Korea’s Presidential Press War
Is Roh Moo Hyun taking a page from Bush’s playbook in restricting journalists’ access to government?

Cynthia Yoo (cloudatlas)
Published 2007-06-19 15:49 (KST)

Denuclearization, Unification, and Speed Control
The Korean Press Room system finds its origin in the Park Jung Hee era. It was first established in 1964 in a police annex at the old Blue House complex. Later press clubs were set-up in various government offices. Such press clubs were not established according to law or government policy, but at the convenience of the regime of the day. It has been argued that from the very beginning, the management of the press clubs has been part of the political maneuvering and machinery of the government in power.

As recently in 2003, the Roh Moo Hyun government attempted to reform the Korean media, criticized by Roh as “a dangerous power in need of public scrutiny and verification.” The government closed the Press Clubs and replaced them with Press Briefing Rooms (the daily government briefing room) and the Press Rooms (in which reporters write and send out their reports). The government mandated that smaller media outlets be given equal access to government officials (in the previous Press Club system, mainstream media was given privileged access to government officials and shut out new, smaller media outlets such as OhmyNews for example).

The Roh government also made it mandatory that government officials obtain permission from their supervisors before granting interviews. Under its program banner “How to Make Pressrooms Work,” the government argued that these changes would level the playing field between traditional and new, large and small media outlets, and break the cozy ties between big media and government officials.

May 22 Proposal: Deal or No Deal

Still, the 2003 changes did not bring about a thaw in relations between the Roh government and media, nor did they bring about the more positive press coverage that the government hoped for. Thus, round two began with the recent May 22 announcement of “Proposal to Advance News Coverage System.” A full summary of the government proposal is found here.

The gist of the proposal is as follows: reduce the number of current Press Briefing Rooms and Press Rooms at 37 government offices down to 3, while keeping the briefing rooms and press rooms at the offices of the Blue House, National Defense, Financial Supervisory Commission, Prosecutor’s Office and National Police. Each office will use an “Electronic Spokesperson” system that will respond to questions from the media. An “Electronic Briefing System” will use VOD service and text to disseminate information. Entry into government offices will be restricted and journalists will not be able to contact individual government officials, rather journalists must first apply to the ministry information offices for entry and interview permits.

The media uproar caused by the new proposal has stirred up noise in foreign parts. The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum have recently called upon President Roh to withdraw the proposal as in their opinion, such regulation would “restrict journalists’ access to government officials and may negatively impact on news reporting.”

In response, the government has argued that their proposal is needed to reform a badly corrupt and authoritarian pressroom culture and to bring it up to the level of briefing systems in other developed democratic countries. Furthermore, the Roh government promised to open its offices and communicate information directly to the public, using the new communicative technologies at hand. But in addition to the government’s professed intent to make transparent the relationship between government and media, it is clear that through this May 22 proposal, the Roh government is making its own powerplay against the Press, an institution that it considers profoundly anti-government and anti-democratic.

A Page from Bush-Harper Playbook

In this respect, the Roh government is taking a page from the recent playbooks of other governments that have tried to control their political message by taking away or limiting the traditional role of the press as interlocutor. The Bush government has aggressively attempted to circumvent the role of the press and communicate its own message leading to charges in some corners, of media manipulation. Likewise, the Harper government in Canada has had a rather successful run at controlling the media.

Playing a game of blink, you’re dead, the Harper government challenged the Ottawa Press Gallery with his changes to the Ministerial Press Conferences, and the traditional Scrums (whenever a Prime Minister and members of his cabinet leave their offices or meetings, they are quickly surrounded by an unruly scrum of cameras and mikes and their aggressive questioning). Harper’s changes provoked a walkout by the Ottawa Press Gallery in May of 2006.

In response, Harper bypassed Ottawa media, and gave lengthy interviews to media outlets friendly to his cause and communicated directly to the public by use of blogs, direct e-mails, websites and podcasts. Harper summed up his actions by arguing that his goal was to break up the Ottawa gallery as it was becoming “too institutionalized” and that such break up would be “helpful for democracy.”

The Ottawa Press blinked and backed down by the summer of 2006. Its boycott of ministerial conferences was not receiving favorable public interest. In fact it was not attracting much public interest at all, displaying the lack of public esteem in the Ottawa-insiders.

According to media observers, Harper’s strategy fits to a tee, Jay Rosen’s description of the Bush government’s policy to decertify the press. In this process of decertification, the government questions the integrity of the press and correspondingly, limits its access. It then uses new media and technologies to reach the public directly, promoting the idea that government-generated information, unfiltered by media is as legitimate as information filtered by media.

Sound familiar? The May 22 proposal and follow-up press releases and actions by the Roh government show that it has long been closely observing such similar tactics. And chances are good that the Korean government too is playing the winning hand. Traditional media in Korea faces much public criticism and distrust. And in public opinion polls that came out immediately following the May 22 announcement, respondent percentage against the government proposal numbered only in the 30 percent range.

A Modest Proposal

Aside from considerations of political winners and losers, in the long-run, is the May 22 proposal good for Korean democracy, for good governance, for government transparency?

Among the flurry of talk shows, current affairs programs, and PR speeches and articles on both sides, a small conference of academics and government spokespersons convened last week (June on the significance of the May 22 proposal.

During the conference, Professor Son Young Jun raised a modest proposal of his own. He recognized the need for Press reform, but he argued that it should develop through a participatory process between the Press, citizen groups, experts and government.

Professor Son criticized the unilateral moves on part of the Roh government: “There is a need to articulate the social responsibilities of the Press. This is not a problem of the present political regime, but of democratic government…Systematic reforms cannot be conducted through some sort of unilateral military campaign. Instead, the government and the Press must work together to find issues of common ground. Only through such deliberation, can the public come to understand and accept the issues so that such reforms can strengthen and become institutionalized.”

Given the antagonistic mood of this round of government vs. the press, ’tis a modest proposal indeed.