Jeong Soon-gyu, deputy chief of the service, wrote the article, "Standing Up to the Press in Korea," which was printed in the Journal on Thursday. In it, he said, "Many Korean reporters tend to file reports without first checking and confirming important points."

He added that government officials "have maintained a select group of supposedly influential reporters at each government agency, wined and dined them, and regularly handed them envelopes of cash." Later, after the controversy erupted, Jeong explained that this passage referred to practices in the past.

The information service told Jeong to write the article as a response to the Journal's editorial earlier this week criticizing President Roh Moo-hyun for filing a lawsuit against certain press companies. The service's overseas office wrote the first draft of the article, and Jeong made revisions before sending the article back to the overseas office for its English translation. The final copy of the English version was then sent to the Journal's office in Hong Kong. Jeong said that in the process, he did not have a chance to revise the translated version of the article.

Jeong apologized for implying that all Korean reporters regularly received money from public servants, and said that he would resign from the information service. Still, he said he had no intention to apologize for saying that Korean reporters do not check basic facts. Jeong said he was referring to reporters' notion of thinking "nevermind if it's wrong."

The Korea Reporters Association criticized Jeong, saying that it had to doubt his ability to perceive reality and common sense. The accusations were disgraceful to the characters of reporters who are striving to correct the flawed reporting practices from the past, it said.

(Han Jae-hyun, rookie@chosun.com )