Broadcasting, Media and Communications Review Committee to Fix Controversial Rules to Stop Political Bias

The Broadcasting, Media and Communications Review Committee announced on the 15th that it is moving to improve broadcasting and communication review regulations following controversies over their political misuse.

The targets for revision include the “fairness” clause in the broadcasting review regulations and the “causing social chaos” clause in the communication review regulations.

The committee explained that because the content and judgment criteria of these clauses are too abstract, they have allowed for arbitrary interpretation by review members.

As a result, the committee has faced criticism that these rules were used as a means to stifle online public opinion or reports critical of government policies.

To address this, the committee will form a “Review Regulation Research Team” featuring external experts to draft amendments. They plan to prioritize the revision of controversial clauses after gathering opinions through processes such as public hearings.

Following this, they will sequentially push for a full-scale revision of the review regulations to respond to the rapidly changing media environment.

Additionally, the committee decided to improve the “constant rapid review” procedure, which had sparked “targeted review” controversies during the process of prioritizing specific agendas.

The plan is to increase transparency and accountability by revising the relevant rules so that the basis and necessity for rapid reviews are discussed and decided in open meetings.

Chairman Go Kwang-heon stated, “We can only recover public trust by deriving reasonable review results that align with social common sense, based on clear review regulations and transparent procedures.” He added, “We will restore the independence and objectivity of our reviews by first fixing the regulations and procedures that have caused the most controversy.”