South Korea
New ‘press-friendly’ policy proposedPosted Apr 19 2008
New President Lee Myung-bak said April 4 he would implement a “press-friendly policy” as part of new legislation set to increase media autonomy. He did not say when this law would be drafted.
The new law will replace the former Newspaper Law enacted in 2005, which prevented print media from owning shares of broadcast media and prohibited broadcast companies from infringing on other organizations’ territory. The Newspaper Law received criticism for allowing monopolistic newspapers to drive smaller newspapers out of the market, Kim Joo-eun, general secretary of the Korea Commission for the Press, told The Korea Times. Parts of the law were ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court in 2006, yet the law still remains.
Myung-bak said the new legislation would consider advances in technology, especially media convergence. He also said the law will improve financial problems newspapers have been facing in the past few decades. This newspaper legislation was part of Myung-bak’s presidential campaign.