Weekly podcast “Nakkomsu” is entertaining, as most gag programs and politically tinted talk shows are. It ridicules President Lee Myung-bak, Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee and others that stand for power in today’s Korea. Its hosts and guests, often including political bigwigs, amuse their audience of millions with sarcasm and piercing criticism at conservative politicians and the mainstream media. The problem is it mixes speculations and unfounded rumors with credible comments, and the bigger problem is that people tend to trust what is aired via this alternative medium.
On the 27th segment broadcast last week, the hosts were an online newspaper founder, a liberal ex-lawmaker, a reporter for a weekly newsmagazine and a political commentator. Invited to a roundtable were three representatives of minor opposition groups ― Ryu Si-min, Shim Sang-jeong and Roh Hoe-chan ― who are on the far left of the political spectrum.
They talked about the significance of the mayoral by-election in Seoul and the undesirability of the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement, among other things. One of the guests alleged that if the investor-state dispute clause was kept intact in the KORUS FTA, “Lone Star Funds will definitely win in a suit against the Korean government,” referring to the Texas-based buyout fund which lost its shareholder status in Korea Exchange Bank under a Supreme Court ruling. The others agreed.
Ryu, who was a welfare minister in the Roh Moo-hyun government, declared that the FTA brings small practical gains but carries huge potential danger. The hosts and guests discussed ways to prevent the reelection of Grand National Party lawmakers who support the FTA bill as well as Democratic Party Assemblymen who collaborate with the GNP. They suggested publishing a who’s who and making a rap song with their names.
One of the hosts claimed that the level of radioactivity detected from the asphalt pavement on the streets of Wolgye-dong, northern Seoul, was about the same as that of Chernobyl at the time of the 1986 disaster. Park Geun-hye, the GNP’s presidential frontrunner, was described as a “dumbhead” who can neither do basic arithmetic nor understand complex welfare formulas.
Convinced of their rising popularity, Nakkomsu (“I’m a trickster”) hosts plan to hold talk shows at U.S. universities, but main host Chung Bong-ju claims that the authorities are withholding issuance of a passport for him because of his criticisms. He alleges that the Supreme Court is refusing to endorse his passport without explaining how the top court might interfere with the procedure.
Freedom of expression is enjoyed to the extreme by the constantly giggling hosts of the talk show, which brought the tone of political discourse and the credibility of public media many notches down. More worrisome is that politicians on the left and right and leading civic activists are queuing up to be invited to Nakkomsu, considering it as one of the best opportunities to penetrate into the most powerful strata in our society.
