As a vigorous, debate-filled democracy becomes entrenched here, South Korea is rapidly dismantling the press club system, an enduring symbol of the collusive relationship between the government and the news media.
Starting a year ago at the presidential offices, known as the Blue House, press clubs -- in which reporters from major media outlets excluded other journalists and decided what to report, sometimes in conjunction with government officials -- have been eliminated in one government office after another. Where they survive, as in Seoul's Police Department, they are expected to go soon.
Instead, shiny new briefing rooms have been built, their doors flung open to all. Although journalists and government officials are still groping for a new balance in their relationship, most believe that the changes will lead to the emergence of something rare in East Asia: A fiercely independent press.
The dismantling of the deep-rooted press club system, a vestige of the Japanese colonial rule that ended in 1945, resulted from the confluence of several events.
In 2002, President Roh Moo-hyun was elected despite the fierce opposition of traditional outlets, especially conservative newspapers and television networks.
At the same time, Internet-based alternative sources of information, popular among the young and generally supportive of Roh, have emerged as rivals to the traditional media here in the world's most wired nation.
The speed of the change is particularly stunning because, in Japan, the press club system survives intact. Hyun Seung-yoon, 39, a reporter for The Korea Economic Daily and the former vice president of the Finance Ministry's press club, which was abolished on Dec. 29, said that in the past the government and the media were united.
"Fundamentally, it's better now," Hyun said.
"It's healthier now. The relationship that existed before was a collusive one," he said.
When Roh came to power a year and a half ago, a priority was to make the government's relationship with the media more open, and to give "equal opportunity to all media," said Jung Soon-kyun, the minister of the government information agency, who traveled to the US, Japan, Germany and Britain to study how each government dealt with the media.
The press club system had allowed the big media outlets to "monopolize information" and sometimes "offer and receive personal favors," said the minister, a former reporter.
For Roh, a political outsider who had not won the backing of the mainstream media during his election campaign, the abolition of the press club system also worked to his political advantage.
Under the old system, members of the major news outlets controlled membership and expelled organizations that failed to abide by club rules. The club decided, sometimes through a senior member acting as a liaison with the government, what news to focus on, what to play down or, in some cases, what to suppress.
The government paid for all the expenses the press club incurred, including phone bills, and even provided a secretary for the members.
Until a few years ago, the government also paid for the reporters' air fare, hotel bills and other expenses whenever the president traveled.
Under the new system, the government charges each reporter assigned to the Blue House about US$50 a month to cover various fees. With reporters for any news organization, big or small, free to register, the number of Blue House reporters has increased to more than 300 from 90.
Press clubs exist all over the country, from the Blue House to the ministries to police precincts, said Lee Jae-kyoung, a journalism professor at Ewha Womans University and a former television reporter.
"The loser was always going to be the reader, the people's right to know," Lee said.
Years ago, when Lee was a cub reporter covering a police precinct, the press club discovered some bad news involving a local tea manufacturer, he said. Instead of reporting the news, the club's senior members met with company officials, pocketed some cash and then treated the club members to a lavish dinner and drinks, he said.
South Korea's press club system, like its bureaucracy and legal systems, was a holdover from Japanese colonialism, said Youn Jung-suk, a professor at the Sejong Institute specializing in Japan-Korea relations.
After the end of World War II and the end of Japanese colonialism, South Korea's US occupiers decided to retain the press club system.
"It was easy to control Korea through this system," Youn said.
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