Korea's Mute Press

From the back of the crowded, floodlit assembly room in Seoul's government headquarters came the question that was on everybody's mind. "Are you aware, General Pak," a Korean reporter ventured hesitatingly, "that the newspapers are afraid to criticize you?" Major General Pak Chung Hi, the flinty, gimlet-eyed boss of the junta that seized power in May, snapped back impatiently: "This is the first time I have heard of it. If this allegation is true, it is because you journalists are chicken-hearted."

Last week South Korea's press, which serves a nation of 24.5 million people, readily conceded the point to Pak. "He was asking for a martyr's courage," said Editor Pu Wan Hyuk of the Chosun Ilbo. "We cannot expect reporters to be revolutionaries." Asked a reporter: "How can you tell the precise dividing line between constructive criticism and anti-revolutionary slander? It's better to stay on the safe side."

The fact is that South Korea's newspapers, after a year of heady freedom under ousted Premier John M. Chang, are thoroughly cowed. Hard put to scrape up news that will not offend the tough, jaunty officers who run the country, they dutifully print government handouts verbatim, sometimes run ads two or three times, at no extra charge, simply to fill space. Fortnight ago, when the respected Hankook Ilbo indiscreetly printed a telegram criticizing retired U.S. General James A. Van Fleet's visit at the junta's invitation (TIME, July 28), it was ordered to run off the rest of the edition with the story blacked out.

Under such pressure, South Korea's newspaper staffs have shrunk from a peak of 100,000 during Chang's regime to 15,000. Many reporters under 31 years of age have been fired on orders from the junta so that they can be drafted into the army and the National Construction Corps. Despite it all, few Koreans are sympathetic to the plight of the press. It has engineered its own ruin.

Abused to Abusive. When iron-fisted ex-Newspaperman Syngman Rhee was deposed from the presidency last year, the newspapers were given more freedom than they had ever enjoyed in the history of the Hermit Kingdom. They promptly ran wild. Themselves abused in the past, they suddenly became outrageously abusive. New publications and agencies proliferated; at one time there were 128 dailies and 311 news agencies, many run by shady operators who never published a single issue but used them as fronts for smuggling operations, black-marketeering or blackmail. Reporters, paid $30 to $40 a month, were ordered to exhume scandals concerning government officials and army officers, then to extort money from them with the threat of publication. Newspapers were choked with unsubstantiated reports, rumors and wildly intemperate criticism of the government. Said one disgusted U.S. embassy official: "Any front page in this country can be bought."

Sensitive Country Boy: Thanks largely to the persistent shrill of newspaper criticism, Premier Chang was unable to develop a base of public support, was fair game for the tough and impatient army officers. The junta wasted no time in swooping down on the rampant press, quickly outlawed 76 newspapers and 305 agencies, imprisoned 200 bogus newsmen. Chastised, the press now ventures only mild jabs at the junta and completely avoids direct criticism of Pak.* We don't think we should go too far in criticizing the military government, because keeping the business going is more important than speaking out and possibly going out of business," said Chosun Ilbo Editor Pu in a forthright defense of pusillanimity. Said another leading editor: "We have a country boy running Korea now. He's not sophisticated. There's no sense in getting him sore."

* Anxious to stay in Pak's good graces, Korea's English-language press last week quickly modified the spelling of his name to Park Chung Hee when he let it be known that he wanted it to appear that way in English.

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