KOREA: 'Media five' crusades for media bills

National Assembly GNP representatives La Kyung-won, Ko Heung-kil, Choung Byoung-gug, Kim Hyong-o and Choi See-joong are the "media five" who are pushing for passage of cross-media ownership bill

The Korea Times
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Five figures in the ruling camp, dubbed the "media five," have pushed for the passage of disputed media bills to allow newspapers and chaebol to own broadcast and cable news networks.

Rep. La Kyung-won, the governing Grand National Party (GNP)'s representative for inter-party negotiations on the bills, is one of them.

The four others are Rep. Ko Heung-kil, chairman of the National Assembly Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee; Rep. Choung Byoung-gug, an architect of the media bills; National Assembly Speaker Kim Hyong-o; and Choi See-joong, chairman of Korea Telecommunications Commission.

La expressed her interest in the media bills and educational policy, shortly after being appointed to lead a subpanel of the party's policy committee.

She told her fellow lawmakers at the time that she was willing to take control of the two most controversial policy areas which many leaders probably would not prefer.

Her proposal got the nod from her fellow lawmakers.

"She herself chose the tough job because she wanted to become a newsmaker with more media exposure," a party insider, who asked not to be named, told The Korea Times.

"La knew that the media bills and educational policy were the two major areas where bipartisan agreement was really hard to come by. There was an opportunity in the tough job though. She might have calculated that she can demonstrate her leadership and capabilities if a bipartisan deal was made due to her efforts. She saw the job as a springboard for her political ambitions," said the source.

La doesn't hide her ambition, saying in an interview that she was interested in running in next year's local election for Seoul mayor on the GNP's ticket.

A recent poll taken by an Internet media group found 5.7 percent of respondents answered the judge-turned-lawmaker was qualified for the job. Incumbent Mayor Oh Se-hoon's support stood at 26.6 percent in the poll, indicating that La has a lot of work to do to make a realistic bid.

Kim, who dropped his GNP membership last year to run in the election for speaker, is also known to be eager to see the passage of the disputed bills.

He urged the floor leaders of the GNP, the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) and the Liberty Forward Party to reach a bipartisan agreement over the status of the media bills on March 2.

The three parties agreed to deliberate the bills thoroughly for 100 days after forming a bipartisan committee and to vote on the measures in June.

"Initially, the GNP opposed the plan to have a 100-day deliberation period but agreed to do so after Kim pledged to take every possible measure to move the measures forward in June," another GNP source said.

Culture Committee Chairman Ko, meanwhile, invoked his power to table the measures at committee in February, amid criticism from the opposition parties. The third-term lawmaker had worked at JoongAng Daily as an editor-in-chief before joining the National Assembly.

Political analysts say the newspaper is most active and eager among certain newspapers when it comes to their efforts to find business opportunities in television.

Choung, who is an architect of the GNP-led media bills, made an unsuccessful bid to become chairman of the culture committee last year. Ko won the race.

KTC Chairman Choi, who had worked with the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper from 1965 to 1994, is also an advocate of print media and chaebol being allowed to own cable networks.

Date Posted: 7/21/2009