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The Korea Communications Standards Commission on Wednesday ordered broadcaster MBC to apologize to viewers for distortions in the current affairs program ¡°PD Diary¡± that sparked public fears about American beef when it aired on April 29 and May 13. The KOCSC said ¡°PD Diary¡± had violated broadcasting standards on fairness and objectivity.
It pinpointed nine cases where ¡°PD Diary¡± exaggerated the facts and confused viewers by editing material to deliberately misconstrue the facts and make vague information appear as if it were hard fact. It ruled that the areas of exaggeration and distortion which ¡°PD Diary¡± had been passing off as simple oversights or mistakes in translation were deliberately planned.
The KOCSC said ¡°PD Diary¡± mistranslated an interview with the mother of a dead American woman to mislead the viewers that she had died from the human form of mad cow disease, aired footage of a downer cow and only aired the opinion of a certain group -- the U.S. Consumers Union -- on the cattle slaughter system in the U.S. to make it seem as if the cow had mad cow disease, and spread false information that 94 percent of Koreans were vulnerable to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the human form of BSE, based on their genetic make-up.
The only government representative interviewed by the program was a member of Korea¡¯s beef negotiating team, while scores more people were speaking against the Korea-U.S. beef deal, such as experts and those from various civic groups, violating rules of fairness, while in the U.S. no officials were interviewed.
¡°PD Diary¡± is now obliged to air the apology set by the commission. But there is no way such an apology will recompense Koreans for all the groundless fear over mad cow disease that ¡°PD Diary¡± caused among them, from young students to housewives.
¡°PD Diary¡± should air a program telling the truth about mad cow disease at the same length and intensity as its broadcasts that distorted and exaggerated the facts. The fact that not one person in America has come down with vCJD, and the fact that Americans and people in more than 100 countries around the world consume U.S. beef everyday including beef from cattle aged 30 months or older, but have never launched protests over mad cow fears should be reported by the very producer himself who is responsible for spreading such groundless fears in Korea. That is the only way "PD Diary" will be able to atone for its act and apologize to the Korean public.
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