Media in Korea, an overview-II

N.P.Upadhyaya

Undoubtedly, as a result of massive transformation towards democratization in the Korean society, both in the political and the economic sector, Korean press today distinctly is no longer the staid and rigid institution that it had been in the recent past for obvious political reasons.

It is instead today a free-wheeling and dynamic force which the society and the government too have accepted and adapted as well.

The manner some editors or for that matter the presidents of certain broadsheet dailies talked to me criticizing the incumbent government's press policy was a testimony to the fact that a section of the media giants oppose certain policies acquired by the state of late as an instrumnent designed to curb the media freedom, including editorial freedoms. However, these media giants do so apparently with the backing of the people, the lay men who comprise the society. It is this market that is their strength and so the media giants told me that they have advised the establishment not to interfere in their business and let the market to decide which one should exist or which should die a premature death. Their assumption is that in today's world, let the matters be decided by the market. If the people like our newspapers, we will continue to exist in the market. By the same token if we push distorted news or biased news against the government or the society, the people, read the market, will automatically dump us.

This is what they told me.

Of those whom I met, the most vocal one against the government was the President of the JoongAng Ilbo, a widely circulated daily which is appreciated by most of the Koreans, Mr. Nam-Kyu Han. Mr. Han received me at his office and we had a very friendly conversation for almost one hour.

"IN Seoul, we have 26 newspapers and of the total, 11 are considered to be national level newspapers. Of that number, three national dailies have circulation that exceeds the 2 million copies on a daily basis. This naturally would explain you the fierce competition that we have amongst us", said President Nam.

Mr. Nam revealed that his competitors were rather senior and newspapers.

The JoongAng Ilbo will step into the 40th years of its publication next year. The newspaper has established working alliance with prestigious newspapers like the Washington Post, the Forbes and NewsWeek.

Forbes is a cosmopolitan US magazine and the paper has cooperation with the International heral Tribune as well. In addition to these plus points, the paper has its own publishing house and run a Cable TV and also possess a broadcasting company.

This perhaps amply explains the wide acceptance of the paper both within and without.

As regards the structured policy of the paper on matters pertaining to national and international events, Mr. Nam says his paper favored "middle-path" and prefer to be as close to the truth as could be made.

Mr. Nam himself is a career journalist who jumped into this profession in 1969 (coincidently it was this year that I too joined this sector) as a reporter and currently he is the President. A phenomenal growth indeed.

The total investment in the paper as of early November 2004, calculated Mr. Nam, to have been to the tune of 53 billion Won correspondingly 40 million US$ approximately. Staggering figures by all accounts.

Mr. Nam says that there has been a sort of tradition in Korea that the press here differs with the government on several counts and hence the tradition of conflict. "We have had unhappy situation in the 70s and the 80s. Well after 1989, we feel that we have comfortable relations with the government as the latter is democratizing itself to the best it can. But then yet, at times, the mood of the government appears geared towards gagging the press through the use of certain restrictions which is tentatively close to interference, continues President Nam.

"The most difficult period for my newspaper was in 1999 when his publisher was put behind bars on the pretext of tax evasion", lamented President Nam.

Interestingly, president Nam says that they disclosed on how the newspapers' men were clandestinely approached by various bureaucrats in order to influence the paper. Later the judiciary offered the verdict that the Publisher was innocent hence he be released with total honor..

A major disclosure indeed:

"The three major newspapers have very uncomfortable relationship with the government. The current president is little better than Kim Dae Jung. The big three differ with the government on the counts of President's reforms and practices.

President Nam at one time apparently lost his temper to the extent that he found no good words for the country's president. However, what Mr. Nam made it clear is that prior to the elections, President Roh was a HR lawyer and was very popular among the new generation youngsters.

Over the following decades after the war, the Korean newspapers found their greatest challenge in upholding the nationalistic causes (that we clearly lack in Nepali press!) of the Korean people and opening their eyes to the fast changing world of the 20th century. The media played a very significant role in the independence campaigns under the colonial rule. After the establishment of an independent government in 1948, the struggle of the print media against injustice and corruption continued which perhaps continues even today.

Talking of JoongAng Ilbo, well the paper claims to have first introduced drastic changes to the paper in 1994, calling it the "second founding". For the first time in Korea, claims the paper, introduced sections in which articles are sorted. Instead of the traditional vertical writing, horizontal writing was begun.

Well, it appeared that the Korea Press Foundation and the men at the JoongAng Ilbo were found crtical to government's political overtures aimed at the press. Whereas, the Korea Herald led by Mr. Brian Bain was comparatively less critical to the government. But then yet he too hinted that the control of the market share by the government will be a bad move. In the same vein, Mr. Brian indicated that if such an interference is seen, the entire Korean media, including the KH, would sharply react. This means that should there be any problem for the press from the government, the Korean media would fight jointly.

Mr. Bain says that his publisher does not interfere in his editorial freedoms.

"As a matter of fact, I too rarely oppose to the analyses prepared by our staffs. We hold meetings and discuss on how this or that particular story or the even be analyzed. A bit of suggestion definitely goes to the writers and that too not very often because our staffs are highly qualified ones and stick to the ethics of journalism", concludes Mr. Brian, the managing editor of the Korea Herald.

Next week: Unification efforts of Korea.

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