Politicians should not interfere in the appointment or dismissal of presidents of major television networks, the nominee for the nation’s broadcasting regulator said Wednesday.
Lee Kyeong-jae, a four-term lawmaker and close aide to President Park Geun-hye, was nominated to lead the Korea Communications Commission late last month.
“I think it would be improper for politicians to tell broadcasting stations to do this or that over their internal matters,” Lee said during a parliamentary confirmation hearing.
He was answering questions from opposition lawmakers as to whether the president of major all-news cable channel YTN should be pushed to quit as the last remaining heads of major broadcasting companies named by former president Lee Myung-bak.
He also expressed hope that the next president of the nation’s largest public broadcaster KBS will be selected from KBS employees, if possible, without intervention from the government.
During the hearing, legislators intensively grilled Lee over possible measures to secure the fairness of broadcast journalism.
Lee disagreed when opposition lawmakers claimed that the nomination of a close presidential confidant to the KCC’s top post requiring political neutrality was wrong.
“I think I’m neither an aide to President Park nor a powerful person. I can hardly agree to the idea that I will damage the fairness of broadcasting just because I’m close to her,” he said.
Lee graduated from Seoul National University and worked for a local newspaper as a reporter for more than 20 years. He entered politics in the 1990s, taking several positions in the presidential office and then served as a ruling party lawmaker from 1996 until 2012. (Yonhap News)
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
