The media pursues the truth when it qualifies as the public's business. However, the rights of a source are more important than the truth that can be obtained from one. Sources must not be coerced or enticed, even when you are unable to get facts from them. That is a most standard basic rule of reporting the news, and when you remember that, the MBC program "PD Sucheop" was no longer behaving like a member of the news media. There is a section of criminal law which applies to such behavior.
In the course of covering allegations that professor Hwang Woo Suk's team of researchers had violated ethics guidelines and about the authenticity of research in patient-specific stem cells, PD Sucheop endured a huge amount of public criticism. Amidst of all that there were those who called for restraint in the criticism, and in doing so incurred criticism themselves. They are people who believe that effort on the part of the media to reveal the truth must never be obstructed under any circumstances. However, PD Sucheop threatened and tried to tempt its sources in order to get the answers it wanted, and that is most regrettable.
Some people might respond that if for the sake of truth, it is all right for sources' rights to be ignored somewhat. You often heard that reasoning during the dictatorships. Those in power closed down news media, had journalists fired en masse, and trampled on civil rights all for the "national interest." Anyone who responds that way might be doing so because of a climate in Korea where the media takes one fragment of reality and use that to distort the whole picture, thoroughly distorts sources' quotes, and engages in agitation in the name of commentary. Even so, there is something wrong when someone taking that position is someone in the media who is trying to discuss allegations about violations of research ethics.
MBC has been apologizing. There is talk of a change of some of its management. What is important, however, is the truth. Its statement included nothing specific about its violation of journalistic ethics. There has to be clarification of what "profoundly important" statements the sources made and whether some of all of it was fabricated. It needs to explain itself for having lied about the allegations about its high-handed treatment of sources, and it needs to do so because that will hopefully be a stepping-stone in correcting the problems in journalistic practices and MBC's terrible mistake.
The Hankyoreh, 6 December 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] Personal Rights More Important that Uncovering Truth |
