[Column] Criticism needs to be dignified

　

Ryu Han-ho, Professor at Gwangju University

Diversity in newspapers is one of the cornerstones of a sustainable democratic society. Like schools, political parties, and labor unions, newspapers are social assets, necessary in attaining and maintaining democracy. For that reason, there are developed nations with a long historical experience with democracy that have diverse programs of support for newspapers at the governmental level. Those countries have various systems for preventing media monopolies and guaranteeing diversity in public opinion. The way Korea’s Newspaper Law provides the Newspaper Development Fund as a systematic and transparent means for the government to support newspapers falls into this context.

There are several newspapers taking issue with the recent selection by the Korea Commission for the Press of which newspapers and magazines will receive support from the Newspaper Development Fund. What these critics are specifically saying is crude, and it would be hard to resist addressing their words with a counterargument.

To begin, these newspapers assert that government support is a new means for controlling the media. Newspapers are being bought so as to limit their criticism and watchful eye towards those in power, they claim, but that argument is hardly persuasive. Newspaper companies have long received various forms of support from the government. When they import expensive equipment such as rotary presses, they receive reductions or exemptions from customs duties. Newspapers and magazines that meet a series of set conditions receive special postage rates. Newspapers are also exempt from the value-added tax levied on most other products.

The same kind of governmental support exists in most other nations. That means the government’s measures should be universally seen as reasonable. All the Korean newspapers that are currently attacking the Newspaper Development Fund are, without exception, also being supported by the government. The bigger these media companies are, the more support they are receiving.

There was indeed a time when government support meant newspapers were being bought. It was a method often used by the dictatorships of the past. The government would secretly give a newspaper company a large amount of money or special favors, and in return the paper would actively cooperate with the regime. That is how it was with Korean newspapers, and it was not all that long ago. Support through the Newspaper Development Fund, on the other hand, is smaller in scale, and methods are open and transparent. It is, therefore, fundamentally different from the way papers were bought off during the dictatorships.

It is sad to see some of the criticism of the Newspaper Development Fund be made in ways that go against what is considered becoming of the media. Newspapers live on their criticism and checking of power. However, since they have such a massive influence within society, they must always maintain impartial perspectives and express dignified and ethical arguments. Some newspapers, however, are currently engaging in criticism that is downright farfetched. They are trying to fool the country.

One would hope to see an internal effort made by the newspapers in question and in the media as a whole, one that, rather than allowing for farfetched logic, fosters the growth of impartial interpretation and the use of dignified language.