FTC Probe into Unfair Activities in Newspapers Market

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) is poised to kick off an extensive investigation into the newspaper market.

It is notable that this investigation came shortly after President Roh Moo-hyun was infuriated by media reports once again on August 2.

The government watchdog announced Sunday that it will investigate the unfair activities in the newspaper market in all 200 areas nationwide for 40 days, starting from this week. “A private investigation agency will carry out the probe on behalf of the FTC,” it added.

The commission will look into four different periods in the newspaper market, starting with the time after the enactment of the law banning the unfair activities of newspaper companies in July 2001. The second period focuses on the time after May 2002, when expensive giveaways appeared to have increased. The third period is defined as that time right after the Presidential Transition Committee (PTC) announced its intervention in the market early this year, with the fourth period coming after the law was amended. The commission will check cases, frequencies, and types of violations.

The areas subject to the probe are new towns and large-scale apartment complexes.

The watchdog decided to separate unfair activities into cases to be transferred to the Korea Newspaper Association (KNA) and cases that it will deal with in accordance with the law banning unfair activities, which was amended at the end of July. It planned to start the investigation from the middle of last month, but was delayed when investigation agencies were reluctant to get started.

“Some civic groups have been reporting unfair activities by newspaper companies. However, the data was not objective enough to kick off a probe. The FTC will come up with a standard to sort out cases for the KNA and FTC after considering the current situations on the market,” said an FTC official.

Park Chul-il, a media professor at Sookmyoung Woman`s University, said in response: “The easiest way to control the mainstream newspapers that have been critical of the government is rebuild the distribution order on the market. The investigation should not be pushed for to decrease the influence of the critical media in the cause of rationality.”

Ki-Jeong Ko koh@donga.com