Few satisfied with media reform bill
With less than six months left before two laws affecting newspapers are supposed to go into effect, the issue of press reform is evolving into a fierce ideological struggle that has moved beyond the National Assembly and spilled over into the public. After months of bickering over two Uri Party-sponsored bills, the opposition Grand National Party agreed to a compromise, and on Jan. 1 the National Assembly approved the Newspaper and Press Arbitration Law and an amendment to the Act Governing the Guarantee of Freedom and Functions of Newspapers, Etc., on a 133-to-99 vote. President Roh Moo-hyun is expected to sign them into law soon, after which they will go into effect July 1. The two compromise bills seem to please no one. Some civic groups say the laws infringe upon the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press and plan to file a legal challenge. Others say the newspaper laws don’t go far enough for actual reform to take place, so they plan to lobby for another revision. Complicating matters, the laws have sparked bitter fights among newspapers, with the bigger ones grumbling about the government’s interference in their business, and the smaller ones complaining that the final bills were so watered down that they hardly level the playing field. Part of the problem, said one media scholar, is that the legislation is too murky. “A law can be equipped with legitimacy only when it is clear who the law protects and it has a rationale for the protection. But it is ambiguous who the newspaper laws attempt to protect and why,” Chun Sam-hyun, professor of law at Soongsil University said. The two bills have drawn international attention as well. The International Press Institute, a global network of media professionals and journalists based in Austria, sent a letter to the Blue House earlier this month saying the bills will “have an extremely negative impact upon both press freedom and South Korea’s reputation as a democratic nation founded on the principles of a free market system.” The two measures are designed to erode the dominance of the three main dailies in Korea ― the Chosun Ilbo, the Dong-A and the JoongAng Ilbo ― which are generally regarded as conservative and severe critics of Mr. Roh. The bills impose limits on how much market share they can command, and shore up the competition. They also make the three big papers more vulnerable to legal attacks from anyone offended by the press. The amendment takes the new media environment into consideration, acknowledging Internet media as legitimate news outlets by giving them the same benefits and regulations that apply to offline newspapers. Smaller newspapers get some help as well, with the law establishing joint newspaper distribution outlets that will allow the minor players to achieve nationwide distribution by sharing costs with larger papers. The measure also attempts to make newspapers’ business operations more transparent by obliging them to present certain management documents, including paid circulation numbers, to the Korea Audit Bureau of Circulations, which is currently done on a voluntary basis. These provisions are generally seen by academic experts as stimulating practices that can advance the newspaper business in Korea. But what is drawing controversy is a clause that specifies that if any single newspaper has a market share of 30 percent or more, or if three major newspapers have a combined share of more than 60 percent, then they will be regarded as monopolies and be subject to Fair Trade Commission regulations. The newspaper arbitration bill eases the process by which citizens who believe they have been harmed by the media can ask the Press Arbitration Commission to force newspapers to publish corrections. It also allows people to file civil damage suits against the press even during the arbitration process. Not surprisingly, the three biggest dailies have protested. “The government’s attempt to limit readers’ rights to freely read newspapers, which we believe is aimed at controlling the newspapers critical of the administration, is something that will be listed in the Guinness Book,” read the Chosun’s Jan. 3 editorial. “The newspaper arbitration law infringes upon press freedom.” They’re not alone in their criticism. “Designating and punishing monopolies according to circulation is unconstitutional,” said Mr. Chun of Soongsil University. Smaller newspapers, labor unions of newspaper journalists and television producers, and other civic groups and media experts disagree, claiming that some European countries, such as France, have laws limiting newspapers’ market share. Such measures are necessary, they say, because newspapers are a public good, and monopolizing public opinions by a few newspapers of particular ideologies could endanger democracy that should be based on diversity of opinions. Yet where such restrictions exist, as in Norway, Italy and France, the regulations apply only in cases of mergers and acquisitions. Newspapers are barred from acquiring another newspaper if their combined market share exceeds a certain percentage of the total newspaper market. Those supporting market share limits in Korea say the compromise struck between the GNP and Uri renders the legislation meaningless. Under the Uri’s original bill, only a dozen nationwide, comprehensive newspapers would have been counted as part of the market. But that provision was changed in the new bill so that the restrictions would apply to around 120 newspapers, including provincial and specialized newspapers. In the original legislation, which applied only to newspapers distributed nationwide, the top three would have been designated as monopolies, since current statistics show that the Chosun, JoongAng and Dong-a control more than 70 percent of that market. But under the bill that actually passed the Assembly, media experts said it will be difficult for the three dailies to be regarded as monopolies within a market of more than 120 local and national newspapers. The top three papers together are expected to make up less than 60 percent of the bigger market, and individually, none should have more than a 30-percent market share. As a result, these papers aren’t preparing for the market restriction limits, other than by denouncing the clause as anti-market and anti-freedom. The JoongAng Ilbo recently reinforced its legal team to prepare for any future problems concerning market share, but its executives are more concerned about angry readers who might sue. “Under the Press Arbitration Law, the Press Arbitration Commission is given too much power,” said Kim Tack-whan, editor for media at the Joong-Ang Ilbo. “In most advanced countries, newspapers and the victims of errant reporting take care of the problems voluntarily.” Still, rivals of the biggest newspapers say the compromise bills fall far short of changing what they said is a distorted newspaper market. The Seoul Shinmun and the Kyunghyang Shinmun said the legislation is virtually ineffective in terms of the original goal of diversifying the editorial voices heard in the nation. Other critics note that the approved bills left out a provision in the original versions that would have restricted stock ownership in newspapers. “The laws are only a half success,” the National Union of Media Workers said in a statement. “It is very disappointing that what we have lobbied for, reinforcing independent editing rights and limiting newspaper owners’ influence in newspapers, has not been included at all.” “The main problem of Korean newspapers is that newspaper space is privatized by newspaper owners and their family members. The laws ignored the effort to reform newspaper ownership,” an official at the People’s Coalition for Media Reform said. by Min Seong-jae
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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