Mike Breen on the Korean Press and a Long Overdue Press Rant

In the KT’s opinion section, Mike Breen asks if Korea is well served by its press. It’s a good one question, and Mike’s answer is well worth reading.

Allow me to transition, though, into two issues that have been gnawing at me recently, namely, the indictment of the production team of MBC’s “PD Sucheop” for its report — if you can call it that — on the dangers of Mad Cow Disease and US beef, and the recent launch by a “media consumer group” of a boycott of advertisers of the Chosun, JoongAng and Dong-A dailies (which has, in turn, attracted attention from prosecutors).

And by “gnawing at me,” I mean “has got me thoroughly depressed,” since all the parties involved, frankly, suck — from a) “PD Sucheop,” which (IMHO) probably did intentionally slander the government (and US beef producers) for political reasons, and b) a government that thinks the best way to deal with bad journalism is to press criminal charges (and a defamation suit!) against TV producers, to c) civic groups launching boycotts of advertisers of media they don’t like while saying nothing about media like, oh, MBC,  and d) conservative dailies that (IMHO) probably are guilty of biased journalism (hey, who isn’t?) and e) the Hankyoreh Shinmun, which bitches up a storm about how the conservative dailies distort public opinion (hence the support for the advertiser boycott) but apparently doesn’t mind when MBC’s atrocious journalism helps forment a national revolt.

Then there’s the whinging about how the Lee administration is trying to silence critical media by sicking the prosecutors on them, coming mostly from newspapers and broadcasters that were pretty quiet when it was the Chosun, JoongAng and Dong-A bitching up a storm about how the Roh administration was trying to silence them through the Newspaper Law and the Press Arbitration Law. Mind you, this could probably apply equally well in reverse.

Like I said, it’s all bad.