hankyoreh

President Yoon Suk-yeol speaks to reporters as he heads into the presidential office in Yongsan District, Seoul, on Nov. 18. (Yonhap)

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s denunciations of the MBC network, which reported on a hot mic gaffe by Yoon during his visit to the US, have even conservative media scholars expressing concern.

One scholar said that Yoon’s use of terms such as “fake news” and “malicious” to denounce the network showed his “mistaken perceptions of the press.”

Commenting on Yoon and the ruling People Power Party’s response to MBC, Seoul National University professor of communication Youn Sug-min said in a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh on Friday that it was “highly inappropriate.” Youn is considered one of Korea’s leading conservative media scholars.

“While I don’t think that MBC did a good job with its reporting on President Yoon’s gaffe, I think the people in political power are making an even bigger mistake by responding in this way,” he said.

Reacting to Yoon’s remarks about “fake news,” Youn said, “When you talk about ‘fake news,’ you need a standard for verification, such as ‘cases that involve not only incorrect facts but also malice.’”

“The administration may view [MBC’s] reporting as an inconvenience or damaging to the national interest, but it’s wrong to call it ‘fake news,’” he added.

“That kind of attitude amounts to labeling [the network] and saying, ‘You can’t do any more reporting,’” he explained.

“The concern is that later on, this may go beyond MBC and turn into a general attitude toward the press as a whole, where they’re saying, ‘We won’t acknowledge the press.’”

In an effort to eradicate “fake news,” the Korea Communications Commission moved in June 2019 to put together a “consultative group” — now referred to as an “expert council” — on self-regulation of disinformation, with members including representatives of academic, media-related civic groups, and experts. In a report published the following year, the group first called for avoidance of the term “fake news.”

Commenting on the administration’s decision to deny MBC reporters access to the presidential aircraft, Youn said, “Even if they regard the MBC reporting as having ‘damaged the national interest,’ that national interest can vary depending on your perspective.”

“You really can’t have them responding to that by denying access to the presidential aircraft, and it’s right that they should be criticized for that,” he added.

When asked about his reasons for excluding MBC reporters from presidential flights in a Q&A session on his way to work Friday morning, Yoon said it was because the network had “shown very malicious behavior where it was using fake news that is contrary to the facts to interfere with an alliance relationship, which is a key axis of our national security.”

Another conservative media scholar who is close to the PPP agreed that the use of the term “fake news” was “incorrect.”

While commenting that MBC’s reporting on Yoon’s gaffe was “disappointing in the sense that it could have severely harmed the national interest,” the scholar added, “When you say that a particular news outlet’s reporting is ‘fake news,’ that implies that the other side’s reporting is ‘real news,’ and it’s not good to approach things in terms of that kind of ‘good vs. bad’ frame.”

The same scholar remarked on discussions at meetings of the PPP leadership about calls from within the party for Samsung and other major corporations to pull their advertisements from the MBC network.

“Even if you don’t like MBC’s reporting, it’s a clear-cut example of suppression of the media to take that kind of ‘you can’t advertise on this network’ approach,” they said.

“Those were some seriously rash remarks,” they added.

By Choi Sung-jin, staff reporter

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