Ahead of the formation of the 5th Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCC), sharp criticism from the media and politics continues. The key word is’political independence’. The Watchdog Committee is a public organization that deliberates and regulates the contents of broadcasts and communications, and the members of the Watchdog should prioritize publicity and fairness, not political interests. On the 14th, the National Media Workers’ Union (Press Union) held a press conference to criticize the politics of recommending a person with political background and a person who has compromised political independence in line with the media domination of the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye regimes. The controversy over the replacement of the board of directors of the News and Communications Promotion Association, the major shareholder whose term ends next month, is also in full swing. Two million former ambassadors of the Holy See, who served as senior public relations at the Blue House, have been nominated for the government-recommended director.
This year’s’personnel conflict’ is predicted one after another
The problem is that these public-prospering media-related personnel are waiting in line this year. (KBS) Board of Directors and President, (MBC) Broadcasting Culture Promotion Association (Visitor) Board of Directors, (EBS) Board of Directors, (YTN) and President of (YTN), all of their terms will end this year. At present, the governance system of the public media is advantageous to the ruling powers. The board of directors of Korea Broadcasting, a national broadcaster, consists of 11 people, including the chairman, and as a practice, 7 passports and 4 opposition parties have recommended. Of the nine people including the chairman of the visit, 6 passports and 3 opposition parties are recommended. Both places can vote with a majority vote of the enrolled directors, so only those who recommend passports can appoint the president of Korean Broadcasting and Cultural Broadcasting. Without system improvement, the conflict over’control of the press’ and’political independence’ is bound to repeat throughout the year. ‘Improving the governance structure of public broadcasting’ was a pledge at the time of former President Park Geun-hye’s presidential candidate, but the regime was replaced with only the deepening of the’press control’ following the Lee Myung-bak administration. President Moon Jae-in, who embraced the desire for media reform expressed in the candlelight protests, also promised several times to improve the governance structure of public broadcasting. The anticipation of the opportunity to disappear from the’political guardianism’ and’secret personnel’ practices, centered on media civic groups, rose. In fact, when the Moon Jae-in administration was elected president of Korean Broadcasting and Cultural Broadcasting, a procedure for collecting citizens’ opinions in the form of’citizen advisory group’ and’public interview’ was added. The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) publicly recruited candidates for directors of Korean Broadcasting, Cultural Broadcasting, and Education Broadcasting and collected public opinions. Choi Young-jae, a professor at Hallym University’s Media School, said, “The Moon Jae-in administration is evaluated as refraining from intervening in the process of changing management of public and public media companies compared to the previous administration.” . “This is because the board of directors of public media failed to systematically reform the political subordination of the governance structure, which is composed of the ruling powers.” Kim Dong-won, a member of the media union’s policy expert, said, “It seems that the government’s reform of the system and organization, instead of reforming the system and organization, is just applied to the media reform. “Before the controversy over bias intensifies, the government and the ruling party should take the lead and change the governance structure,” he said.
Should I change the system of the temporary National Assembly in February?
In the past 20th National Assembly, the ruling and opposition parties agreed to set a deadline for processing amendments to the Broadcasting Act, and it seemed that the improvement of the governance structure of public broadcasting was realizing. However, the opinions of the opposition parties and the media and civic groups disagreed over the matters of whether to entrust the recommendation of directors to the politics or to increase public participation, or to establish a labor-management equality committee, and eventually all related laws were abolished after the end of the term of the National Assembly. In the 21st National Assembly, amendments to the Broadcasting Act, which were initiated by Democratic Party lawmakers Jeong Pil-mo and Chung Cheong-rae, and Park Sung-jung, are pending. The Democratic Party proposed a plan to increase public participation instead of entrusting the recommendation of public broadcaster directors to the politics, and the People’s Power proposed a plan to balance the opposition parties instead of stipulating the practice of politician recommendation. Rep. Pil-mo Jeong said, “I think that when the Democratic Party is the ruling party, the ring of political guardianism should be broken.” Citizens’ organizations in the media believe that “it is necessary to not only escape from political guardianism, but also to substantiate and make daily public participation.” Kim Dong-chan, Secretary General of the Citizens’ Solidarity for Media Reform, said, “It is not desirable that the issue of governance in public media focuses only on personnel issues such as the appointment of directors and presidents. “We need to think about what responsibility to give to each public press and how citizens can participate on a daily basis beyond one-time and instrumental participation.” Jung Mi-jeong, a member of the Journalism Human Rights Center, said, “There is no provision for the meaning of public broadcasting. The Unified Broadcasting Act, initiated by Democratic Party lawmaker Seong-soo Kim during the 20th National Assembly, ended only talking about OTT. We have to go ahead with discussions about the media as a whole.” In preparation for a situation where the National Assembly does not make any revisions to the law, the Korea Communications Commission plans to prepare and implement the’Basic Plan for Appointing Officials of Public Broadcasting Companies’ to improve the procedure for the appointment of public broadcasting officers by June. However, it seems difficult to calm the conflict, as it is the extent to which it is not a new legislation, but the extent to which it can be changed at discretion within the existing legal framework. In addition to this, the Korea Communications Commission announced that it will also promote the’Audio-Visual Media Service’ Act, which will correct the overall broadcasting law this year. By Kim Hyo-sil, staff reporter [email protected]