Defense Media Agency Faces Multiple Audit Criticisms Including 'Daytime Drinking Staff'

Ministry of National Defense Audit Finds National Defense TV Anchor Interview Violated Regulations in Screening Committee Formation

The Defense Media Agency received a series of cautionary and warning measures from the Ministry of National Defense audit. The Defense Media Agency is responsible for fostering the mental strength of military personnel and operates media outlets such as Defense TV and Defense Daily.

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According to the Ministry of National Defense on the 26th, the Ministry’s audit office conducted a large-scale audit of the Defense Media Agency last month. The audit revealed that the New Media Defense News Team conducted interviews for two Navy applicants for active-duty anchor reporter positions in December last year. Although both applicants scored above the passing threshold of 60 points, no candidates were selected, and the interview evaluation was redone two hours later. As a result, both applicants scored below the passing score of 60 and were deemed unqualified. According to the “Defense Media Agency Active-Duty Anchor Selection and Service Management Guidelines,” the screening committee must include external members, but the Defense Media Agency violated this by forming the committee solely with four internal staff members.

However, the New Media Defense News Team did not inform the Ministry of National Defense of these facts, did not record the initial interview results in the record registration ledger, and discarded them internally. Regarding the reason for redoing the interview evaluation, employee A, who conducted the interview procedure at the time, explained that the evaluation should have been based on three materials: anchor commentary video, article reading video, and articles written by the applicants, but due to a staff error, the evaluation was conducted using only the anchor commentary video.

The Ministry of National Defense Audit Office judged this as a violation of Article 56 of the National Public Service Act concerning the duty of sincerity and requested the head of the Defense Media Agency to issue an “institutional warning” to the New Media Defense News Team.

Excessive drinking by Defense Media Agency employees was also pointed out. Employees B and C were reported to the Ministry of National Defense for being photographed sleeping at their desks during working hours, and the audit confirmed this was true. The Audit Office requested the agency head to issue warnings and cautionary measures to the two employees.

Regarding employee D, a report was received that after excessive drinking during lunch break, they returned smelling of alcohol, causing difficulties for surrounding employees to perform their duties normally. The audit confirmed this fact. D was also found to have caused controversy by posting a lengthy message criticizing other employees unrelated to work in the KakaoTalk work group chat late at night. The Audit Office requested cautionary measures for D.

Additionally, due to habitual failure to comply with work start times and lunch breaks and other poor work discipline, the Audit Office requested dozens of warnings and cautionary measures. The Defense Media Agency has recently been embroiled in controversies over primarily employing non-regular workers, allegations of power abuse, unfair dismissals, mocking soldiers involved in flood recovery, and repeated broadcasting accidents.

The Ministry of National Defense stated, “The Ministry conducted a service audit of the Defense Media Agency and plans to conduct a public service discipline inspection in the second half of the year.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.