Seol Min-seok steps down from all TV work after controversy over thesis plagiarism

Seol Min-seok [SCREEN CAPTURE]

MBC’s entertainment program “Those Who Cross the Line – Returns” featuring controversial historian Seol Min-seok announced Wednesday on its official website that this week's episode will not air “as Seol has stepped down from the program.”

On Dec. 29, Seol was accused by a local media outlet of plagiarizing his master’s thesis. It was reported that his master’s dissertation paper which he wrote on Korea’s modern history for Yonsei University’s Graduate School of Education, received a 52 percent plagiarism rating on the plagiarism review website CopyKiller.

Seol admitted to the allegations immediately and apologized for “being lazy in doing the research and identifying citations and references while referring to other papers.” Seol added that he will step down from all television programs.

“There should be no excuse for such fault,” Seol continued. “As an educator, as a person studying history, I sincerely apologize for my idle attitude when writing the paper and I feel deeply responsible.”

Seol was embroiled in more controversy just a week prior after claims were made that he made factual errors on a recent episode of another television program, titled “Seol Min-seok’s Naked World History” on tvN when talking about Cleopatra. Seol later apologized to the viewers via his YouTube channel.

BY YIM SEUNG-HYE [yim.seunghye@joongang.co.kr]