Controversy over Governmental Financial Assistance Bill to Local Press

Controversy is never-ending over a special bill scheming to support local press which is having financial difficulties by using the central governmental fund.

The Culture and Tourism Committee of the National Assembly opened the Minor Committee on Law Bill Examination, also a public hearing at the same time, on November 24 and held a discussion over “Local Newspaper Development Support Law Bill” (head presentation by Rep. Kim Sung-ho from Uri Party) suggested mainly by the Uri Party and “Special Law Bill Regarding Assistance to Local Press’” (head presentation by Rep. Koh Heung-gil from Grand National Party) suggested by the GNP representatives but failed to pass either one of the bills due to split opinions on the objects and conditions of the assistance.

Rep. Koh expressed an objection saying, “The bill settles the objects of the assistance as 232 newspapers including a weekly magazine, and I find it very difficult to judge which should be included or not,” regarding the bill suggested mainly by the Uri Party representatives. The bill that Rep. Koh presented restricts the objects of the assistance at around 70 newspaper companies that are published within counties and towns.

Rep. Kim, in response to this, said, “We admit that there are possibilities that quasi-press can be included in the objects of assistance,” while insisting on the extended scope of the assistance, adding, “The financial difficulties are worse for smaller-sized newspaper companies.”

In addition, there was controversy over setting a condition for assistance in the bill suggested by Rep. Kim and others as “Setting, publicizing, and executing the editing rules that include both the laborers and the company as participants.” Professor of Law at Dankook University, Moon Jae-wan, one of the professionals present to give comments to the committee that day, insisted, “It can be pointed out that there is not a reasonable standard if independence for the right of editing counts as a standard for assistance.”

In regard to the controversy of supporting the local press, Professor of Communications at Soonchunhyang University Chang Ho-soon said, “In order for decentralization to actually work out right, the local press has to appropriately watch over the local governments,” while pointing out, “Since the current local press tends to get involved only with the local governments due to their financial difficulties, the standards to analyze as to whether they are functioning properly should be set as law first of all, and then to support them.”

Meanwhile, there is another “Law Bill Regarding Local Press Assistance” (head presentation by the GNP Rep. Mok Yo-sang) that has collected opinions from different local press companies separately from the two existing bills and is waiting to be enlisted to the Culture and Tourism Committee. This gives rise to the criticism that “each party is only fueling confusion in policy-making by suggesting similar bills before the general election.”

Seung-Heon Lee Seung-Hoon Cheon ddr@donga.com raphy@donga.com