Putinizing the Korean Press

The Chosun Ilbo‘s columnist Kim Dae Joong is worried, and he should be. The South Korean government has had it in for the “conservative” newspapers for years, using the state’s power to drive them either to acquiesence or bankruptcy. Once again, the Grand National Party is AWOL when a principled stand is essential.

Where is there still a constituency for free speech in South Korea–even speech that goes against one’s own beliefs? I’m not a Korean, but I oppose the restrictions on North Korean Web sites, and the government at least partially agrees with that (which means that five years from now, you’ll be able to buy the Rodong Sinmun, but not the Chosun Ilbo at your local kiosk?). The government’s tactics against the opposition press, on the other hand, are eerily similar to the way Putin crushed the opposition press in Russia, a point I made on Oranckay, in response to what I interpreted as him saying that the U.S. should not take sides in the so-called “newspaper war”:

[L]ook at what we’re saying–that Bush opens himself up to criticism by defying another government’s efforts to suppress a hostile news source using methods not unlike those Vladimir Putin used against the opposition press in Russia (hyperbolic criticism, libel suits, and manipulation of tax law enforcement, to name a few).

Well, technically speaking, Bush does open himself up to criticism by doing so, but that doesn’t make the criticism legitimate. OMN would criticize Bush no matter what he were to do or say, and frankly, given OMN’s biased and dishonest “journalism,” I wouldn’t trust them to accurately report my words. . . .

Pete’s response was kind of snotty, and he never actually did defend the government’s tactics or explain why we shouldn’t take the side of a persecuted opposition newspaper. He also crawls out on a long, slender limb by declaring that there’s “absolutely no possibility that OhMyNews would distort or misquote Bush.” Uh huh. OhMyNews, of course, is not really a newspaper at all. It’s a mislabelled blog.