By Kim Hyo-jin
The ruling Saenuri Party plans to summon the heads of the nation’s two dominant internet portals, Naver and Daum Kakao, as part of the annual National Assembly audit.
The governing party is unhappy with the portals’ “biased” selection and layout of political news stories, party officials said Monday.
However, the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) has cried foul against the move, criticizing the ruling party for attempting to tame the major portals ahead of the general elections slated for April.
“Considering those web portals are politically biased in selecting news, the Party is seeking to summon the operators,” Rep. Cho Won-jin told reporters, Sunday.
Cho said the party plans to call in Lee Hae-jin of Naver and Kim Beom-soo of Daum Kakao to the four National Assembly committees.
Included are the Policy Committee; the Safety and Administration Committee; the Education, Culture, Sports and Tourism committee; and the Future Planning, Science, Broadcasting and Communications Committee.
Naver and Daum Kakao, which account for more than 90 percent of the domestic online search market, provide news on their own for the mobile apps.
The Saenuri Party argued that they have identified more news articles critical of the government and the ruling party as evidence that objectivity in news selection has been lost.
The claim was based on a report outsourced by the Yeouido Institute, the Saenuri Party’s think tank last year.
An academic team led by Choe Hyung-woo, professor of the communications department at Sogang University, analyzed 50,000 postings of news content in real-time on the main pages of Naver and Daum Kakao mobile app from January to June, according to the Party.
The report showed that the number of stories critical of the governing bloc was 10 times higher than those critical of the opposition bloc.
Of all, 1176 stories (671 for Naver and 505 for Daum Kakao) included biased reporting about the Park Geun-hye administration and the Saenuri Party while 106 stories (55 for Naver and 51 for Daum Kakao) contained content critical of the NPAD.
It also noted that NPAD Chairman Moon Jae-in was mentioned 1.5 times more often than Saenuri Party Chairman Kim Moo-sung in the stories, with 153 and 101 times, respectively.
“Partiality in portals has reached a serious level,” Kim told reporters after the report was unveiled, Friday. “It needs to be rectified, considering their influence on the young generation and on overall society.”
But the Saenuri Party’s call is facing strong opposition from the NPAD.
The move is a “campaign strategy” to take grip on the web portals, NPAD spokesperson Kim Sung-soo said.
“The NPAD strongly warns that the Saenuri Party should stop trying to manipulate portal operators.”
Rep. Woo Sang-ho, the NPAD’s secretary of the Future Planning, Science, Broadcasting and Communications Committee said the NPAD will not agree to such a proposal.
“It’s a double standard,” he said, citing that the ruling party is opposed to summoning a number of chaebol owners.
“They claimed our call was excessive because it could harm their business activities. If so, it should also apply to IT companies like Naver and Daum Kakao. Doesn’t it?”
Amid the controversy, a Naver official who wished to remain anonymous said the report overlooked the fact that news selection is proportionate to the amount of content from the news media.
“We select news at the pace at which news companies send their stories,” he said.
“More importantly, our selection standard is the main headlines of each newspaper. It is critical to stick to such a policy because we don’t want to lose users by looking biased.”