TV Impeachment Programs Lack Impartiality

Korean Broadcasting Commission (KBC) announced that there was a lack of impartiality in KBS and MBC’s “impeachment related programs.”

KBC decided to “advise” three broadcast stations including KBS and MBC. It announced, “It is important to take care of keeping impartial and objective broadcasted programs that can affect the Constitutional Court of Korea’s (CCK) final decision on the impeachment.”

KBC pointed out that after reviewing the “impeachment related programs” of the three broadcasting stations from March 12 to 15, the public opinion report of KBS 1TV’s “KBS News” dated March 15 and four other programs showed problems.

With it were “Bae Chil-soo’s World Business; Palace of National Assembly Members” (March 15), KBS 2TV “Live: Good Morning, World,” and MBC “News Desk” report of “Administration Capital Failure”(March 12), and “77 percent said the impeachment was wrong” (March 15).

KBS1’s “KBS News” reported on March 15, “Most people speculate for the dismissal of the impeachment agenda.” KBS2 “Bae Chil-soo World Business” compared the fight of National Assembly members around the impeachment agenda to a fight among beasts.

MBC “News Desk” reported that President Roh’s huge development plan of a new administration capital is inevitably heading down under the subtitle of “Administration Capital Failure” on March 12. Furthermore, on March 15, “News Desk” reported that “66.5 percent think that the opposition party’s proposition of the violation of the election law and the aides’ absurdity are not good enough reasons for the impeachment,” and “60.8 percent think that the CCK should make the decision before the complete election.”

KBC announced that they asked the Korean Society for Journalism and Communication Studies for the analysis of the degree of bias of the three broadcast stations’ “impeachment programs.” They also commented that they will continue reviewing individual programs shown after March 15.

Jin-Yeong Lee ecolee@donga.com