Increased Political Polarization among Korean media and the Fall of MBC

Picture of President Yoon speaking at the UN Conference during his visit to New York. Photo: Brendan Mcdermid / Reuters

Korea’s political landscape has become increasingly polarized since President Park’s political scandal and President Moon’s inauguration before Yoon took hold of office this year. This is the result of provoking media coverage and carefully manipulated fake news that aims to frame these political events in ways that are in favor of the political party they implicitly support. 

One of the most widely known media tendencies in Korea is “ChoJoongDong” and “HanKyungOh.” “ChoJoongDong” stands for Chosun-Ilbo, JoongAng-Ilbo, and Dong-A-Ilbo, which are the most prominent newspapers that support the conservative side of Korean politics. On the other hand, “HanKyungOh” stands for Hankyoreh, Kyunghyang Newspaper, and OhMyNews, which are the most liberal newspapers that heavily lean towards the left in the political spectrum. Hence, “ChoJoongDong” has historically been tied to the conservative party and “HanKyungOh” to the liberal party.

In between these two opposite media outlets, there have been consistent brawls in which both sides aggressively cover various issues in a way that undermines the political party the opposite side supports. For example, the “Anti-Nuclear-Power” plan was put into action under President Moon after an earthquake hit the area in which many nuclear plants are still operating. The Democratic Party pushed for the Anti Nuclear Power plan for increased safety of the civilians and the environment despite the fact that alternative energy sources were not secured at the time. 

Chosun-Ilbo, the most conservative newspaper, covered the Democratic Party’s decision to be “incomprehensible” by quoting a government official related to the nuclear power plant. Hankyoreh, on the other hand, denounced President Yoon’s regime for reversing President Moon’s Anti-Nuclear-Power plan by saying Yoon was “delusional” for such action.

Picture of No-Japan Protest after the controversial Korea-Japan Trade War in 2019 with logos of ChoJoongDong on the picket. Photo: Jean Chung / Bloomberg

Both ChoJoongDong and HanKyungOh are cable news channels and newspapers that require subscription fees. There are also three other public broadcasting stations that are operated via tax funds. Those three are KBS (Korea Broadcasting System), MBC (Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation), and SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System), which are all meant to act as main media outlets that serve the Korean people with information with the least political bias. 

MBC, being one of the three public broadcasting stations, has increasingly shown its own political preference by covering various issues from an evidently biased position. The most famous event that acted as the climax of MBC’s fall as a neutral news source was its claim that President Yoon was swearing about US Congressmen during his visit to New York. After MBC’s coverage, various Korean media and other Western media started blaming President Yoon for his uncourteous manner as Korea’s representative.

President Yoon stated that MBC's claim is indeed false and might negatively affect the US-Korean Alliance. President Yoon had to hassle his way out of this hot mic scandal with unnecessary risk in the diplomatic relationship with the U.S. As a result, President Yoon prohibited MBC reporters from boarding his presidential plane departing for the ASEAN meeting, the reason being that MBC’s unfair coverage might damage the national interest.

While some argue that the President’s action is effectively censoring the media, others argue that it is a fair consequence for MBC for failing its mission to keep political neutrality as a public broadcasting company.