Eulji Foundation Chairman Controversy Over 3,000 Drug Prescriptions in 4 Years

Politics "Drug Offenders Eyeing Broadcasters" Criticism
"Foundation Approval Caused Trouble... Broadcasting Commissioner's Neglect of Duty"

As Eulji Academy under the Eulji Foundation attempts to change the largest shareholder of Yonhap News TV, Chairman Park Jun-young (65) of the foundation is embroiled in controversy for having been prescribed narcotic painkillers thousands of times through medical staff affiliated with the foundation's medical corporation.

According to the broadcasting industry and Yonhap News on the 19th, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) announced that at the plenary meeting held on the 16th, the school corporation Eulji Academy applied for approval of the change of the largest shareholder of Yonhap News TV.

Park Jun-young, Chairman of the Eulji Foundation.
Photo by Yonhap News

Accordingly, the KCC plans to form a review committee soon. Since this is an approval review for the change of the largest shareholder of a news-specialized channel with significant social influence, important review criteria will likely include whether the public responsibility and fairness of broadcasting can be realized.

Meanwhile, in political circles, voices of criticism are rising, citing Chairman Park’s history of narcotics use, arguing that he is disqualified from owning a news-specialized channel that must bear the 'public responsibility of broadcasting.'

Chairman Park was indicted on charges of illegally receiving and using the narcotic pethidine in collusion with doctors at hospitals operated by Eulji Hospital, a medical corporation under the Eulji Foundation, and in November 2018, he was sentenced in the first trial to 1 year and 6 months in prison with a 3-year probation period for violating the Narcotics Control Act.

In August 2019, the second trial court accepted Chairman Park’s argument that the Narcotics Control Act only stipulates punishment for those who issue narcotic prescriptions for non-work purposes, and thus the recipient could not be punished as a co-principal offender, acquitting him. The prosecution appealed, but in October 2019, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal.

On the 17th, Kwon Chil-seung, senior spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Korea, stated at a National Assembly briefing, "Chairman Park is a narcotics offender against whom the Yoon Seok-yeol administration has declared war," adding, "It was revealed that he was administered the narcotic painkiller pethidine 3,161 times."

Senior spokesperson Kwon criticized the Eulji Foundation as "a disqualified company with a history of narcotics, power abuse, and speculative investment, not a normal enterprise," and stated, "We cannot hand over the management rights of a broadcasting company to a narcotics offender and power-abusing speculator who has significant disqualifications for owning a broadcasting company."

Additionally, Professor Lee Chang-hyun, a media major at Kookmin University and former member of the KCC Broadcasting Evaluation Committee, said, "When changing the controlling shareholder of a news-specialized channel, the company and owner must undergo a strict public evaluation, including compliance with social responsibility and morality, as with establishing a new news-specialized channel," adding, "In the case of the Eulji Foundation, having caused moral controversies, unilaterally changing the largest shareholder without social consensus would destroy the entire media publicness ecosystem and constitute dereliction of duty by the KCC commissioners, which could be grounds for impeachment."

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