The text below is a slightly edited version of the author’s remarks to the M20 Media Freedom Summit held online in Delhi on September 6, 2023 by the M20 Organising Committee, which comprises 11 editors from India and a former judge of the Supreme Court.The Korean media today is going through a very unique thing. I’m afraid that things like this, whatever we are experiencing today, will happen to you all too. There’s no question that we should collectively act on expanding the freedom of speech, freedom of thought and all these things. You know, Korea has sort of enjoyed over the past 20 or 25 years more or less, a pretty good freedom of speech environment.Recently, the prosecutor’s office’s revelation that some group – they call themselves “journalists.” I’m not sure if they are but some of these people are using, not the mainstream media but some sort of an ad hoc propaganda type media. There was a cartel of people including the then ruling party members. The ruling party introduced the ad hoc-propaganda type of the new service that caters to a leftist agenda.They gathered up with the so-called established media institutions that sympathised with the ruling party at that time and the politicians from the ruling party. This all happened like 18 months ago. They all tried to create something that wasn’t true at all. They were trying to create this phenomenon to influence the presidential election and to discredit one of the main contenders in the presidential campaign. Now it is being revealed that somebody paid off somebody and then they had a falsified interview claiming that this presidential candidate was illegally covering up some investigations and so on. This thing was reiterated through established news print media as well as some of the mainstream broadcasting companies.Also read: Japanese Media Needs to Learn How to Report on National Security – Especially ChinaNow it is becoming a big scandal because, we suspected that there would be some connections here and there, but now it is becoming evident that all these people are connected somehow and some guy even paid off somebody. Now the prosecutor’s office is investigating journalists who carried out these stories in these established broadcasting companies without carrying the voices of those who said that this was not true at all.It is evident that this person who was a witness kept on telling the truth that this person didn’t cover anything up, ‘didn’t approach me’ or whatever. But these established news organisations never carried his story and only carried the fabricated stories in mainstream news media. So, I’m just afraid that the prosecutor’s office will start investigating journalists who collaborated in this fabrication of news.The whole thing is about this fake news. These established news organisations like KBS, NBC, JTBC, these broadcasting companies and these two print media like Kyunghyang newspaper and Hankyoreh newspaper. These five established newspapers went along with fake news without substantiating the stories. Whether you’re left or right, as long as you’re writing with your facts, it doesn’t matter. If you’re a conservative newspaper or leftist newspaper as long as the journalist is writing stories based on facts and criticising opinions, all that is acceptable.We just don’t want the government to come and start investigating our colleagues, whether you’re left or right, it doesn’t matter. You just don’t like the prosecutor’s office coming and investigating journalists.Lo and behold, because these established newspapers carried out these fake news, blatantly, without substantiating the story and even fabricating the witness’s account for their political cause, it is a sad story that the prosecutor’s office will come after these journalists and check their accounts if they received money and so on. In one of the accounts, a former journalist of a major established newspaper went into the labour union newspaper. This guy received $ 130, 000 for fabricating the story as it turned out. It’s going wild. This is the most serious incident that’s happening right now in the Korean media today.I’m just reporting to you as it is happening right now. I’m just afraid that we journalists including these established newspapers or established news media leaning on the left – that’s fine – they wrote and ran fabricated stories, without substation, shading all the actual things with massive factual errors, they’re being investigated.Also read: M20: Media Everywhere Face Four Common Challenges, a Coalition Is the Best Way to Deal With ThemI don’t know what to do. Should I protest to the government, ‘Please don’t do that because these journalists clearly screwed things up?’ They royally messed up and I don’t think it’s an excusable thing. We are not so sure what to do at the moment except just watch how this investigation turns out. But the real proof is that one guy paid off $ 130,000 to this guy who fabricated the story. Then, the five established news media just carried all these stories repeatedly, three days before the election, clearly aiming to discredit the other presidential candidate.Right now, we are in a big mess. I don’t know how to clean things up. We just have to wait and see how the actual thing really happened back 18 months ago. We’re just waiting to see how it all gonna play. This is the big situation right now in Korea.Besides that, another issue that I’d like to raise with you is that the media industry in Korea, just as in the US or anywhere else, is very, very polarised. There’s a handful of conservative newspapers and then there’s a handful of progressive leftist newspapers and there is a group of YouTubers in the middle.Basically, the newspapers are free but not really. They are regulated by the government except that you have to register as a print agency. The broadcasters are regulated one way or the other by the government but you know relatively they maintain whatever they want to do. But YouTubers or freelance SNS [social media] influencers claiming to be “journalists” asserting things that are a lot of times are not substantiated. They are polarising the political environment in Korea and probably this is true with all your countries as well.My question to you is what shall we do with these people? Shall we, you know, try to educate them? We try to tell them not to do it that way. We have to maintain the need to do things based on facts but a lot of these SNS people start making rambunctious claims then later on they go to jail. Before they go to jail, they argue about freedom of speech. Our big dilemma is whether these people should be protected based on this freedom of speech when they are making totally absurd, fabricated, rambunctious stories or shall we still protect these people because it’s a matter of opinion. The reason I’ve mentioned this is because of the big scandal right now that we are facing today in the Korean media stems from precisely this issue.These established media used these so-called media that are untouched by the government regulation or not considered as established media. They made these rambunctious claims with money being exchanged. Then these five established media picked them up and reported in the mainstream news, making the entire population believe that this was the case, which was totally fabricated. WI’d like to end it here.Woosuk ‘Ken’ Choi is editor of the Chosun Ilbo, South Korea.
