By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
The row over American beef imports divided the Korean media industry. The Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo and Dong-a Ilbo, the nation's three major mass-circulating newspapers with a conservative voice, blamed protesters for causing social unrest with critical headlines such as ``Protesters Ignore the Law,'' and ``Once Peaceful Rally Turns to Violence.''
Meanwhile, the Hankyoreh Daily and Kyunghyang Daily criticized police with the headlines, ``Candlelit Vigils Are Lawful,'' and ``Excessive Suppression by Police Leaves Several Injured.'' Two nationwide public broadcasters ― the Korean Broadcasting Service (KBS) and Munhwa Broadcasting Corp. (MBC) ― also joined progressive groups.
The battle between conservative and progressive papers, which has continued over the past decades, became more strident in the aftermath of the three-month-long protests against the imports.
Conservative papers printed articles championing the safety of American beef every single day, while progressive ones claimed the imported meat would leave Koreans open to the risk of the human form of mad cow disease.
The two parties also revealed their different views on the Amnesty International's inspection on the government's crackdown on demonstrators. Norma Kang Muico, the watchdog's East Asia representative, said on Friday that she found some cases where protestors' human rights were infringed on in the protests. ``The protests were largely peaceful, but there were incidents of violence as riot police sought to control surging crowds and some protesters attacked and vandalized police vehicles,'' Muico said.
Progressive papers spoke highly of the announcement, publishing stories under the headline ``Amnesty International Sides with Protesters,'' and ``International Human Rights Watchdog Said Candlelit Vigil Was Peaceful.'' Meanwhile, conservative papers paid more attention to the rebuttal by the Ministry of Justice and police, both of whom criticized protesters' violence.
``When I read the Dong-a Ilbo and Hankyoreh Daily in the morning, I feel like I travel to two completely different worlds. The two papers depict a single issue so differently,'' said Kang Myung-goo, a journalism professor at Seoul National University, during a recent seminar. Prof. Nam Jae-il at Semyung University, also said reporting was so different that he couldn't figure out what was correct.
Lee Jae-jin, a journalism professor at Han Yang University in Seoul, said ``The difference between conservative and progressive papers has existed over the past decades. But major broadcasters have teamed up with progressive groups for the first time in defiance of the government's move to privatize KBS and MBC.''
The Lee Myung-bak administration has designed a roadmap of combining 11 state-backed and public channels into one and putting KBS and MBC under private management. It also plans to introduce competition in the broadcasting advertising industry by depriving the Korea Broadcast Advertising Corp. (KOBACO) of its exclusive rights to take ads from private companies and allocate them to broadcasting firms.
The two public broadcasters in question have criticized the move, claiming the government is trying to put them under its control by mobilizing private funds. They also claimed broadcasters would see significant profit erosion, if KOBACO loses its exclusive control of the advertising sector.
Journalism experts shared positive opinions regarding the ``colorful'' reporting on the beef issue.
``Diverse media voices are be helpful to society in terms of introducing various resolutions to an issue,'' Prof. Lee said. ``With the newspaper industry regarded as a declining industry, such diverse perspectives will be a dramatic turning point to recapture its once-mighty growth.''
A media expert who refused to be named said ``In the past, most people set their perspective through a couple of newspapers and TV. But now, we have numerous channels through which we can listen to diverse opinions including on and off-line newspapers, TV, blogs, online communities and so on. Such changes in news availability will help people embrace opinions contrary to their own.''
Noting that media outlets in advanced countries have shown contrary views, in most cases, on political issues and shared voices on bread-and-butter issue for the sake of public health, the expert said ``Korean media outlets were divided by bread-and-butter issue such as the U.S. beef imports, which proves our still lags behind other media sectors in reporting quality.''
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