KBS Aired North Korean War Song, “Red Flag Song”

A media-criticizing program, “Media Focus” on KBS 1 TV raised a scandal by using the North Korean war song, “Red Flag Song,” as the background music of its parody cartoon corner “Sisa Flash.”

“Media Focus” played the “Red Flag Song” on the air for 40 minutes as the background music of the “Sisa Flash” program that criticized the government’s embargo on the reporting on the Zaitoon unit on August 14.

The “Red Flag Song” was used by anti-Japan socialists during the period of Japanese rule and also sung as a representative war song in North Korea afterwards.

After acknowledging the fact that the song used in “Sisa Flash” was the “Red Flag Song” in a post-review on August 16, KBS posted a letter of apology on the “Media Focus” internet homepage next day.

KBS stated in this letter, “This is a mistake made by the music staff and the entire production team, and we apologize to the audience for this.”

The anchor of “Media Focus,” Lee Hwa-seop, explained, “A freelance music staff member Kim (age 26) used it without knowing it is the ‘Red Flag Song.’ Even a production team which had to check it thought it was a marching song for our army.” Kim said, “I downloaded it from the music site ‘Soribada’ without having much knowledge of war songs. I did not care about the words.”

Critical writings continued on the “Media Focus” homepage. Choi Seung-cheol commented, “I dare not imagine I could listen to a North Korean war song on public broadcasting, even on the Zaitoon unit’s dispatch-related broadcasting.”

Meanwhile, an official of the Korean Broadcasting Commission said, “This is a case that cannot avoid a heavy disciplinary punishment, but we’ll discuss the method of punishment after watching KBS’s own measures.”

Jung-Bo Suh suhchoi@donga.com