The difference between a smear campaign and due screening

Presidential candidates claim that political offensives against them are smear campaigns and that their offensives against rivals are part of a necessary screening process.

They also call media scrutiny of their quality as smear campaigns. What are the differences between a smear campaign and a required screening?

Candidates are screened for their policies, leadership, ideologies and ethics. Experts say the required screening process should check if an issue raised against a candidate is based on verifiable facts, has room for other opinions, and reflects the views of the raiser of the issue.

Topics involving verifiable facts are part of a required screening process. When a suspicion was raised against independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo over a questionable home purchase, the allegation was quickly verified and led to Ahn issuing a public apology.

An offensive launched by a raiser of an issue that cannot be verified is a smear campaign, however. Kim Hyeong-jun, a political science professor at Myongji University in Seoul, cited as an example the debate over if former President Roh Moo-hyun allegedly said South Korea would give up the Northern Limit Line, the de factor sea border with North Korea. Political offensives based on argument or denial of Roh’s comment, which has yet to be verified, constitute a smear campaign, Kim said.

Experts say criticism of ruling Saenuri Party candidate Park Geun-hye for failing to clarify her opinion on the 1961 military coup orchestrated by her father, President Park Chung-hee, constitutes part of the screening process. They added, however, that attacks on her for supposedly trying to revive the Yushin regime, or her father’s dictatorial system of the 1970s, is a smear campaign stemming from a biased opinion, as it is labeling a particular candidate as a “North Korea-following leftist” or a “reactionary conservative.”

Experts also urge the finding of comparison standards that can be applied to all candidates. For example, discussing the three candidates` policy proposals for “economic democratization” is not a smear campaign but focusing criticism on a particular candidate or applying double standards is.

Another case in point is linking an issue to a candidate having nothing to do with it. Experts say identifying Park Geun-hye as her father or main opposition Democratic United Party candidate Moon Jae-in as former President Roh goes beyond screening boundaries.

Professor Kim said that if the intention behind raising a negative issue against a candidate, even if highly likely to be true, is merely to mar an opponent`s image, such an offensive will probably result in an “easy and lazy” campaign.

zeitung@donga.com