Guest Post: A Hostile Takeover of MBC, a Major TV Broadcaster in South Korea

The following guest post is submitted by Dr. Tara O.

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Controlling the narrative through the information people receive is one of the key steps in influencing people’s thoughts and behaviors. Influencing the media is important in this regard. The Moon administration in South Korea has taken over control of Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), with help from the labor union, the National Union of Media Workers at MBC Headquarters (전국언론노동조합 MBC 본부), which is under the umbrella of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) (전국민주노동조합총연맹). Similar methods were employed to take over another network, the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS). The following examines the methods in which the hostile takeover of MBC occurred.

Established in 1961, MBC (Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation; 문화방송주식회사) is one of the major TV and radio broadcasting companies in South Korea, with content broadcast in other countries, including the U.S. (MBC, KBS, and SBS were the original three broadcasters before the onset of cable companies. KBS is a public broadcaster. SBS is a private company.)

MBC’s majority shareholder is the Foundation for Broadcast Culture (방송문화진흥회), a non-profit public corporation, which has the power to hire and fire the president of MBC. The Foundation consists of nine directors and one auditor, each with a term of three years.

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC; 방송통신위원회), the South Korean government’s media regulatory agency, has the power to appoint the board members to the Foundation for Broadcast Culture. It is customary for the ruling party to nominate six directors and the opposition party to nominate three directors to the Foundation for Broadcast Culture.

The KCC chairman is appointed by the president of South Korea. The current KCC chairman, Lee Hyo-sung (이효성), is one of six people who report directly to the president Moon Jae-in. Thus, the president can have influence on the appointment of the board members at the Foundation for Broadcast Culture as well as over the head of MBC.

The National Union of Media Workers demanded the change in management at MBC, and Moon vowed that he would change the management when he visited them in 2012. Prior to Moon Jae-in’s election, his Deoburreo Minju Party did not have the majority on the board, since it was an opposition party. After Moon’s election, the Minju Party also became the ruling party. The National Union of Media Workers, with the green light from the Moon administration, went on strikes and harassed and threatened some of the board members until two of the members stepped down. With the two replaced, the Moon administration had the board’s majority, and fired both the Foundation board Chairman and MBC’s president. On December 7, 2017, the five board directors, with the absence of four directors from the opposition party, appointed Choi Seung-ho (최승호) as the president of MBC.

The process that resulted in placing Choi Seung-ho as MBC head has been controversial and just as dramatic as one of South Korea’s famous K-dramas. The process started when MBC invited several presidential candidates, including Moon Jae-in, to appear on the show to have a discussion about their presidential campaigns. Moon used the occasion to say that MBC is terribly crumbled, although he was proud of it in the past. Moon chided MBC for “praising the group that opposed the impeachment (of Park Geun-hye)” and criticized the MBC’s then-President Kim Jang-kyom (김장겸).

During the Park Geun-hye impeachment, MBC was perhaps the only major media outlet that reported some of the 20+ rallies held by the anti-impeachment, pro-U.S., anti-North Korea groups, notable for their use of flags (rather than candles used by the pro-impeachment crowd). KBS broadcast the flag rallies briefly, but virtually all the other major media outlets—both TV and newspapers—ignored these groups. On the other hand, the impeachment protests (“the candlelight protests”) were covered extensively by all media outlets from the inception of the protests, which created the perception that the country was unanimously in favor of impeachment. In fact, the media was largely responsible for galvanizing the people against Park Geun-hye, because it reported rumors and innuendos as facts, such as JTBC’s fake tablet PC story, which strongly influenced the public at large.

At the time of the impeachment process, MBC was perhaps on the forefront in reporting a story that broke in the middle of the Park Gyeun-hye impeachment, known as the ”Ko Young-tae (고영태) tapes,” which raised serious questions about the credibility of the claims against Park and Choi. There were over 2,300 recordings. Ko talked about taking over the two sports foundations from Choi, framing Park and Choi, and supporting the other political party.

When Moon complained about MBC “praising the groups that opposed impeachment,” he likely did not welcome MBC airing these tapes and covering the flag rallies, especially when he himself supported the impeachment of Park when he attended numerous candlelight rallies.

When Moon said “MBC of the past,” he meant during the Kim Dae-jung/Rho Moo-hyon periods when MBC was controlled by the labor union, the National Union of Media Workers (also known as Korean Federation of Press Unions) at MBC Headquarters. This is the time when MBC supported Choi Seung-ho’s MBC PD Notebook program that broadcast false claims about the Mad Cow disease in 2008, which led to massive, multi-day Mad Cow/Anti U.S. beef imports protests. On November 18, 2003, MBC PD Notebook also tried to portray North Korea as not being responsible for the KAL 858 bombing, by suggesting Kim Hyon-hui (김현희) (a former North Korean agent who blew up KAL 858, which killed all 115 onboard) was false. Kim Hyon-hui had spoken about the KAL incident for the first 10 years or so. She was harassed and had to go into hiding for the next 15 years, when the efforts to discredit her emerged around the time of the Kim Dae-jung government.

The takeover of MBC

The below is the sequence of events, according to Freedom News, that replaced the Foundation for Broadcast Culture board members, which finally resulted in installing Choi Seung-ho as the MBC president. The takeover began with lengthy strikes and pronounced harassment of the board members conducted by the National Union of Media Workers at MBC Headquarters (under KCTU). These strikes and harassment played a significant role in getting two members of the board to step down, paving the way for Moon’s Minju Party to appoint two board members, reaching a majority on the board. Then the board installed Choi as MBC’s president.

– As soon as Moon Jae-in was elected president, a powerful figure in his party said it was appropriate for the labor unions to insist upon the resignation of the board chairman of the Foundation for Broadcast Culture (encouraging the labor union and giving them the green light).

– The National Union of Media Workers then started to hold numerous rallies insisting on the resignation of Ko Young-ju, the Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Broadcast Culture. The Foundation board can hire/fire the MBC president.

– Moon appointed Lee Hyo-sung as the Chairman of the Korea Communications Commission (KCC). KCC appoints the board members of the Foundation for Broadcast Culture. Lee is one of six people to report directly to Moon (others who directly report include the Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok and National Security Adviser Chung Ui-yong). Lee Hyo-sung is also an honorary member of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which is associated with the National Union of Media Workers.

– KCC Chairman Lee Hyo-sung implied that he would aggressively pursue the resignation of the presidents of both MBC and KBS. Lee expressed that he shared the same goal as the respective press labor unions for MBC and KBS, and that he would carry out auditing of MBC and KBS.

– National Union of Media workers at MBC Headquarters began strikes on September 4, 2017.

– At the National Assembly, a document was discovered that stated the press labor unions will use physical measures to force the resignation of the MBC Foundation/KBS Foundation board members and the presidents of both MBC and KBS (see video starting 3:22). It also stated the use of the Inspector General and other national offices/tools to look for any politically damaging evidence on the members.

– The Seoul court issued an arrest warrant for the MBC president for not showing up to labor union’s summons to question him, to which MBC replied “The (Moon) government’s suppression to take control over the broadcaster has finally become clearer with the arrest warrant.”

– The labor union members then went to the universities, workplaces, churches where the board members go to, and harassed them, even using violence.

– Unable to withstand the harassment and threats to them and their families, some of the board members began to resign.

– Lee Hyo-sung, as chairman of the KCC quickly filled the two empty spots on the board, with enough votes to finally force the resignation of the board chair of the Foundation for Broadcast Culture, Ko Young-ju.

– They forced out Chairman Ko Young-ju, who had held out despite harassment and pressure.

– The next step was to fire the MBC president, Kim Jang-kyom, which occurred on November 13, 2017. The board decided to defer his retirement pay of $312,710 (350,000,000 Won).

– The new board (five members present; four board members from the opposition party absent) voted Choi Seung-ho as the new MBC president on December 7, 2017.

On December 8, 2017, Choi began his first day at MBC as the president. He immediately took the prime time news show “News Desk” off the air. He demoted, banished, and excluded at least 80 journalists who did not participate in the strikes, and has continued to harass them. Meanwhile, one of the first “news” stories MBC aired after the shakeup was to discuss the North Korean calendar, and the fact that they marked Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il’s birthday on the calendar as well as to say the calendar has pictures of night photos of Pyongyang, describing how bright the lights were. It is not clear why this is considered news-worthy, but it does “educate” people about the birthdays of the Kim family members, as is done in North Korea. Perhaps there was an effort to refute the famous nighttime satellite imagery of dark North Korea and bright South Korea. MBC also pointed out Kim Jong-un used to be simply called “my dear comrade,” but will now be called “Supreme Leader” as if to remind the audience how to address Kim Jong-un. In fact, the Blue House announced in April 2018 that it has decided to address Kim Jong-un as “Chairman” and his wife Lee Seol-ju as “yeosa,” an honorific reserved for the wife of a senior ranking person. The media promptly complied. After the Moon-Kim meeting of April 27, 2018, MBC conducted a poll that showed that 77.5 percent of those polled trusted Kim Jong-un. Since Choi became the president, MBC’s broadcasts tend to have pro-Moon, pro-North Korea, pro-Media Workers’ Union themes.

This article highlights the underhanded way the Moon government and the National Union of Media Workers replaced the MBC president in order to change the direction and content of MBC. This method of hostile takeover of MBC was also used for KBS, a government-owned broadcast entity, which also has a new president now. Such effort to control the media continues.

Glossary of Entities in English and Korean

– Deoburreo Minju Party (Together Democratic Party) or Minju Party -더불어민주당

– Foundation for Broadcast Culture – 방송문화진흥회

– Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) – 한국방송공사

– Korea Communications Commission (KCC) – 방송통신위원회

– Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) – 전국민주노동조합총연맹 (or 민주노총 for short)

– Moonhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) – 문화방송주식회사