Broadcast workers can’t tolerate unfair reporting
In a rare coincidence, journalists at the nation’s two major public broadcasters are taking collective actions against their respective management. The KBS and MBC reporters’ simultaneous no-confidence votes in their newsroom chiefs ― or their company presidents ― were unheard of even during dictatorial days. It shows how far the nation’s press freedom has regressed under the Lee Myung-bak administration.
How have these broadcast journalists come to take such extreme steps? In short, the unfair and lopsided reporting at the behest of top managers, both President Lee’s former media aides, has reached unbearable levels. Reporters at MBC, whose viewing ratings for news programs have plummeted, will start a virtual strike today calling for their president to step down.
For the viewers of the two public ― or state ― broadcasters, the reporters’ actions are more than understandable. The two network stations vied to cover up or downplay the government’s mistakes or irregularities, while refusing to cover its political opponents ignoring people’s right to know.
When the scandal broke on President Lee’s retirement residence in November, for instance, the top story of MBC’s 9 p.m. news program was the surging popularity of K-pop stars.
As if turning these public broadcasters into semi-official agencies was not enough, the Lee administration has given rise to four more pro-government, conservative channels to ``diversify” public opinion markets showing an egregious irony, as such a move would no doubt lead to the oligopoly of electronic media.
The so-called general service channels, which are technically cable stations but practically terrestrial broadcasters both in function and the benefits they enjoy, boast a ``1-percent” viewing rate, but demand corporate advertisers to pay up to 70 percent of what the existing networks charge. So dismal are their audiences that one of the new channels failed to broadcast for nearly an hour, but it went virtually unnoticed, as few tuned in.
According to a recent survey, about 90 percent of journalists in active duty gave a negative rating to the Lee administration’s media policy. This is small surprise, considering how Seoul is running counter to global trends of reregulation, diversification and separation of print and electronic media. It’s natural global agencies have kept downgrading the nation’s press freedom.
The government must put public interest back ahead of market principle and political motivation in this year of important elections. Otherwise, the media-democratizing fire reignited at public broadcasters will spread and lash back at the governing camp.
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