ed Public broadcaster’s ordeal

When the MBC unionists temporarily suspended their six-month-long strike Wednesday, they vowed to resume the industrial action whenever needed. That day seems to have arrived all too quickly.

No sooner had the striking journalists left their tents than Kim Jae-chul, the public broadcaster’s problematic chief executive, transferred 50 unionists to posts unrelated with their previous duties or far away from their homes. The ``organizational overhaul” was nothing if not an act of revenge.

The broadcast journalists decided to stop the walkout based on a tacit agreement with politicians, from both the ruling and opposition parties, to oust Kim by late August at the latest when a quasi-governmental committee convenes to select its head.

It is not certain if Kim’s counterattack was his own move to exert influence or a reflection of the governing party’s changing its mind.

In any case, Kim, who is a political appointee of President Lee Myung-bak and has seriously disrupted the free and fair broadcasting during his tenure, has only added one more reason to why he should leave the company as soon as possible. If the latter case proves to be true, however, then not just the President but his party will not be able to avoid popular criticism for increasing the damage Lee has inflicted on the freedom of the press.

Kim, and a similar political appointee, Kim In-kyu of the state-run KBS, are criticized for ``killing” most investigative reports criticizing President Lee and his administration. So much so, that a U.N. special rappoteur pointed out the need for Korea to ensure that heads of public broadcasters were independent, and the U.S.-based press watchdog Freedom House downgraded the nation’s press freedom from free to ``partially” free.

In the long run, the recommendation of public broadcaster heads should be made not by a Presidential panel but by the National Assembly’s relevant committee.

In the short run, the Saenuri Party should agree to replace the unqualified MBC head. Or, the ruling party might find itself being questioned rather than doing the questioning in the parliamentary hearing on Lee’s media policy fiasco next year.