The government is mounting a second attempt to silence media critical of its policies, following last year's tax investigation. A revision bill to the Periodicals Publishing Law, recently proposed by Millennium Democratic Party members and supported by some of the opposition, is unjustified in its forcing of management to produce financial reports to the government. The bill, which appeared following the government's failure to bring about so-called media reform through punishing newspaper owners after accusing them of tax evasion, is obviously politically motivated when examined in detail.
It is meaningless redundancy as the government can find out all necessary information on media groups under the current law. The new bill, which completely bans all free copies, show the government has no confidence in its current regulatory system. The most controversial clause in the bill requires every newspaper to organize an editorial committee. The right to select stories and their length belongs to editors, and no law should be able to interfere with this autonomy. If such committees are necessary, it should be up to the newspapers to create them independently and some have already done so. There can be a huge gap between performing an independent public service and what the ruling powers desire. So it is a dangerous, anachronistic approach to uniformly impose committees using the law.
Those in power always desire to intervene into the management of the media, especially newspapers, to stifle criticism. History tells us that governments which cannot control their physical desires and clash with the media eventually implode on their own because of the collision.
Today, major newspapers in the free world have made efforts to enhance their independence and public service as they grow through autonomous self-regulation. For instance the New York Times has numerous guidelines on quoting, reporting conflicting interests and correcting mistakes. Its 'Guidelines on our Integrity,' published in 1989, declares that the newspaper's biggest strengths were its authority and credibility. It is beyond question that these qualities required clashes with the powers that be.
It is true that the Korean media, especially newspapers failed to solve all issues facing them autonomously. Because of this, there has long been discussion within the sector regarding media reform, and there is now some consensus on the subject. However, suddenly the government wielded the sword of a tax investigation and punished owners, pushing real reform backwards to the point of no return. Another attempt at intervention can only make matters worse.
The problems in newspaper management can be dealt with under the current law. The attempt at control through the revision of a law is another example of political violence that supercedes the tax investigation. The only way to overcome this is to accomplish real reform autonomously.
(Journalist - February 15, 2002)
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