In the Financial Times, Christian Oliver is right on the money in pointing out the general distrust many Koreans have of the state (and, by extension, the mainstream media):
When Roh Moo-hyun, the previous president, committed suicide last year, the government feared a repeat of 2008’s massive street protests over the import of US beef and packed Seoul with tens of thousands of riot police. It was an inflammatory message: we do not trust the people. Sadness quickly turned to anger. The reason why South Koreans get so furious and readily suspect cover-ups has much to do with the way information is relayed. At present, the state and its top conglomerates, the chaebol, largely spoon-feed information to uncritical television and newspapers, forcing the discussion of less palatable issues into Korea’s cyberspace.
South Korea still blocks access to North Korean websites and even Pyongyang’s histrionic state news agency, which makes more of a mockery of the regime than Seoul ever could. Ironically, democratic South Koreans cannot be trusted to make up their own minds about the autocratic North.
It is telling that a current bestselling book was written by a whistle-blowing former chief lawyer from Samsung Electronics, who alleged corruption involving the world’s biggest technology company and state officials. South Koreans yearn to read these stories but the papers, whose advertising revenue is controlled by the chaebol, have refused to review or advertise the book.
I’ll repeat what I said in April of last year:
Still, I do agree with the court’s recognition that online forum are places where anyone can login to write and debate. And really, we’re walking into dangerous territory where we start arresting individual netizens for spreading mistaken information about the government… even when they’re outright lying. And I’ll say it again — guys like Minerva wouldn’t be such a problem if the government and mainstream (read: conservative) press didn’t have so little credibility with large segments of the population.
The effects of state-censored media and authoritarian governing practices don’t go away overnight.
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Um, is there anyone in the world who trusts the so-called “mainstream media”?? I live in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave and I certainly don’t trust the mainstream media, esp media that has anything to do with Rupert Murdoch, for example.
In my 20+ years of on-and-off involvement with Korea, the country’s governments have been far more trustworthy and accountable than the domestic media. Of course, that’s not saying much.
I really appreciate this post. The Korean government and their lapdog media need to be exposed and shamed for what they do: suppressing freedom of speech, physically abusing its citizens, smearing/slandering its citizens and expats left and right, etc, etc. Most Koreans I know (who are under 80 years old) don’t read the papers anymore. And they certainly do not trust ANYTHING their government says.
Maybe some kind of Freedom of Information Act could help here?
To add a quick NKorea note, if a desperate KJI regime starts to cause some havoc in SK (think bombing SK gov’t buildings or murdering defectors) there’ll be need for stepped-up counter-intelligence. But thanks to the weaknesses this article describes the South Korean public may believe that counter-intel measures are really against them. We see in this dilemma just one problem created by not being upfront with and gaining the trust of the populace. That said the mistrust comes from decades or even centuries of being lied to and mistreated; the recent democratic SK administrations are Bhuddas of enlightenment in comparison.
Also, SK information control even affects me since without a valid SK number I can’t become a member of most SK websites. And busting Minerva? That was just downright shameful to be honest.
Maybe I should add that much of the SK public hasn’t really helped either, frequently taking overly simplistic views of the matter. And the user-generated sites and netizen discourse often report the least trustworthy news of them all. So if the leaders should behave less paternalistically, the South Korean public and opposition also need to behave more like adults.
Btw I’m not claiming South Koreans have any monopoly on behaving childishly — I myself have been a master of it sometimes…
I also appreciate this one. It’s a fact of life that almost all main media are dependent on Samsung and a handful of others for advertising. The second fact of life is that, if you commit crimes such as analyzing the implications of Lee Kun-hee’s pardon or reviewing the book by the former head of Samsung’s legal team, the chaebol will pull advertising (Hankyoreh for the last 2 years, Sisa-IN magazine). The government has no control of this nature over media. It’s more subtle influence comes from a media culture in which reporters are assigned to ministries and big chaebol and naturally consider their press releases and announcements to be the “news” of the day that they have to cover. Few stories are generated from the ground up. I wonder what would happen to a newspaper that refused to allow its ad department to talk to its editorial department and had its reporters covering themes (eg defense) instead of ministries… probably collapse.
Maybe there’s opportunity for overseas media companies to buy SK papers/news? Post FTAs especially? But it could just be Murdoch… and who else would buy a paper these days? Does SK news make money?
This and the article are great. After the news reporting fail last Friday, I decided I would try and make a significant blog entry about this very subject on my own site. I was planning on doing it earlier this week, but as it is is a bit daunting I’ve decided to gather some information first.
As of now, I’ve got my girlfriend emailing her old professors from her journalism school on some possible places to start looking.
The main thing that strikes me is that there is nearly nobody on the airwaves who openly criticizes the government. Considering that MBC, and KBS are government owned, this doesn’t come as too much of a surprise I guess. And like the article mentions, the reliance of the channels’ on ad revenue creates a serious conflict of interest and the result is netizens. ugh.
As much as I despise the likes of Glenn Beck and Limbaugh, they’re outlandishness does serve a purpose in a truly free media environment. It allows the real news to focus on facts(or at least try) and leave the dissent/opinion to other outlets.
Once I get an idea as to why, even though Korea has plenty of private cable channels where the government influence isn’t as strong(maybe), it still ceases to exist here, or for that matter anywhere in Asia.
I’d love for you guys to comment on this issue and perhaps we can start a real discussion on this; here or on my page in the comments section would work for now. I’d really like to create a page that could serve as a source for those interested in this issue.
Take care and hope to hear from you soon.
Robin,
Fat chances of that happening for a very long time. For the chaebol it’s clearly more than just a business decision.
Media is one of just a handful of business sectors in Korea still subject to statutory limitations on foreign ownership. The Broadcasting Act limits foreign ownership to not more than 49% in any case, and in some cases bars ownership altogether. The Newspaper Act limits foreign ownership to 30%. In the case of a listed company with diffuse ownership 30% might be a controlling bloc, but somehow if a foreign party were to get to 30% the other shares might find a way to unify against that foreign party.
Other countries also tend to have limits on foreign ownership of media.
This is one of the most important things the South Korean government can do to show the populace the true face of Pyongyang. Grant them access to the KCNA news site. I cannot stress enough how this will be a good thing for Koreans in the south to understanding the insanity that is the DPRK.
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