By Cho Jae-hyon
City Editor
Former President Roh Moo-hyun had never been on good terms with the press. Conservative newspapers showed no mercy to him when he was in office, finding faults with many of his policies.
Things were not much different after Roh was no longer in power and returned to his rural hometown to busy himself with some organic farming, as the press continued to hound him.
In the early days of his presidency, Roh seemed to believe that he could win the newspapers over. But it was a fight he could never win in the first place. It was like pelting eggs against a solid rock.
He should have at least tried to make some kind of gesture to make peace with the papers. But he didn't. In the final year of his presidency, he pushed for measures to downsize pressrooms of government organizations, further angering the entire media industry.
He ended up paying dearly for the failure to mend ties with the papers. They reported every bit of information and accusations they gleaned from the prosecution's briefings on investigations into his family over a bribery scandal.
They added to the unconfirmed allegations by portraying Roh and his family as corrupt, immoral and greedy. They didn't care whether it was true or not. They were preoccupied with reporting new and more sensational allegations that would make Roh the perfect criminal.
They reported that it was impossible that Roh did not know that his wife accepted money from Park Yeon-cha, former CEO of shoemaker Taekwang.
But what if he really didn't know? Even if the odds were slim, they should have refrained from being so affirmative in stating that he knew about the money and tried to dodge bribery charges by passing the buck to his wife.
Korean newspapers are quite bold and fearless in reporting. That's because they are rarely held liable for the damages they inflict on others.
In the name of fulfilling their duty to satisfy readers' right to know, they often go too far. They side with the powerful, and ignore the rights of the underprivileged.
What if the company that gave money to Roh's family was Samsung or another top chaebol? If it had been Samsung's Lee Kun-hee, the story would have been completely different.
On May 29 when people were mourning Roh at his funeral service, the Supreme Court delivered rulings on the legality of the father-to-son transfer of Samsung Group control. It upheld a high court's ruling that found former group chairman Lee not guilty.
Lee was cleared of breach of trust charges nine years after 43 law professors accused him of having orchestrated the sale of bonds convertible into new shares of Samsung Everland, the group's virtual holding firm, to his only son Jae-yong at below-market prices.
The funeral service couldn't come at a better time for the nation's largest group. The story about Samsung was overshadowed by news of Roh's funeral the next day and there were few follow-up stories in the days after.
Harsh criticisms from civic groups against the top court's leniency toward the nation's largest conglomerate were hushed up. Many newspapers are now trumpeting Samsung's ``New Management.''
The court's ruling is controversial and left many suspicions and questions unanswered. The newspapers are not interested in satisfying people's right to know in this case. They are occasionally too generous.
This is one example that makes many people distrust the press as a whole. In a recent survey conducted by the Hankook Ilbo daily newspaper, respondents blamed the media most for Roh's death. About 64 percent answered that the prosecution's investigation of Roh and his family was not fair and 57 percent believed that the investigation was a political vendetta orchestrated by the Lee Myung-bak administration.
Roh was unpopular in office. When he was staging a lonely fight against his foes, including the prosecution and conservative newspapers, many of his supporters turned their backs on him. After his tragic death, they are now throwing themselves at his altars. Still, the unprecedented outpouring of 5 million people should not be underestimated.
Newspapers have thrived on bashing Roh and their scheme to degrade Roh's legacy to something useless and corrupt turned sour. They have now lost a primary target.
They will continue fan the flames of the ideological rift that is widening in the wake of his death. They are always interested more in fueling the strife than attempting to help solve the underlying problems in the conflict.
The party that owes Roh an apology are the newspapers that hounded him to the edge of Owl Rock.