On Thursday the Constitutional Court held debate on the Newspaper Law and Press Arbitration Law. The Chosun Ilbo and DongA Ilbo filed a constitutional petition with the court last year, and both claim that those two laws infringe on freedom of the press. The government says they are consistent with the constitution in that they guarantee diversity of opinion.
At issue would appear to be the question of whether you can limit press freedom for the sake of diversity of public opinion and if so to what degree, but that is not really the case. The Chosun and the DongA decorate it "freedom of the press," but in fact they are really demanding freedoms for media companies and their owners. If you listen to their argument they are essentially asking newspapers should be treated different from other companies and claiming newspapers should have the freedom to make as much money as they want.
At contention are parts of the Newspaper Law relating to newspaper business management and regulations regarding corrections in the Press Arbitration Law, with most of the particulars relating to management of newspaper companies, namely the fact that newspapers are more easily defined as having dominant positions over the market than regular private companies, newspaper companies are the only businesses that have to submit documentation on their management procedures, and, finally, the limits on simultaneously conducting newspaper and broadcasting enterprises. The Newspaper Development Fund and the Korea Newspaper Circulation Service are also at issue where they relate to company management.
Newspapers are of course companies, too. You cannot blame shareholders for expecting to earn dividends. However, newspapers are also a unique. More so than others, they are media that, together with broadcasting, simultaneously form the foundation of democracy and have a responsibility to maintain democracy. Keeping authority in its various forms in check, criticism, and aiding the formation of diverse public opinion is as precious as anything else in a democratic society and it contributes to the public good. The media is responsible for that, and therefore must obligations to promote the public interest. Newspaper companies must be treated different from regular private enterprises.
These two laws, therefore, must not be judged by whether or not there is balance with laws for regular private businesses. The standard must be whether as the "spokesman of the people" the press is fulfilling its duty to the public good. If it is true to that obligation then there would be no justification for overly regulating newspapers companies. If not, then a certain degree of different regulations is justified and contributes to the public good.
Are newspapers currently amply serving the public interest? The answer is clear, even without the observation by one famous economist who said the newspapers with that hold 80 percent of the market for national dailies have "lowered the standards of Korean society from the third year of middle school to the second year of middle school." How can the public mission of newspapers survive when the massive conservative papers don’t stop at expressing only the claims advantageous to certain interest groups and instead go as far as cursing and abusing elements that oppose them? The current case before the Constitutional Court is nothing more and nothing less than a confrontation between press freedoms and freedoms for newspaper owners.
The Hankyoreh, 7 April 2006.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] Constitutional Court Case Really About Media Owners' Freedoms |
