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It was the first time in 48 years that the managing and chief news editors from the divergent spectrum of Korea’s press met to defend press freedom. The last time was on April 30, 1959 when the Kyunghyang Shinmun was closed down by the Liberal Party-led administration. Attending Thursday's emergency meeting were managing and chief news editors of 43 media companies, including the Chosun, DongA, JoongAng, Hankook, Busan and Jeonnam Ilbo, the Maeil Newspaper, Yonhap News Agency, SBS, CBS, MBN and YTN. Also attending were the chairmen and executive members of the Korea News Editors Association.

The managing and chief news editors from newspapers, broadcasters, and news agencies nationwide hold an emergency meeting at the Press Center in downtown Seoul on Thursday.

The editors denounced the press controls, which include merging press rooms into a handful of centralized briefing centers and restricting access to officials. "Military dictators in the past attempted to ban the press from publishing what they had already covered. But the current government is attempting to block media coverage of government offices and access to government officials at source, which is a worse suppression of the press than during the military dictatorships,” they said.

Byun Yong-shik, the KNEA chairman who is from the Chosun Ilbo, said, "The government's threat to the freedom of the press is getting to a point where we can no longer tolerate it." DongA Ilbo managing editor and KNEA steering committee head Im Chae-chung, who chaired the meeting, said, "The urgent question is whether we can defend the media companies’ right to survival and the public's right to know, regardless of each media company's position or policy."

The editors unanimously adopted the resolution. "We'll hold the public officials involved responsible before history for having formulated and implemented an anti-democratic press control policy. We demand that the president sternly call them to account in consideration of the seriousness of the situation." The editors agreed to establish a special committee to formulate a speedy response unless the government scraps the controls. They also agreed to review news coverage by reporters and try to improve it.

(englishnews@chosun.com )