Did Park order 'attack' on critical media?
A recently discovered note from a former presidential aide revealed that President Park Geun-hye and her aides at Cheong Wa Dae ordered legal attacks on news outlets that criticized the presidential house. / Yonhap
By Ko Dong-hwan
Cheong Wa Dae ordered legal attacks on news outlets that criticized the presidential house, a recently discovered note from a former presidential aide shows, according to a report.
The note was from Kim Young-han, the late senior presidential secretary for civil affairs. Kim allegedly took a record of what Kim Ki-choon, a former presidential chief of staff, said during a meeting on July 2, 2014, at which Kim Ki-choon attacked media outlets.
The meeting came after President Park Geun-hye said during a secretariat meeting at Cheong Wa Dae on June 30, 2014, that selecting candidates for the Prime Ministerial post ― which had been vacant for some time ― was difficult because of high standards in verifying their qualities.
“You cannot leave them (the media) unbridled and freely criticizing Cheong Wa Dae,” Kim Ki-choon said at the July meeting.
He ordered authorities “to stringently strike such companies with equal damage, with measures including reporting them to the Press Arbitration Commission or bringing charges or damages suits against them.”
Cheong Wa Dae launched damages suits against news outlets Ilyo Shimmun and Sisa Press in early 2014 for releasing stories that raised the issue of influence-peddlers working behind the scenes at Cheong Wa Dae. President Park had ordered during a meeting on July 15, 2014, that the sources of the stories be found and punished, according to Kim Young-han’s notebook.
President Park also allegedly noted that editorials had anti-government messages.
The notebook hinted that positive news reports could be “rewarded, possibly with monetary means.”
Another note said the personalities of directors at state-owned broadcasters should be checked.