In one, "Talking About Korea: Analysis of Korean Media Under Japanese Colonialism," which was broadcast Saturday at 8 p.m., KBS accused the Chosun Ilbo and Donga Ilbo of being voluntarily pro-Japanese during the colonial period.

Then at 9:30 p.m., on "Media Focus," KBS reviewed three cases of what it judged to be irresponsible reporting by the press, and all three involved the Chosun Ilbo.

First, the program claimed that Chosun Ilbo's report that M16s can be bought in the central Seoul market Cheonggyecheon was groundless. Then the program said the Chosun Ilbo allotted too much space in its pages to report the death of its former president, Bang Il-young. In the third case, it said the newspaper wrote only from the management's perspective in an article about a strike at Owens Corning Korea.

The reports on Cheonggyecheon and Owens Corning Korea were rebuttals of responses the Chosun Ilbo made to previous criticism.

KBS created "Media Focus" as part of its first program reorganization since its new president, Jeong Youn-ju, took office. Its mission is to monitor and critique the media.

"Media Focus" has aired 8 programs so far. With the exception of the first, in which it put itself through a self-examination of the misdeeds it committed under the military regime, it has focused on attacking the big three newspaper companies, the dailies Chosun, Donga and JoongAng. On the program's Internet bulletin board most of the messages criticize KBS for maintaining an unbalanced perspective.

According to a recent survey, the program's audience rating has dropped from 17 percent to 10 percent in recent weeks. (Eo Su-ung, jan10@chosun.com )