in a big way, knowlingly harming the various, legitimate interests of the community, hiding behind some kind of “freedom of the press” curtain doesn’t cut it.’
just like the press and iraq. proof these things happen everywhere.
How are they going to stop at just MBC? Getting it badly wrong is endemic in the Korean media, which are almost a different species than their Western or Japanese counterparts.
lol at the academics. A few choice quotes from the Chosun from profs at Ehwa and SNU…
Choi Won-mog, a professor of law at Ewha Womans University
Woo Hee-jong, a professor of veterinary medicine at Seoul National University
Fucking ridiculous.
http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....30008.html
Some profs from a couple of other uni’s had a little more ‘balanced’ view.
I really must agree with “Linkd” here. This whole affair highlights the failure of the education system, science community and media to deal with what has amounted to a disinformation campaign. Years of neglecting the educational system and allowing teachers to engage in politics has poisoned the system. The students might as well be learning how to practice jihad and turn themselves into human bombs; such is the level of mis-education, even though it is selective in error. Still, the poison of groupthink remains and is now empowered with sophisticated communications. Any attempt to regulate such in an authoritarian style will simple fail and is a gross misunderstanding of how it works. The Han-nara guys really f***ed up here; they are pwnd, big-time.
Despite the above, I believe this also highlights the failure of the political system, as a whole, to instill trust in the government and to effect a fair rule-of-law. The people will put up with this until one day they suddenly will not accept what they see as the false and corrupt machinations of a government that does not represent their will.
Why do Koreans still not trust the tap water? That answer is closer to the real sentiments of the average person in South Korea and is the color that sets the mood.
Trust is not cheap.
Elgin, young Koreans do not read established publications and media. But they do read and are an avid participants of internet sites like Afreeka and Agora. Yeah, teachers, especially the KTU are a big problem. But Korea’s liberal internet is another category in itself.
cm, the liberal internet and the rumor mongering are the result, not the cause.
Where does the seed for these lies, rumors, and myths about the US, USFK, beef begin?
The anti-American groups:
-Hancheongryun
-Korea Teacher’s Union
-Labor unions and affiliated groups
It has been shown that these groups have been working with North Korean spies/agitators: http://rokdrop.com/2006/10/28/.....-movement/
These groups have an extremely well orchestrated campaign of planting lies and rumors in communication networks to sway public sentiment against the US/USFK and glorify North Korea. So far, it has worked like a charm. Hanara and the pro-US camp have shown themselves to be inept at dealing with the smear campaigns and have only been able to do what they are attempting now- damage control.
The other side is winning the hearts and minds of the people. That is clearly shown with how many believed the complete BS that is shown by a crap show like ‘PD Notebook’.
Another strategy being used by these people is the exploitation of children- using them in protests is just disgusting, but it is effective because people are sympathetic to the youth. You know, “Think of the children!”.
The strategies of these groups is scary because they are working very well and they are able to fool people into believing it’s just people exercising their ‘democratic’ rights on the internet, in text messages, and in the streets. It’s all a facade!
This is being orchestrated without people knowing that they are being duped and used.
I worry that the momentum is too strong now and there is no turning back!
Take Naver for instance. You know the Naver’s top viewed topics? Portals like Naver collude with advertisers and install Active X programs on internet users who visit the site. The users have no ideal that they are infected with a program that control the most viewed stories ranking. So if Naver wants to make the Mad Cow story the number one story, they can easily do so with a click of a few buttons.
“Where does the seed for these lies, rumors, and myths about the US, USFK, beef begin?
The anti-American groups:
-Hancheongryun
-Korea Teacher’s Union
-Labor unions and affiliated groups”
Oh for sure they are also a big part of the problem. All I’m saying is that internet is their (the above groups you mentioned) main medium to use, and that it wouldn’t have mattered what the so called scientists and experts said or didn’t say.
The quickest and most effective way for the government to reform the TV networks is not to focus on their ownership but on the other side of their economic equation — advertising. The government must eliminate Kobaco, its agency that handles all purchase of ads on the major networks, keeps all of their rates the same and pushes advertisers onto all three networks. Instead, the government should let the networks set up their own ad sales departments and set their own pricing for ads. (Kobaco was set up by Chun in the 1980s as a way of controlling the media; keeping his hand on their money spigot but hasn’t been used punitively since. It’s against WTO so one wonders why it still exists but seems to be a classic example of bureaucratic inertia and turf-saving.)
According to Cheil, the big ad agency here, just 28% of all advertising spending in South Korea goes to the three TV networks and cable gets another 10%. In other countries, even with Internet ads rising, TV often gets over 50% of all ad spending. If South Korea’s TV networks could charge market rates, advertising would realign, likely harming print media the most. But it would spark far more competition between the networks, which one would think and hope would lead to both better entertainment programs and more balanced, appealing news coverage.
Another bonus for dealing with the ad side first: Once advertising operates on a free-market basis, the market valuation of KBS and MBC will become clearer to potential investors.
I was just wondering, as an earlier post alluded to, could the US beef industry file suit against that PD Notebook show for slander? And if so, what kind of awards could they seek?
I seem to recall slander suits weren’t all that uncommon in Korea. And I believe burden of proof wasn’t all that difficult to satisfy.
Just wondering…
One of them, Dr. Kim Young-sun, a co-author of a 2005 study on Koreans, the MM gene, and CVJ susceptibility, was harassed after challenging the PD Dairy report.
#26 - excellent, excellent point. Complete privatization/independence of the TV networks is a major step that Korea needs to take toward becoming a modern country with a knowledge economy.
“One of them, Dr. Kim Young-sun, a co-author of a 2005 study on Koreans, the MM gene, and CVJ susceptibility, was harassed after challenging the PD Dairy report.”
Those experts who did spoke up, were effectively silenced through netizen intimidations, boycotts, and biased reporting like the MBC. The only media that reported this were the conservative prints like the Chosun, Joongang, and Dongah.
I agree w/ Tom Coyner. Freedom of Speech does not protect those who yell fire (when they know there is no fire) in a crowded movie theater, which is what PD Notebook essentially did.
They should be publicily flogged, exhibited and hanged (after due process, of course).
The same Joongang that last year called for more strict measures to keep out bones and other risky materials in US beef?
http://article.joins.com/artic.....ID=2813957
Get your facts straight, cm.
“Those experts who did spoke up, were effectively silenced through netizen intimidations, boycotts, and biased reporting like the MBC.”
Those that did intimidate and silence should also be prosecuted since that type of action can be considered racketeering.
How do Korean Americans feel about this whole thing is what I wonder.
Acropolis,
I can tell you that we are voting w/out mouths and stomachs…
#35 The gyopos I know think Koreans have made Korea the laughing stock of Asia. Which of course is true.
Then you get the draft dodging gyopos who don’t know shit about what it’s like actually living here and well…
#35,
This kyopo has been eating US beef for many years. I have eaten both Hanwoo and Aussie beef and compared to US beef, I will take US beef any day.
Most Koreans I know who have lived in the US for 20+ years think this issue was cooked up by left-wing groups. They’ve been away from Korea for a long time and have pretty much been assimilated into US society and Americanized to a fair degree. From my experience, it’s the newer immigrants that lack the critical thinking skills.
Chojoongdong has changed their views since the election. When Roh was in office, the media was unanimously opposed to opening the beef market, publishing all kinds of scare stories. After 2MB took office, Chojoongdong switched sides. From what I’ve seen among the major media organizations, it’s an either/or, pro-government or anti-government with a no-man’s land in between. If a moderate, balanced newspaper exists, I’d like to know which one it is.
On another thread, Slim made the comment that 2MB’s reforms would be doomed by “French-style obstructionism.” Judging by what I’ve heard from Koreans and read on both sides of the divide, I would agree.
Another example of the current spat of loony sense of Korean press freedom, from today’s JoongAng Daily:
“The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday that a 46-year-old journalist was indicted with detention on charges of spreading rumors on the Internet that police strangled a female protester.
“According to prosecutors, the 46-year-old journalist, identified only as Choi, posted a message with a fabricated photo on the Daum Internet portal on June 2. ‘A woman in her 20s or 30s died instantly when she was strangled as police tried to arrest protesters,’ the man allegedly wrote.
“According to prosecutors, the woman in the photo was a police corporal who was being transported to a hospital due to difficulty breathing. The suspect tampered with the photo and posted it to back his claim, prosecutors said.”
There is a clear difference between freedom of the press/speech and out & out slander.
“…victim of the liberal education system.”
Mmm, no. The Korean education system is far from being liberal.
It is interesting how the Korean Government has kept up the PR about how much internet connection there is in Korea, implying that this would help make Koreans smarter but instead, it has lead to gross misinformation and rumor-mongering.
I guess the newer forms of media are a real headache since they lead to more mischief and potential harm when left to the average person, who seems to lack critical skills.
Maybe it is just an education problem after all, only now it is a wired problem.
#40 That kind of media coverage doesn’t exist in Korea. It’s either them or us, no middle ground. The only other solution I can think of is to transplant all Korean students in other western countries for twenty years and then let then gradually come back to Korea. We might have more than left and right media after that….just a thought.
PD Notebook sounds like the piece of key evidence needed to put away English Teachers in Korea.
Constable Kim Plod: Where you keep you p.d. notebook.
Ha ha, all English teachers in Korea are viewed as pedophiles.
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PD Notebook has already done the Evil English Teacher thing.
I just saw the KBS news report of the arrests of the protesters and the renegotiated deals. Unfortunately for me, I ate dinner four minutes beforehand. To rid myself of the foul taste, I turned on Fox News Channel for some form of journalism ethics.