Press, President Put Up Their Dukes

Leading conservative newspapers and the South Korean government are locked in a fierce battle for the moral high ground in a country where the blood sport of politics is rarely sporting or associated with morality.

In the latest skirmish in the 8-month-old war, the government indicted 12 newspaper owners and executives Tuesday on charges of embezzlement and evading millions of dollars in taxes. The indictments followed the high-profile arrests last month of the head of the Chosun Ilbo, the nation’s largest newspaper, and two other media owners.

Conservatives accuse the left-leaning government of waging a political vendetta against the free press. Government supporters counter that media owners have long abused their privileged financial and social position and must follow the law like anyone else.

“Noblesse oblige doesn’t exist in Korea today,” said Oh Dong Myong, author of “The Korean Media Revealed.” “No one’s above the fray.”

All the attention also has prompted a few reformers to call for a more thorough housecleaning that includes the day-to-day activities of reporters and editors.

The first shot in the media war was fired in January, when President Kim Dae Jung said in his New Year’s address that it was time to reform the media. Tax authorities quickly followed up with an investigation into money laundering, tax evasion, insider trading and foreign-exchange violations among the country’s 23 major media groups.

Although the campaign affects 19 newspapers and four broadcasters that allegedly embezzled or cheated on their taxes to the tune of $389 million, it’s an open secret who the real target is: the conservative Chosun Ilbo, which has fiercely criticized the Kim administration and claims a circulation of 2.4 million.

Kim and the Chosun Ilbo go way back. For decades, the publication’s critics charge, the newspaper enjoyed cozy relations with Korean dictators and Japanese colonial masters. During Kim’s many years as an opposition leader and democracy activist, the newspaper railed against his activities and accused him of treachery and Communist sympathies.

After Kim was elected president in 1997, the two settled into a cease-fire. Over the past 18 months, however, as Kim’s government has stumbled badly in its handling of the economy, politics, health and foreign policy, the paper has become increasingly critical.

South Korean governments have a long history of using every means at their disposal to silence critics and keep the masses in line.

In 1994, Kim, then an opposition leader, condemned a government tax audit against the major newspapers as a state mechanism for chilling its critics. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, critics say, Kim of all people should resist employing such low tactics.

“Ironically, after devoting his life and suffering much for it, [democracy] is the one area where Mr. Kim has so far failed to deliver,” Aiden Foster-Carter, a research fellow at England’s Leeds University, wrote in the International Herald Tribune. “Half a year after glorying in a Nobel Peace Prize, he is a prophet without honor in his own country.”

Conservatives say the timing of the government’s media investigation is highly suspect. Early in his administration, Kim pushed reforms in virtually every sector of South Korean society--except the media. Only after the major newspapers became openly critical of him did he put them in his sights.

Critics charge that Kim hopes, in effect, to kill the messenger as the bad news piles up. Some liken the media to the Censorate, a time-honored figure in Korean imperial society whose job it was to venture beyond the palace walls and find out what common people thought, lest the king fall too far out of touch and court disaster.

The government and reform advocates deny any bias and point out that the Chosun Ilbo has only become more defiant--proving, they say, that there’s no intimidation of the media.

“The problem of the owners is a tax problem, not an issue of press freedom,” Kim said last week at a meeting with provincial officials.

Furthermore, supporters of the government campaign say, no one should be above the law, particularly members of an industry that professes to have the public interest at heart.

“These newspaper owners are more powerful than emperors. I call them ‘The Mafia,’ ” said Jung Yun Joo, chief editorial writer with the liberal Hankyoreh newspaper. “While there is almost certainly political motivation on the government’s part here, this is the only way you’re going to achieve press reform.”

Even as the blows rain down and the headlines rage over media owners, some say real media reform will only come when a far more fundamental housecleaning occurs.

Even the most basic decisions involving placement and story content, they say, are influenced by payoffs and favors dished out to all layers of media organizations.

“The tax investigation is nothing compared to this bigger deception and the misinformation foisted on the public,” said author Oh, a former photojournalist with the Joong Ang Ilbo, one of the targeted papers. “The entire system rests on collaboration.”

Oh said he experienced firsthand the widespread payment of chonji, or payoff envelopes, to reporters and editors by political parties, companies and sports teams.

In the old days, chonji amounts were small and paid for “peace of mind.” But in recent decades, as South Korea has become more affluent, chonji amounts have increased sharply.

At the end of his first year at the paper, Oh said, he received $2,400 in cash payoffs, most of which he says he gave to charity. He admitted, however, that he took one $150 bribe from a political party. “I’m very ashamed now,” he said, “but at the time I justified it on the grounds that it was my tax money coming back to me.”

Experts say reporters frequently threaten sources with bad coverage if they don’t feel they’re getting enough chonji. Sources hand out payments of $1,500 or more to reporters on major holidays, with a slew of smaller gifts in between.

In the past, the lead reporter assigned to cover a particular ministry, company or political party received a large sum that he or she distributed to junior reporters. More recently, however, experts say the process has become more discreet.

“As Korean society has become more diverse, the form of chonji has also diversified,” said Kim Joo Eun, secretary-general of the People’s Coalition for Media Reform, a civic group. “These days it’s increasingly in the form of golf trips, weekend getaways, overseas trips by corporations.”

Writers for small regional newspapers reportedly often receive little or no salary and are expected to rely on their own “fund-raising,” trading coverage for bribes or advertising, Kim added. At larger papers, reporters scramble to get a post in the business section, because the envelopes there are fatter and more frequent.

An article in the Aug. 18 edition of Media Today, a press union newsletter, says reporters covering the government receive $550 to $775 a month in chonji.

Kim Young Mo, president of the Journalists Assn. of Korea, says that chonji distribution is declining. “We’re addressing the problem,” he said, “and I think we’re making progress.”

Officials with the Federation of Korean Industries and opposition and ruling parties denied making payments. “Officially, we don’t give envelopes to reporters, although some officials may individually,” a ruling party official said.

Experts say there’s been little pressure so far to change the system, because everyone but the reader benefits and most of the general public isn’t aware of the problem or doesn’t care.

Chi Jung Nam in The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.