Don’t ignore audiences’ right to know

The time has come for our society to stop them from trying to dominate the people.

Son Young-junThe author is a professor of journalism at Kookmin University. Freedom has diverse meanings. First of all, it refers to the right to choose without interference. The term can represent social rights to achieve public goals, too. In that respect, freedom is a double-edged sword — it’s both individual and societal. Despite the omnipresence of freedom, its meaning varies depending on the kind of circumstances the word is used under.

The same applies to the freedom of speech, which refers to the rights to defy intervention and accomplish public good. In the past liberal administration, the freedom of the press was deemed synonymous with the freedom to realize the social good of our community. Public broadcasters served as a means to achieve the public goals their members set — namely, to help the socially vulnerable. In fact, they ardently promoted such goals. But they lacked introspection on exactly what goals our society must pursue. In the meantime, audiences’ aspiration toward “noninterference” was often dashed.

Political debate on the freedom of public broadcasters was confined to securing independence from the sitting power. In retrospect, politicians only wanted to weaken their opponents. The controversial revisions to the Broadcast Act, which were railroaded by the majority Democratic Party (DP) last week, are apparently aimed at empowering media unions by drastically raising the quota for board members of KBS, MBC and EBS. The revisions failed to earn public sympathy due to their wicked purpose.

What audiences want is simple. They want their rights to noninterference to be protected first. They also want their right to know to be upheld and guaranteed by reliable media. They don’t want to be cheated by biased news and misinformation any more.

They demand public broadcasters elevate the level of their knowledge and professionalism rather than arbitrarily reflecting their own members’ thoughts in their news coverage in the cocoon of political independence. Audiences want broadcasters to report news in a balanced way so that they can make their own judgment. The ongoing discourse on reforming public broadcasters fell short of addressing such fundamental woes of the people.

Public broadcasters have an obligation to serve the rights of citizens, totally free from partisan interests. The freedom the public broadcasters want cannot be compatible with the freedom of their members. “Impartiality,” the primary motto of the BBC, is not just a declaration to keep distance from political power, but represents the need for society to check the British public broadcaster so as to prevent its members from abusing their power.

The conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration is certainly different from the liberal Moon Jae-in administration. The Yoon administration’s drive to reform the public broadcasting sector clearly shows a transition to neoliberalism, as seen in the fast privatization process of news channel YTN and the suspension of government subsidies for the Traffic Broadcasting System (TBS) from next year. Yonhap News, another 24/7 news channel, will also have to endure an 80 percent cut in public funding.

Though the outlines have not been released yet, KBS will likely have to suffer a downsizing once its governance structure is fixed. These changes can be summarized as a message that public broadcasters should survive the competitive media market on their own. Could such a policy shift really earn public sympathy?

First of all, there wasn’t enough discussion on neoliberalism in our society or a proper definition of the freedom of the press despite quite a long history of public broadcasting in the country. Whenever the freedom of speech was mentioned, stakeholders interpreted it at their convenience. As a result, public broadcasters have become the center of miscommunication.

If public broadcasters arbitrarily interpret the meaning of the freedom of speech without deep reflection, it is the same as demanding obedience from the people as they so wish. That’s a critical infringement on the freedom of citizens. The tired audience has just started turning away from public broadcasters. The time has come for our society to stop them from trying to dominate the people.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.