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What's the problem with the briefing rooms the newspapers and radios are making much ado about? Why are the president and the press fighting each other?
Many were wondering what it all meant when the government announced new press rules that will merge press rooms in government agencies and restrict press access to government officials. A banker friend of mine said, "Journalists seem to be highlighting the issue vociferously, presumably because it¡¯s their own problem."
That is precisely the effect President Roh Moo-hyun wanted to achieve. He is attempting to alienate the public from the press, making the journalists' justified anger at the violation of the people's right to know look as if it were their childish resistance to disregard of their interests. At a seminar of the Government Evaluation Forum, a pro-Roh group, on Saturday, Roh called the press, from the outset, an "egocentric" group that "keeps insisting on its unjustified privileges."
Public servants are saying to themselves, "Our job would be great without lawmakers and journalists." They hate it when the public watches and checks them, never mind that they are paid with taxpayers¡¯ money. Without the press and the National Assembly, then, there would be no watching the government.
It is because of this that the press on Left and Right and even members of the Uri Party Roh founded are crying out against this government policy. The National Assembly and the press feel that the government has some nerve attempting to drive the press out but still wanting to call journalists in to brief them on policies whenever convenient.
Power the world over is tempted to control the press. Venezuela's new-style dictator Hugo Chavez is not the only one who wants to bring the press under control. The Kennedy administration, which supposedly maintained a good relationship with the press, attempted to control news briefings by establishing a council of public relations officers from government agencies. An advanced country may try to hobble the press, but it can relent and restore relations without hurting the public right to know. If it can¡¯t it is a backward country. You can¡¯t become an advanced country, as Roh is pretending, if you just ape the mechanisms of advanced countries and abolish a system they may not have.
It is not a privilege granted by the government but the outcome of journalists' own efforts that they can attend government briefings, stay in government agencies and get access to government officials. Some 100 years ago, an unnamed American journalist used to loiter outside the gate of the White House and dig for big news stories by interviewing people who had met the president. Other newspapers took their cue from him. Rain or shine, reporters hung about in front of the White House, the progenitors of today's press corps in White House briefings.
The system has been maintained not for the sake of journalists¡¯ ego but because of the value of the news stories they produce. Congress allocated a budget and built press rooms for them. The readers wanted to read more of the news the journalists produce from government offices. They stay there not because they want to enjoy privilege but because they have to be close to the sources for news the public should know about.
The public can have no direct dialogue with the president, so the press plays an intermediary role. In this sense, the press is a kind of telephone between the public and those in power. The president wants to remove the dial function. He is telling everyone not to mess with him, saying that the government will let them know of what it wants them to know. He says that is normal, rational and the practice of advanced nations.
In fact, Roh is saying, "I acknowledge the public right to know. But the government will decide when and how the public can enjoy that right." Surely that is the most ingenious type of press suppression.
The column was contributed by Chosun Ilbo in-house columnist Kang In-sun.
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