[Law & Story] The Truth Behind the 'False Interview' Allegations Must Be Uncovered Through Thorough Investigation

Reports Clearly Intended to Influence the Election
‘Fake News’ Production and Amplification Are Enemies of Democracy
Thorough Accountability Is Essential

The interview with ‘Kim Man-bae and Shin Hak-rim’ reported by Newstapa just before the last presidential election has become a hot issue in the political arena.

While the ruling party has called it a ‘monumental presidential election political manipulation’ and even filed complaints against Newstapa and journalists who cited their report, the opposition strongly opposes it, accusing the government of attempting to ‘control the media.’

The media’s reactions are also sharply divided. Some media outlets, raising theories of the ‘Democratic Party’s involvement,’ are demanding a thorough investigation, while those that actively cited Newstapa’s report are framing it as ‘media suppression’ by the current administration.

Let’s look at the matter objectively. The suspicion of a ‘false interview’ arose during the prosecution’s investigation when testimonies related to the Daejang-dong gang and evidence of large-scale money transactions between Mr. Kim and Mr. Shin surfaced. Since it was confirmed that illicit money was exchanged, the prosecution could not avoid investigating.

Above all, the claim that Mr. Shin received 165 million won for three books about his family connections is not logically acceptable. The inconsistency between the ‘book price’ and the ‘publishing rights price’ is proof that the money was originally given for a different purpose.

The two main points reported by Newstapa three days before the election were as follows. First, that Yoon Seok-yeol, the leading opposition candidate, had conducted a lenient investigation of loan broker Jo Woo-hyung during the Busan Savings Bank case when he was a prosecutor. This part was edited provocatively to create a misunderstanding that ‘Yoon Seok-yeol made coffee for Jo Woo-hyung’ through splicing.

Second, that Lee Jae-myung, the then ruling party candidate, was unrelated to the Daejang-dong corruption. Instead, the Daejang-dong corruption stemmed from Yoon’s inadequate investigation of Jo Woo-hyung, who had provided seed money loans to the Daejang-dong gang, effectively shifting the main culprit from Lee Jae-myung to Yoon Seok-yeol.

In short, the report granted a ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’ to the allegation that was the most damaging to candidate Lee, while branding candidate Yoon as a corrupt prosecutor. Whether Newstapa intended it or not, the content inevitably influenced the election directly, playing a significant role in narrowing the polling gap from over 5 percentage points to just 0.73 percentage points about ten days before the election.

The problem is whether Newstapa and the media outlets that cited the report thoroughly verified the interview content before releasing such a sensational news just three days before the election. Newstapa should have at least suspected why Mr. Shin, a professional committee member affiliated with them, handed over the recorded file made six months earlier only five days before the election. Apologizing belatedly after reporting without fully grasping the financial transactions does not exempt them from responsibility.

JTBC is similarly culpable for reporting that candidate Yoon was not the chief prosecutor and that the investigation was unrelated to Daejang-dong, yet portraying Yoon as having conducted a sloppy investigation by making coffee for Jo Woo-hyung. The prosecution’s silence despite the major false report before the election is also not without responsibility.

The process of uncovering the truth of this incident must not be exploited as an opportunity to intimidate media critical of the government, but thorough accountability must be demanded to prevent such incidents from recurring.

The creation of ‘fake news’ to influence elections, as well as the expansion and reproduction of ‘fake news’ knowing it is false, or profiting economically from it, are all enemies of democracy that must be eradicated from our society through this incident.

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