Democratic Party Launches Media Reform Committee, Completes Lineup for Three Major Reforms

Democratic Party Launches Media Reform Special Committee on August 14
Debate Expected on Introducing Punitive Damages for YouTube Content and News Media

With the launch of the Democratic Party of Korea’s Special Committee on Media Reform (Media Reform Special Committee) on August 14, the party led by Representative Jung Cheongrae has now fully established its teams to pursue three major reforms: prosecution, judiciary, and media.

Yonhap News Agency

On the afternoon of the same day, the Democratic Party’s Media Reform Special Committee will hold its inaugural ceremony and first meeting at the National Assembly in Yeouido. The committee will be chaired by Choi Minhee, Chair of the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee. Kim Hyun, the ruling party’s secretary on the same committee, will serve as vice chair, and Noh Jongmyeon, also a member of the committee, will serve as secretary.

The Democratic Party is pushing strongly for media reform. The first bill to pass the National Assembly’s plenary session after Representative Jung took office was the Broadcasting Act, which restructures the governance of public broadcaster KBS. In the plenary session scheduled for later this month, the party also plans to pass the remaining two of the three broadcasting laws-namely, the Broadcasting Culture Promotion Association Act and the Korea Educational Broadcasting System Act.

In line with the party’s stance, the Media Reform Special Committee will seek further media reforms following the passage of the three broadcasting laws. The main legislative focus is expected to be amendments to the Press Arbitration Act and the Information and Communications Network Act, which would introduce punitive damages for YouTube content and news media. On August 7, Chair Choi stated on the radio program "Kim Junil’s News Sympathy" that the committee would discuss whether or not to apply and introduce punitive damages for YouTube and existing news reports. The committee is also expected to discuss follow-up measures to the three broadcasting laws, as well as organizational reforms of the Korea Communications Commission and the Korea Communications Standards Commission.

With the launch of the Media Reform Special Committee on this day, the Democratic Party has now established all the special committees needed to pursue its three major reforms. The Special Committee on Normalizing the Prosecution Service (chaired by Min Hyungbae) was launched on August 6, and the Judicial Reform Special Committee (chaired by Baek Hyeryeon) held its inaugural ceremony on August 12. The Special Committee on Normalizing the Prosecution Service is discussing reforms such as abolishing the prosecution service and separating investigation and indictment functions, while the Judicial Reform Special Committee is considering increasing the number of Supreme Court justices and improving the nomination process. Representative Jung, who has set the goal of completing all three major reforms before Chuseok, is lending his support by attending the inaugural ceremonies of all the special committees, including the Media Reform Special Committee on this day.

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