By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff Reporter
The ruling Grand National Party (GNP) demanded Tuesday that MBC President Ohm Ki-young and other top managers resign, claiming the broadcaster's management should take responsibility for the national rift and confusion caused by its ``PD Notebook'' program.
Forty GNP lawmakers, including Rep. Kim Young-woo and Cho Hae-jin, made a statement demanding the mass resignation of top MBC executives over the investigative news program that allegedly fabricated a report on mad cow disease and U.S. beef.
They also urged the staff of ``PD Notebook'' and People's Association for Measures Against Mad Cow Disease to make a public apology for the report and candlelit rallies.
``It is not the nature of journalism to override objective truth by subjective judgment. If this happened in foreign countries, the executives would apologize to the people and step down,'' Presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said Friday regarding the result of an investigation into PD Notebook.
Ohm refuted Lee's remarks Monday. He said asking MBC management to resign is ``inappropriate and absurd.''
``Whether to remain or resign is my decision,'' Ohm said according to MBC officials. ``The point of `PD Notebook' case is libel, but the prosecution ran the investigation in a political way.''
The prosecution made public the program's scriptwriter Kim Eun-hee's emails Thursday saying she had ``political intentions'' to stop the import of U.S. beef and distorted the report. Kim sued the prosecution Friday for defamation.
However, GNP lawmakers said that the disclosure of the emails clearly showed that PD Notebook staff had an obvious politically-motivated intent to distort facts.