This essay examines how South Korea’s mainstream media, seized by the left, distorted facts and glorified mass protests.
Through a dialogue between Yoshiko Sakurai and Hong Young, it argues that restoring media to truth and liberal democracy is the key to Korea’s transformation.

If Media Used as a Tool of Revolution Are Normalized, Korea Will Change
2017-02-08

When I wrote that I was genuinely astonished while reading last month’s issue of Voice, it was because of the following passage from a dialogue feature between Yoshiko Sakurai and Hong Young, editor-in-chief of Tongil Ilbo.
Although South Korea may be described as a country that subjects its children to laughable totalitarian indoctrination—teaching them from the outset that the Korean people are the most superior ethnic group in the world—and raises them through anti-Japanese education, it is nevertheless a nation of 50 million people.
Therefore, it should not be surprising that at least one person like Mr. Hong exists.
Even so, I was astonished to learn that someone with a truly normal intellect existed.

(Emphasis in the original text is mine.)

Hong:

To those who were shouting “Down with Park Geun-hye” during the candlelight demonstrations, I want to ask this one question.
Isn’t it not the Park administration that you truly must bring down, but rather Kim Jong-un’s regime in Pyongyang?
Should not the real objective of action by the Korean people be the human rights of the oppressed residents of the North?
If the Korean people are to light candles, they must be demonstrations that urge the government and the entire nation to rise up in order to save the 20 million compatriots in the North who are being killed even at this very moment.
And yet, Chosun Ilbo, a newspaper that claims to represent South Korea, did not criticize pro–North Korean forces.
Instead, it took the lead in inciting the candlelight demonstrations and inflated the number of participants from about 200,000 to 2 million.
Can newspapers and television stations that fabricate figures by a factor of ten truly be called legitimate media?
After seeing this coverage, I decided to cancel my long-standing subscription to Chosun Ilbo.
When I called to cancel, I expected them to plead with me to continue my subscription, but the person on the other end simply said, “Understood.”
At first, I thought my expectations had been misplaced, but then I realized it was because there were simply too many cancellation calls like mine.
The righteous anger of ordinary, sensible people toward the media is now enveloping all of South Korea.
After all, Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo, and the television networks triggered this so-called “media uprising,” and every media outlet seized by the left conspired in unison to incite and glorify a “popular revolution.”
Like political reporting produced by Japan’s press club system, it is not even worth reading as news.
One source of hope is that a movement to create “new newspapers” has begun in South Korea.
If nearly all media have become strongholds for regime overthrow and are inciting mob politics, then those who believe in truth and liberal democracy should launch newspapers of their own and solicit small donations from people of conscience.
If media that have become tools of revolution under the left are normalized once again, South Korea will surely change.