[Opinion] Focus on Korea, Not Media

“Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan ordered central government agency officials to visit the underprivileged and submit reports on their plight last fall. He reminds me of the renowned economist Alfred Marshall. I thought the prime minister was urging officials to have a warm heart.”

This was quoted from a government press release written by Lee Baek-man, the deputy manager of the Government Information Agency, yesterday. This high-level report was titled: “The Prime Minister’s Assignment: Have a Cool Mind and a Warm Heart.”

Government press releases, a favorite tool of President Roh, are inundated with reports that try to make readers feel the “warm heart” of the participatory government.

There was also an article containing the president’s remarks of, “Let’s create a society where having children is no longer something to be afraid of”.

But what is missing are articles covering the other side of the government, such as the ruling party’s recent attempts to discuss creating a new tax in an effort to raise financial resources for the social safety net aimed at raising the birth rate.

Now we can understand where the prime minister’s statement that the nation is on a stable foundation comes from. There is even a report arguing that the ceiling on equity investment. helps defend the management control of domestic companies.

President Roh argues, “If the level of media reporting can be raised by government action concerning incorrect reports, it will be another achievement of the participatory government.”

It is apparent that this government is the kind of the government that “worries” about the media. So some government agencies reportedly wait until incorrect reports are released even after a wrong statistics was publicized, in order to request a correction. Government press releases are highly sophisticated. It is hard to tell whether those songs praising the president and saying that the president just can’t stop loving ordinary Koreans are incorrect or not.

Misreported facts should be corrected. But it is not justifiable for the government to rein in the freedom of the media on the pretext of correcting incorrect reports. Richard Roll, a professor at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles said, “Freedom of the press can promote national wealth and democracy better than voting rights.” It means that elections are easily influenced by outside forces, while the media’s role to keep the government in check is more complicated.

Authoritarian governments, which are fully aware of this, sometimes crack down on critical media outlets.

The government is focusing its energy on raising media standards. What if the government concentrates its considerable energy on raising the level of the national management?

Kim Sun-duk, Editorial Writer, yuri@donga.com