Roh: PR Measures Could Improve Coverage

“If the quality of media reports goes up as a result of government action towards misreporting, that will also be an achievement of this administration.”

It has only recently become known that President Roh Moo-hyun at a Cheong Wa Dae staff meeting stated his opinion “dealing with this misreporting=increase in media report quality=achievement of the administration.”

According to “President’s Instructions” disclosed by the Office of the Prime Minister on January 10, at a senior secretary and aides meeting on December 19 at the presidential office, President Roh stated the aforementioned opinion while ordering all channels dealing with media reports of each government body be integrated into one, “news.go.kr”, an internet media run by the Government Information Agency.

According to the document, President Roh said, “It is important that related agencies add their opinions to the media report analysis via news.go.kr. This will prevent additional incorrect reports from being generated based on the initial wrong report. ”

President Roh emphasized, “Through this process, reporters and public officials will research harder, and the content quality of media reports will be upgraded. If media quality increases, this will mark an achievement of this administration.”

President Roh also instructed the administration to hire private experts or implement education for effective promotion and ordered that a manual be drawn up to prevent staff members from making mistakes.

An official of the Office of the Prime Minister said, “The ‘President’s Instructions’ is a document on the president’s orders and instructions sent by Cheong Wa Dae to the prime minister’s office. The instructions receiving much attention were recently passed down to each government agency.”

Kang-Myoung Chang tesomiom@donga.com