IPI urged to keep objectivity
June 11, 2007
Johann P. Fritz
Director
International Press Institute
Spiegelgasse 2
A-1010 Vienna
Austria
Fax: 43 1-512 90 14
Dear Mr. Fritz:
I am grateful to you for the interest shown in your recent letter to President Roh Moo-hyun regarding the Korean Government’s Measures for Developing an Advanced Media Support System. I would like to take this opportunity to explain that the concerns of the International Press Institute (IPI) that you expressed are not based on fact.
In the letter you sent on June 1, you argued that the Korean Government is seeking to limit the media’s access to government sources. You make your argument “based on news articles” of the Korean press. No effort on your part could be found in the letter to try to seek the Korean Government’s explanations of the new policy.
This attitude violates the golden rule for the press: First and foremost verify the facts. You should also take heed of the fact that the Korean press is not an objective third party, but an interested party, which would be affected by the new Government measures, and that their news coverage on them could not be expected to be fair and balanced.
In addition, I am worried that your letter is misleading the readers, including the IPI members, thereby causing misunderstanding about the measures pursued by the Korean Government.
For this reason, let me bring the inaccuracies in your letter to your attention and explain the purpose of the new Government measures.
First, you pointed out in the letter that the number of locations for pressrooms would be reduced to three, but in actual fact the current 21 briefing rooms are scheduled to be restructured into 15, by combining such facilities scattered in various government buildings.
The reporters will be offered workspace featuring facilities for them to write news articles and transmit them. The current 750 seats will be consolidated to 600 in total·a maximum of four for each media company. Notably, the Government is also planning to provide additional media support services to help the journalists get easy access to Government-related information.
The core of the Government’s the new media measures is to replace the traditionally closed-door Korean-type “pressrooms/reporters’ rooms’’ with a more open and advanced system. Because of the anachronistic, exclusive nature of the Korean pressrooms, reporters have been susceptible to colluding on news stories, while some journalists have been left out of the flow of information altogether.
In this connection, I shouldn’t have to remind you that the many foreign correspondents in Seoul have been denied access to sources of important news because of the exclusive nature of the traditional Korean-style reporters’ rooms.
I would also like to turn your attention to the recommendation in February by Morgan Stanley that the Japanese reporters’ rooms, probably the only type of pressroom in the world similar to Korea’s, should be abolished. The report described the pressroom system in Japan as symbols of collusion between the press, politicians and government ministries.
When the Korean Government’s new measures are implemented, discrimination among reporters will be eliminated and as a result, all media will be able to engage in free competition for quality news stories in both name and substance.
In your letter, you also claimed that the Korean Government intended to block all access by journalists to government buildings. This is also not true, because we will still permit journalists’ meetings with public servants and visits to their offices, if they make an appointment. It is a matter of basic civility and security needs. I don’t think there is any country that allows reporters, or anyone else for that matter, to run about from one government office to another without prior arrangement.
Although you failed to mention in your letter, I want to inform you that the new measures feature installing a well-running electronic briefing system to expand access by the press to government information. Also envisioned in the measures is a proposal to revise the Information Disclosure Act in such a way as to drastically increase the transparency of the government.
For your reference, I would like to quote parts of the May 29 Wall Street Journal subheaded, “Pressroom closures may mean increase in news competition.” It reported, “For consumers, however, news tends to look and read the same across various outlets…because reporters seldom reach out to sources beyond their assigned agency or company.”
The Korean Government’s new measures are significant in that they increase transparency of the media -government relationship, provide public information more effectively and expand the people’s right to know. The Government’s effort to bring about an advanced system conforms to the high standards that the international community is pursuing.
The Korean Government has done its part through this new media measures in providing a better environment for the media to gather news and write good stories out of it in the interest of the public’s right to know. The media is asked to do its part. How it makes the best use of the new measures will decide the future of the Republic of Korea as well as the Korean media in the next 10 years.
It is my earnest hope that the IPI will be able to make a fair evaluation of the Government’s endeavor to bring about a new system conducive to benefiting everyone, including the press, in the long run.
Sincerely yours,
OH Young-jin
웹사이트: http://www.president.go.kr
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