So often one opinion stands against another: South Korea's opposition party has accused the government that by launching a tax investigation and audit on the media it is waging a war against the press. The government retorts the tax investigation is a routine matter, and the National Tax Service is doing nothing but its job.
Much has been said in this seemingly endless debate about the role of the media and its relationship with the government.
One of the more shocking remarks emanated from the lips of a prominent politician with presidential ambitions. This minister said: "It is time for the politicians to wage war on the press.
"I had to read this sentence several times to actually believe what I saw in black on white. This is unacceptable from a fundamentally democratic point of view and one must ask whether the author was in full control of his senses as he spoke. In the present spat over the Korean media, the protagonists apply belligerent vocabulary: It is hardly a good sign for the quality of the political culture when the adversaries use military terms in their communication.
But the debate is not about style, although I think this always plays a role. The ongoing debate is mainly about political substance: It is no easy task for a foreigner to comment on this matter, or to consider as a benchmark in this discussion the state of media relations in so-called advanced democracies. Obviously, the standards regarding the South Korean press are very different: In Germany all media companies pay taxes. Whenever there is doubt about the accuracy of the fiscal declaration, it goes without saying that the tax authorities are obliged to investigate.
"The situation is very different in Korea. You have to judge the relationship between media and government under the light of historic experiences," says a friend at the Korea Press Foundation in Seoul.
Little doubt, tax audits have a miserable reputation here. This is not to say that tax auditors are popular in other parts of the world, but here audits often do not result in clear-cut legal solutions, but come to an end with some sort of financial, if not political, compromise. These compromises may well be called tradeoffs, and it is an open secret that, in the past, also Korean media companies were involved in such giving and taking.
The picture of arbitrary political dealings with the press was confirmed recently by the former president of the republic. While in Japan, ex-president Kim Young-sam caused a stir saying had he disclosed the results of the tax audit done in 1994, grave things would have happened. He therefore refrained from making the information public, thus participating in a cover-up of illegal practices. Kim Young-sam said he could not pretend the audit had not discovered anything at all, so he ordered the press organizations to be fined "a little."
This truly remarkable episode, which says a lot about the relationship between the media and the Blue House in the past, was reported extensively in the Korean press.
The account illustrates, what many Koreans know: the government disregards the very laws which it has the constitutional duty to safeguard. This being a general perception, there is little wonder that the people have but limited trust in the government and -- even more challenging -- the rule of law.
The apprehension of the media companies regarding the government's intentions is comprehensible. This is all the more so, as the tax investigations were launched shortly after President Kim Dae-jung announced he is considering a media reform. It is always problematic if governments decide to meddle with the media.
One can only hope that this important debate will be conducted in a more responsible manner than it has been so far. There have been numerous exaggerations on all sides. It is unreasonable to attack the government for the sole reason that it conducts a tax investigation. It is equally unreasonable to defame this investigation as a scheme intended at taming the press, or saying that implies the media are responsive to extortion.
It always takes two sides for blackmail to succeed: the blackmailer and the blackmailed. A media company, or any company, is only responsive to extortion if indeed it has something to hide.
Dr Ronald Meinardus is the resident representative of the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation in Seoul and a commentator on Korean affairs.
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