Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Hwang-hee. News 1
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism confirmed the suspicion of inflating the newspapers by the Korea ABC Association, which surveyed and announced the publication and paid copies of newspapers, and recommended improvement of the overall system.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism showed a significant difference between the oil price rate (the ratio of paid copies to the number of copies issued by the ABC Association) and the sincerity rate (the ratio of the actual paid copies to the paid copies reported by the newspaper) and the actual oil price rate and sincerity rate. The difference was confirmed on the 16th.
According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in the case of A Ilbo, the oil price rate certified by the ABC Association in 2019 was 95.94%, but in reality it was an average of 67.24%. The sincerity rate was 98.09% in the association data, but the survey result was 55.36%.
In this process, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism confirmed the opaque handling of the entire association’s incidental due diligence (construction). Usually, subsidiary works are followed in the following order: △Reporting incidental by the newspaper, △Selection and notification of the association’s sample offices, and assignment of construction workers △Construction (due inspection) of the sample offices △Recognition of correction data and operation of the certification committee. Among them, it was found that the selection of sample stations and assignment of construction workers, which had an important influence on the result of incidental construction, was performed by one specific manager alone without external observation or records.
Prior to the due diligence, it was confirmed through an interview with the head of the newspaper that the newspaper staff visited the sample office to directly modify and manage the paid supporting evidence, or that the newspaper staff visited and waited for the branch office.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism recommended the introduction of the’Integrated ABC System’, which investigates the number of paper newspapers and online newspaper traffic in consideration of the online and mobile media environment, along with measures to improve the association’s operation method, such as improving the structure of the board of directors. It was recommended to improve the overall system, such as taking measures to ensure that all newspapers use the’incidental reporting management system’, to have a third party observe when selecting a sample office, and to randomly arrange construction workers.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism is planning to actively take additional measures, such as suspending the association’s policy use, if the recommendations for office inspection are not implemented by June 30th. The results of the association’s incidental surveys are used to support subsidies for the government and public institutions’ advertising unit prices and government newspaper postage payments.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said, “Even taking into account the limitations of the office work, it is meaningful enough to estimate the insolvency of the incidental construction process and to derive system improvements.” And, by the end of June, on-site due diligence will be carried out.”
Earlier, the Democratic Party’s Media and Media Win-Win Task Force (TF) held a press conference on the 11th, mentioning some of the due diligence results of the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, saying, “Of the 1,160,000 paid copies of the Chosun Ilbo in 2019, only 580,000 copies were actually paid copies. “It is estimated that through the number of manipulations that have been inflated more than twice, it is estimated that over the past five years, at least 2 billion won in national subsidies have been unfairly received,” he called for an investigation to the investigative authorities.
Kwon Young-eun reporter [email protected]
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