On Friday, as part of a tax probe initiated by Kim’s administration, a panel of judges ordered the arrest and detention of three of the most powerful media magnates in the country–Bang Sang Hoon, president of the Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s biggest newspaper; Kim Byung Kwan, joint owner of the Dong-A Ilbo, and Cho Hee Joon, who controls the Kukmin Daily. (All three deny the charges, which include embezzlement and tax evasion.) Several other newspaper executives may be indicted shortly. The arrests cap a four-and-a-half-month tax audit of nearly two dozen media companies, a probe the government claims is necessary to root out corruption in the country’s free-wheeling press. Given the targets, though, the actions can’t help but seem familiar: they look much like the last, desperate measures of a struggling administration.
Kim still has 18 months left in his term. But in many ways his government has run out of steam: the economy, hit hard by the global tech slump, is sputtering; his “sunshine policy” of opening up to the North has brought few concrete advantages and has been clouded over by Pyongyang’s recent hostility, and businessmen resent the president for pushing them to sell off assets at fire-sale prices, sometimes to foreigners. The three largest newspapers, all of which are family-owned and traditionally conservative, have lambasted the administration for months. If they are neutralized–and Kim can convince the public that he has struck a blow for ethics and propriety–the president will have a fighting chance of rebuilding his standing. If the charges don’t stick, Kim could quickly end up a very unpopular lame duck.
So far the public seems about evenly divided. Kim supporters argue that the industry as a whole is crowded and unruly: Seoul is home to nearly a dozen daily newspapers, as well as another dozen business and sports dailies (including Joong Ang Ilbo, which publishes the Korean-language edition of NEWSWEEK). Readers have long complained of pushy vendors plying them with gifts in return for subscriptions–itself against industry rules–and then being forcibly pressured not to cancel. Earlier this year, the government levied an unprecedented $400 million in fines on 23 newspapers and television stations for not properly reporting their incomes; one group was ordered to pay a combined $20 million for violating fair-trade regulations. The owners and executives of six newspapers were charged with tax evasion.
Those executives and their supporters in the opposition Grand National Party insist the charges are politically motivated, pointing out that smaller pro-government newspapers and television stations have not been targeted by the audit and blasting Kim as a “press dictator.” Last week the applications to arrest two other newspaper executives were rejected for lack of evidence. And even the International Press Institute has warned Kim it is “deeply concerned by the severe implications for press freedom.” Even if the remaining charges stick, Kim’s opponents will be right in a sense: the president will have muzzled his most powerful, strident critics. One wonders whether this is how the former dissident would really like his own voice to be heard.
