Amid allegations of manipulative reporting, KBS News has clarified its stance that it was a “re-recording for clarification purposes.”
A KBS official told Hankyung.com on the 24th that, in response to the controversy over the re-recording of KBS 1TV’s ‘News 9’ anchor Lee So-jung’s comments, “We corrected the news anchor’s comments that were broadcast the previous day through the closing comments of ‘News 9’ on the 19th.” “There was a part of the content delivered by the anchor that needed some supplementary explanation, so we corrected the comments and re-recorded the video to correct it.”
The news was about the investigation of the Democratic Trade Union Confederation and the one-night rally that was broadcast on the 18th.
At the time, anchor Lee So-jung said, “The police called the construction union’s one-night rally illegal a few days ago and said they would punish it strongly. However, controversy arose over which parts of the rally violated the Assembly and Demonstration Act, and the police were unable to provide a clear answer.”
Later, the KBS Broadcasters’ Federation and the KBS Workers’ Union took issue with Lee’s comments, pointing out that “the police had given specific examples of which acts of the Democratic Trade Union Confederation’s construction union rally violated the Gypsy Act in a back-briefing on the same day토토사이트.”
In addition, the text of the report introduced by anchor Lee So-jung on the same day stated, “Police Chief Yoon Hee-geun (who received complaints of traffic jams and noise related to the construction union rally held in the center of Seoul for two days and two nights from the 16th) announced that the construction union rally would be declared illegal and punished.” “The grounds for declaring the rally illegal are road occupation, noise, and failure to comply with dispersal orders,” he said.
The KBS in-house press bulletin also published a post titled, ‘Anchor Lee So-jung’s comment on punishment for construction union rallies is a clear misinformation,’ stating, “According to several articles on the same day, the police provided specific examples of how the construction union’s actions at the all-night rally violated the Gypsy Act through a back briefing, and even the text of the report introduced by the anchor stated, ‘The grounds for illegality include road occupation, noise, and failure to comply with dispersal orders.'”
In response, the KBS Broadcasters’ Federation and KBS Union claimed in a statement, “When reporter A pointed out the problem of anchor Lee So-jung’s anchor comment that was biased against the Korean Trade Union Confederation, the anchor comment screen was quickly replaced the next day.”
In addition, the KBS union said, “If you watch the replay of KBS ‘News 9’ as of the 23rd, you can see that the anchor’s clothes are different.” “Not only the clothes are different, but the anchor’s comments are different,” they said.
“Looking at the change in clothes, it seems that the new recording was made after the fact, not on the same day,” he said, adding, “It’s not enough that they didn’t admit the error, but why did they cover it up and fabricate it as if there was no problem historically.”
The Fair Media Committee of the People’s Power said in a statement on the 24th, “KBS ‘News 9’ tried to play it off as a pun rather than an apology in the closing comments of the news on the 19th. Without clearly stating that the report was false, it went on to say, ‘We reported that the police were unable to answer which part of the rally was illegal, which is limited to the police announcement that similar rallies will be banned if there is a history of illegal rallies.'” “It also did not disclose that the video was altered at all,” the committee said, calling it a ‘grotesque fabricated report.
“What responsibility will KBS President Kim Eui-chul take for false reporting and covering up misinformation,” he said, adding, “The People’s Power will not tolerate this.”