At a meeting of the National Assembly Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee, Rep. Han Jun-ho of the Democratic Party of Korea and Rep. Kim Jang-gyeom of the People Power Party clashed over allegations of a protest call related to KBS reporting.
The KBS Reporters’ Association said it understood that a call had come from an aide in Rep. Han Jun-ho’s office, but explained that whether it should be viewed as organized pressure remains disputed.
Rep. Han Jun-ho’s office rebutted the claim, saying it had not requested that the article be revised or deleted or that follow-up reporting be halted, and that it had not spoken with the reporter who wrote the article or with the desk editor.
3-Line Summary
1. The controversy over a protest call from Rep. Han Jun-ho’s office has continued.
2. The KBS Reporters’ Association said that a call had taken place.
3. The nature of the call and whether it constituted pressure remain disputed.
Allegations of a Protest Call Raised After KBS Report
The controversy erupted after KBS reported on the contents of a petition related to the resignation of Kim Seung-won, the nominee for minister of justice. At a Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee meeting, Rep. Kim Jang-gyeom raised the possibility that the call had been made from Rep. Han Jun-ho’s office and announced plans to file a complaint to verify the facts.
At a plenary meeting of the committee, Rep. Han Jun-ho said that disciplinary action should be taken if his aides had applied pressure, while rebutting the allegation as false information if it claimed that he had done something he had not done. According to JTBC reporting, Rep. Han said he could disclose his aides’ call records and asked KBS to identify the person contacted.
It is necessary to distinguish between the fact that allegations were raised and the point that the caller was from Rep. Han’s office. Rep. Han’s office said that its aides frequently coordinate work with KBS reporters and the policy office, but that they had not spoken with the reporter who wrote the article in question or with the desk editor.
Between “The Call Did Take Place” and “Whether It Was Organized Pressure Remains Disputed”
Choi Kwang-ho, president of the KBS Reporters’ Association, told Media Today that it was true that a call had come from an aide in Rep. Han Jun-ho’s office, and said he had heard that words to the effect of, “Kim Seung-won has already resigned, so why did you publish this article again?” had been conveyed. However, he explained that the call was understood to have taken place on the 19th with another KBS reporter assigned to the National Assembly, not with the reporters who had produced the exclusive report in question.
President Choi pointed out that if a lawmaker or the chair of the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee had asked a KBS executive to delete or revise the article or exclude it from the news lineup, it could constitute an infringement on production autonomy. However, he noted that the person on the other end of this call was a reporter who had occasionally been contacted in the ordinary course, and an aide, and said there were differing views on whether it could be regarded as organized pressure.
A public statement raising the issue from the KBS Reporters’ Association has also not yet been issued. This means that a demand to revise the article or organized intervention has not been established solely by the explanation that a call took place.
Ruling- and Opposition-Party Clash Intensifies at the Committee Meeting
The matter led to a heated verbal exchange between Rep. Han Jun-ho and Rep. Kim Jang-gyeom at the committee meeting. The two lawmakers confronted each other, each mentioning the dissemination of false information and the filing of a complaint.
JTBC introduced as part of the two lawmakers’ past conflict the fact that Rep. Han Jun-ho, while serving as an announcer, had called for the resignation of Rep. Kim Jang-gyeom when Kim was serving as president of MBC in 2017. The core of the current controversy is not their past relationship, but who made the call in question, for what purpose, and whether there was a request to intervene in the reporting. Based solely on the statements publicly available at present, that conclusion has not been settled.
References
Tags #HanJunho #RepHanJunho #KimJangGyeom #ScienceICTBroadcastingCommunicationsCommittee #NationalAssemblyScienceICTBroadcastingCommunicationsCommittee #KBS #KBSReportersAssociation #ProtestCall #ReportingInterventionControversy #KimSeungwon #DemocraticPartyOfKorea #PeoplePowerParty