By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
The government and the governing Grand National Party (GNP) have agreed to place Internet portals as part of the mainstream media and hold them more socially responsible by revising related laws, a GNP lawmaker said Sunday.
The agreement was made during a meeting of officials from the culture ministry and the party last Wednesday, said Rep. Na Kyung-won.
Internet portals actually play the role of media as they edit articles from newspapers and provide them on the Web, the two-term legislator said. ``Thus, they need to shoulder the appropriate responsibility.''
To date, only Internet news companies which produce their own articles have been considered press while news providers such as giant Web portals Naver and Daum were excluded.
Mounting voices have expressed concern over the influence of these search engines as they are allowed to slightly polish headlines, and only list certain articles on their main pages or on top of news results pages.
Once the proposed revision is approved by the National Assembly, people or organizations that see financial or mental loss through news provided by Internet portals can ask the Press Arbitration Commission for arbitration.
The ruling camp also plans to simplify procedures for arbitration so that people can ask for arbitration via a phone call, letter or Internet request.
Meanwhile, several organizations created to support newspapers during the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration are likely to be merged or abolished.
``Under the pretext of supporting papers, several organizations conducting similar functions were launched, which eventually lowered efficiency,'' a GNP legislator said on condition of anonymity. ``We will continue to support newspapers but the ruling camp shared the same view on the necessity to merge those groups and put them under the culture ministry.''
The ruling camp is also seeking to ease restrictions under which newspaper companies are banned from operating television stations in a bid to cope with changes in the media.
It plans to pass the revisions during the National Assembly session opening in September but it remains uncertain when this will take place due to an ongoing inter-party confrontation.
The governing and opposition parties have yet to agree on two core agenda items to normalize the Assembly ― a bill to monitor infectious cattle diseases and a parliamentary probe into President Lee Myung-bak's alleged plan to take control of broadcasting networks.