Judge says liberal, right-wing papers poles apart in spy scandal coverage
By Kang Hyun-kyung
A research judge for the country's top court has raised the issue of polarizing media reports on a recent espionage trial involving North Korean defector Yoo Woo-sung.
Kim Young-hoon, who conducts research for the Supreme Court, claimed in a paper that conservative media reported the case based on the presumption that Yoo was a North Korean spy, whereas their liberal counterparts focused on the abuse of Yoo's sister's human rights.
His paper, "The Press, Frames and Judges," is included in a book titled "The Theory and The Reality of Court Rulings," which the Judicial Research and Training Institute released in January.
Kim told The Korea Times he wrote the paper last year when he was a judge at Goyang District Court, Gyeonggi Province.
He compared reports in two right-wing newspapers ― the Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo ― with two left-wing papers ― the Hankyoreh and Kyunghyang Shinmun, from June 2011, when Yoo started working with the Seoul Metropolitan Government as a civil servant, to this January.
The judge said the media groups showed stark differences in the number of articles, choice of words, and how the four covered the stories.
According to Kim, conservative media dominated the coverage until February last year, when the Lawyers for a Democratic Society, also known as Minbyun in Korean, raised the human rights abuses allegation.
The group accused the National Intelligence Service (NIS) of violating the human rights of Yoo's sister, who was detained by the intelligence service for six months. During NIS questioning, she confessed that she and her brother had spied for North Korea.
Kim found that after the human rights abuse allegation was made, the number of stories on the espionage case fell significantly in the conservative newspapers. They did not run follow-up stories after a district court cleared Yoo.
Meanwhile, the two liberal newspapers did not publish any stories until Yoo was detained. The papers began to run stories after the lawyers' group raised the abuse allegation.
Newspaper coverage reflected the two groups' editorial policies, Kim said.
The content and tone of articles also varied sharply between the two groups, he noted. The coverage went far beyond interpretation, with extreme choices of words and emphasis or exclusion or playing down particular aspects leading to sharp differences in angle and emphasis.
Witness on NIS payroll
The key witness in the ongoing appeals hearing of the espionage case claimed in a suicide note that he was on the NIS payroll. Law enforcement officials only identified him as Kim.
The 61-year-old ethnic Korean-Chinese man is currently being treated in a hospital after he was found in a hotel in Seoul, Thursday, bleeding from a self-inflicted wound.
The contents of note, comprising four sheets of paper and addressed to three different people, were made public by the Munhwa Ilbo newspaper.
Addressing his son, Kim said the NIS was a "fabricator" and told him to demand 6 million won in overdue pay, and 10 million won for "fabricated documents."
The NIS denied the allegation of fabrication in a press release. It said that the documents Kim mentioned in the note are different from those presented by the prosecution to the appeals court as "evidence" against Yoo.
Kim was allegedly involved with the documents that were submitted as additional evidence to prove that former civil servant Yoo had repeated contacts with North Korea.
He reportedly told prosecutors that the documents he delivered to the NIS were fabricated. However, in his note he wrote that he did believe Yoo was a spy.
The presented documents, allegedly travel papers issued by China, are being looked into after the Chinese Embassy in Seoul said they were not authentic. Yoo was previously acquitted by a district court, but the prosecution appealed the verdict.
By Kang Hyun-kyung
A research judge for the country's top court has raised the issue of polarizing media reports on a recent espionage trial involving North Korean defector Yoo Woo-sung.
Kim Young-hoon, who conducts research for the Supreme Court, claimed in a paper that conservative media reported the case based on the presumption that Yoo was a North Korean spy, whereas their liberal counterparts focused on the abuse of Yoo's sister's human rights.
His paper, "The Press, Frames and Judges," is included in a book titled "The Theory and The Reality of Court Rulings," which the Judicial Research and Training Institute released in January.
Kim told The Korea Times he wrote the paper last year when he was a judge at Goyang District Court, Gyeonggi Province.
He compared reports in two right-wing newspapers ― the Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo ― with two left-wing papers ― the Hankyoreh and Kyunghyang Shinmun, from June 2011, when Yoo started working with the Seoul Metropolitan Government as a civil servant, to this January.
The judge said the media groups showed stark differences in the number of articles, choice of words, and how the four covered the stories.
According to Kim, conservative media dominated the coverage until February last year, when the Lawyers for a Democratic Society, also known as Minbyun in Korean, raised the human rights abuses allegation.
The group accused the National Intelligence Service (NIS) of violating the human rights of Yoo's sister, who was detained by the intelligence service for six months. During NIS questioning, she confessed that she and her brother had spied for North Korea.
Kim found that after the human rights abuse allegation was made, the number of stories on the espionage case fell significantly in the conservative newspapers. They did not run follow-up stories after a district court cleared Yoo.
Meanwhile, the two liberal newspapers did not publish any stories until Yoo was detained. The papers began to run stories after the lawyers' group raised the abuse allegation.
Newspaper coverage reflected the two groups' editorial policies, Kim said.
The content and tone of articles also varied sharply between the two groups, he noted. The coverage went far beyond interpretation, with extreme choices of words and emphasis or exclusion or playing down particular aspects leading to sharp differences in angle and emphasis.
Witness on NIS payroll
The key witness in the ongoing appeals hearing of the espionage case claimed in a suicide note that he was on the NIS payroll. Law enforcement officials only identified him as Kim.
The 61-year-old ethnic Korean-Chinese man is currently being treated in a hospital after he was found in a hotel in Seoul, Thursday, bleeding from a self-inflicted wound.
The contents of note, comprising four sheets of paper and addressed to three different people, were made public by the Munhwa Ilbo newspaper.
Addressing his son, Kim said the NIS was a "fabricator" and told him to demand 6 million won in overdue pay, and 10 million won for "fabricated documents."
The NIS denied the allegation of fabrication in a press release. It said that the documents Kim mentioned in the note are different from those presented by the prosecution to the appeals court as "evidence" against Yoo.
Kim was allegedly involved with the documents that were submitted as additional evidence to prove that former civil servant Yoo had repeated contacts with North Korea.
He reportedly told prosecutors that the documents he delivered to the NIS were fabricated. However, in his note he wrote that he did believe Yoo was a spy.
The presented documents, allegedly travel papers issued by China, are being looked into after the Chinese Embassy in Seoul said they were not authentic. Yoo was previously acquitted by a district court, but the prosecution appealed the verdict.
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