By Kim Tae-jong
The Supreme Court Friday cleared four producers and a scriptwriter of MBC TV’s investigative program PD Notebook of defamation charges involving an episode on mad cow disease and U.S. beef, upholding rulings by lower courts.
The three-year-long legal dispute began after the prosecution indicted the producers in 2009 when former Agriculture Minister Chung Woon-chun and Min Dong-seok, the chief negotiator in talks on importing U.S. beef, filed a defamation suit, claiming the episode tainted their reputation by distorting and exaggerating the information associated with mad cow disease.
It said the program could be seen to have contained either distorted or exaggerated information but it was within legally tolerable degrees, emphasizing the freedom of media and its role as a watchdog of the government.
“The media’s role is watching and criticizing the government. These functions should be guaranteed more strongly when they deal with an issue that can affect a great number of people,” Chief Justice Lee Yong-hoon said in the ruling.
The court also said a defamation case involving public figures should be judged by different criteria, interpreting freedom of expression more broadly.
Aired on April 29 in 2008, the investigative program also touched off months of massive street rallies against the government’s decision to resume the import of U.S. beef.
On top of delivering a not-guilty verdict, however, the top court ordered the airing of a correction on reporting that Koreans were more likely to become infected with the mad cow disease saying it was false information.
But it annulled the lower courts’ decisions to order the accused to air corrections over reporting of other allegations it raised, and ordered the high court to review its decision.
Previously, the two lower courts had also cleared the accused of defamation charges but ordered airing of a correction noting that some interviews and comments of the host in the episode were either distorted or exaggerated to highlight the risk of mad cow disease.
In the first ruling, the court said the program should air a correction on its reports that all “downer” cows were infected with the mad cow disease and Koreans were more likely to get infected with the disease.
The appellate court upheld the ruling but ordered the accused to make an additional correction on the reports that the Korean government could not independently cope with a possible outbreak of the disease and simply failed to acknowledge or attempted to cover up the risks associated with U.S. beef imports.
The program provoked countless health-conscious citizens to take to major thoroughfares across the country and stage rallies for about three months, forcing President Lee Myung-bak to renegotiate the deal, to make an official apology and to reshuffle the Cabinet to contain his nose-diving approval ratings.
Imports of American beef had been suspended since 2003 after a case of mad cow disease was confirmed at a U.S. cattle farm. After taking office in February 2008, President Lee struck a deal to restart imports with the U.S. in hopes of encouraging Washington to ratify the free trade agreement with Seoul.
e3dward@koreatimes.co.kr