Two terrestrial broadcasting networks, KBS and MBC, are embroiled in strikes by unionized reporters and other employees. A strike has just started at YTN, a 24-hour cable news channel. What the three broadcasters have in common is that their management is under the direct or indirect control of the government.
Their chief executive officers are replaced each time presidential power switches hands from one political party to another. The change of management tends to put a spin, sometimes subtle and some other times outright, on the networks’ news coverage ― a source of grievance for not just reporters who demand unbiased news coverage, but those who are ideologically close to the previous president.
What has happened at MBC, a public broadcaster, illustrates the vicious circle. In February 2010, the non-profit Foundation for Broadcast Culture, MBC’s largest shareholder, selected Kim Jae-cheul, the CEO of a provincial MBC affiliate, as the national network’s new top manager. But few doubt he was handpicked by President Lee Myung-bak, given that the majority of the foundation’s directors are selected by the president and his party.
Kim has since been accused by the labor union of omitting news reports and scrapping programs critical of President Lee and members of the ruling party. A case in point is Lee’s purchase of a property under the name of his son, a news report on which unionized reporters say was not allowed to be aired.
The reporters also claim that they were told to produce news reports in favor of the Lee administration’s policies on students’ demand for university tuition cuts, the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement and other sensitive issues. In calling for his resignation, they also accuse Kim of using his corporate credit card for his personal needs.
But the management denies the union’s charges. It has fired or taken other disciplinary action against some leading union members, claiming that a politicized union is staging an illegal strike.
A union at the state-owned KBS has recently started a strike. Here again, governance is at the core of the problem. No person can be selected to assume the top KBS management post without the blessing of the president.
The KBS chief executive is appointed by the president on the recommendation of the network’s board of directors, whom the president picks himself. Given this governance structure, the senior presidential secretary for public relations, if not the president himself, can easily be tempted to exercise his influence on the network’s news coverage.
As the union calls for the resignation of its CEO, the management vows to take stern action against the union’s leadership, who it says has organized an illegal strike. Just as labor and management are on a collision course at MBC, so are their counterparts at KBS.
The situation is little different at YTN, whose large shareholders are either under the direct control or great influence of the government. The union is staging a protest against the administration’s move to give the CEO another term in office.
But labor and management will have to stop the blame game and seek a solution with the help of the ruling and main opposition parties, whose engagement is a prerequisite.
It would be unfair to single out President Lee for attempting to put the radio and television networks and the cable news channel under his control, as the unions and the main opposition party do. If memory fails to serve them right, they should be reminded that Lee’s two liberal predecessors, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, also installed senior journalists close to them as the top managers of KBS, MBC and YTN.
If they want to put an end to this vicious circle, the rival parties will have to work on how to protect KBS, MBC and YTN from direct government intervention. In other words, the process of selecting top managers must be made impartial and transparent.
Such efforts must not be limited to the broadcasters. Instead, they must be extended to other news outlets under the control or influence of the government, including Yonhap News, a news agency, whose union is moving to thwart the incumbent CEO’s reappointment.
