Yoo Seung-min: "Yoon Seok-yeol's Appointment of Lee Dong-gwan Aims to Control the Entire Broadcasting Sector"

"Close Your Mouth, Hong Jun-pyo... Why Are You Dragging Me Into This?"

President Yoon Suk-yeol's nomination of Lee Dong-gwan, Special Advisor for External Cooperation at the Presidential Office, as the new Chairman of the Korea Communications Commission was criticized by ruling party presidential candidate former lawmaker Yoo Seung-min as "an attempt to take control of the entire broadcasting sector."

On the 31st, former lawmaker Yoo said on KBS's 'Choi Kyung-young's Strongest Current Affairs,' "President Yoon Suk-yeol is deliberately appointing Lee Dong-gwan as the Chairman of the Korea Communications Commission because I believe this is an attempt to take control of public broadcasters like KBS, MBC, YTN, and especially the entire broadcasting sector."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

He added, "If MBC and KBS had problems in the past, it is fine to change that, but this time, there is no sign of any will to appoint a president or executives who are genuinely wanted by the members and can properly run public broadcasting," and said, "Sending someone like Lee Dong-gwan means they will change the presidents of KBS and MBC, take control of the broadcasting, turn it into a mouthpiece and servant of the regime, and then proceed with the general election."

Former lawmaker Yoo pointed out that every time the regime changes, efforts have been made to seize control of broadcasting. He said, "Our country, democracy, freedom of the press, our society should improve over time as regimes change, but I find this very regrettable," adding, "Before the Kim Dae-jung administration, conservative regimes continuously ruled, so the media was controlled and dominated, but even during the Kim Dae-jung, Roh Moo-hyun, and Moon Jae-in administrations, public broadcasting was seized."

He continued, "At the end of the Park Geun-hye administration, most Democratic Party lawmakers proposed laws to make the governance and management of public broadcasting politically neutral and independent, but after coming to power, they did not implement them," and said, "This is a typical case of double standards. When the ruling and opposition parties change, they completely reverse their positions."

Regarding Lee's statement immediately after his nomination that "South Korea also needs internationally trusted and recognized public broadcasters like the BBC and NHK," Yoo said, "I really laughed. What does someone who came to seize broadcasting have to do with the UK's BBC or Japan's NHK?" and "If they truly intended to do that, they wouldn't have made such a nomination."

In response to Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo's remark, "I dismissed him, but you should take Yoo Seung-min along," Yoo retorted, "Why drag me into this?" Yoo criticized, "The Daegu mayor played golf during the flood disaster, should keep quiet about how wrong that was and reflect, but instead, he did such things. Do you think I would be intimidated and apologize?" and "Then, after a few days, he backed down, and then, feeling wronged, posted something about excessive greed, only to delete the Facebook post a few hours later."

He added, "He usually did not participate in flood relief activities but suddenly went," and "When I see him, as a politician, the credibility of our politicians comes from consistency, but his words are too inconsistent," saying, "He is weak against strong people and strong against weak people. If he really made a mistake, I think it would be better for him to 'keep his mouth shut'."

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