By Michael Breen
Intended for The Korea Times
Friday, June 1, 2007

The war between President Roh and the mainstream media went nuclear last week when the government announced a plan to close press rooms in ministries and change how it deals with journalists.

Right now, the prevailing opinion is that the move is a vindictive attack on press freedom, akin to that made on the other side of the world by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, who has closed a TV station that criticized him.

In evaluating this news, we should always remind ourselves when the press itself becomes a story that it, to borrow from Karl Marx, owns the means of production. In other words, they are telling the story. That’s why right now theirs is the prevailing view.

But there are two more sides to factor in. One is the government’s and the other is “the people’s.” How will they benefit or lose from the new policy?

My view is that all sides can win. President Roh is making a historic move here, cutting the umbilical cord with the media, just as he cut the judiciary and ruling party from the executive Blue House when he came into office.

Viewed coolly, the government plan for restructuring its relationship with the media is almost certain to lead to more rational and articulate government public relations. At the same time – although this is not a government concern – it presents the press with an opportunity to be more professional and competitive. The winner will be the electorate, who although enjoying increasing freedoms in recent decades, is patchily informed by its media.

Here’s what will happen.

Specifically, in August, government will reduce the number of briefing rooms, close press rooms in ministries and police stations, and start distributing government announcements and take everyday questions from reporters online.

This is a big change from the present system. Readers may not be aware, but most newspapers structure their reporting around government ministries. In other words, individual journalists are assigned to specific ministries.

This is unusual. It makes sense for reporters to be dedicated to the Blue House and the one of two ministries that are a major source of important news. But it doesn’t make sense to have reporters in 37 government agencies.

For example, you would expect a reporter covering, say, health, to have a desk in his own newspaper and go out to meet sources and find stories about hospitals, government policy, research, the pharmaceutical industry and so on. Here, he works out of the Health and Welfare Ministry.

In the past, this system was a form of press control. The authoritarian government could keep an eye on reporters and spoon-feed them information.

One consequence in democratic Korea is a continuing bias, not so much in favor of government, but in favor of old top-down Korea. Most information and opinion, you see, still flows down from government. It flows from producer to consumer. From the powerful to the powerless.

Check your paper for the number of stories that are announcements from government. Check also and see how few news or feature stories are really about ordinary people. (When there are profiles of individuals, it’s not because their stories are intrinsically interesting, but because they have made the country proud, like won golf tournaments, best actress awards, or come third in Miss Universe.) That is because media are a form of elite whose historic mission has been to educate and guide the unwashed masses with an eye to perceived national interest. The unwashed masses are not themselves very interesting.

But we live in a democracy now. Korea is being increasingly driven from the bottom up, by the consumer, by the voter, by the individual. It’s time the press caught up with the times.

Another consequence of press rooms is that reporters develop close ties with officials who leak them confidential information that – sorry, reporters – the public has a right to know that the government is protecting.

From a public relations perspective, these relationships need to be established on a professional footing. Government should speak with a unified voice to avoid confusion. In Korea, however, ministries say different things and even officials within ministries contradict one another. As large companies learned long ago, the way to deal with that is both limit and train those who are talking to reporters. (This is bad news for reporters, but good news for anyone they write about).

Another feature of the ministry-based reporting system is press clubs. Each ministry’s press corps has one. This leads to a strange tendency in Korean journalism whereby reporters covering the same field – or “beat,” as it is called – view one another as colleagues, not as competitors. Club members often agree not to “scoop” others for fear of upsetting group harmony. Far from competing, they tend to share information. The real rivalries are between reporters from the same newspaper. This is one reason why newspapers are so similar.

These clubs, incidentally, have successfully pressured government not to allow foreign reporters into briefings. In fact, this issue is scheduled to be tabled by the EU as a trade matter for the upcoming FTA talks.

So, why is Mr. Roh doing this? The fact it has come so late in his term – Mr. Roh will step down in February – suggests that it was an afterthought. Indeed, critics charge that Mr. Roh is being vindictive. This may be true. But even so, it’s a well thought-out response. (Officials studied how OECD member governments dealt with media before coming up with the plan)

Many reporters feel the plan is an attack on their freedoms. “The new measure will not only harm reporters’ objectivity toward government policies, but will also infringe upon the public’s right to know,” the Korean Association of Newspapers said in a statement.

This perception comes from a natural anger that the level of access to government is going to change. Now reporters will have to meet with official spokespeople only and formally apply for interviews with other officials, rather than just drop into their offices.

Nothing is more annoying to reporters. But it does not mean their freedom is being curtailed. What is really infringed upon is the reporter’s right to roam rather than the public’s right to know.

My advice to publishers and editors is to recognize the historic moment and respond competitively.