Top politicians from South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s People Power Party have announced new efforts to crack down on the news media by resorting to lawsuits and new regulations to weed out so-called “fake news” outlets. 

The New York Times reported that South Korean journalists have seen their homes and newsrooms raided for allegedly spreading disinformation. The paper noted that Yoon has made a clear effort to align Seoul with the U.S., “but his 18-month-old presidency has been characterized by a near constant clash with the opposition and fears of censorship and democratic backsliding.” 

Yoon’s attack on the media seemed to be kicked off a short time into his term when a hot mic at the UN General Assembly picked him up apparently saying, “Biden will be fucking humiliated if those pricks in Congress don’t pass this,” a reference to legislation that would fund a global health program, The New Yorker reported. 

(Yoon’s office denied a report on the episode that appeared on MBC, a South Korean broadcaster. But he was embarrassed, and months later, the home of the key journalist who reported on the hot mic had her home raided. Yoon, a former prosecutor, also announced a defamation complaint against MBC and journalists there.)

Yoon has been accused of trying to defend an undemocratic crackdown on the press by acting as though he is serving the public by fighting “fake news.”

“It’s dangerous to leave it to the government to decide what fake news is,” Pae Jung Kun, a journalism professor at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul. “It undermines the news media’s ability to hold government to account.”

Yoon’s unfavorable approach to the media is unsurprising to some. 

While he was running for president, Kim Keon-hee, promised to “jail all reporters” who criticized her husband if he became president, according to a recording provided by a phone call with a South Korean reporter, VOA News reported. 

TRENDPOST: It seems Yoon is not only following the U.S. to war with China, but he is also envisioning South Korea to look more like the American media—which has perfected the art of pretending to be independent while doing nothing more than playing the role of the government’s propaganda machine. 

Gerald Celente has long said: “Journalism is dead in America.” (See “LAWSUIT UNVEILS MURKY WEB OF CENSORSHIP AGAINST U.S. CITIZENS” 15 Aug 2023, “TECHNOCENSORSHIP: THE GOVERNMENT’S WAR ON SO-CALLED DANGEROUS IDEAS” 6 Aug 2023, “FAKE NEWS CURATED BY THE DEEP STATE: GOVERNMENT SPIN DOCTORS CONTROL THE NEWS CYCLE.”)

The Times reported that, like the U.S., news outlets in Seoul have “long suffered low public trust, as people viewed them as kowtowing to corporate interests and pandering to partisan bias.”

We reported last month that American trust in the mainstream news hit its lowest point since 2016. (See “AMERICANS NOT BUYING PRESSTITUTE BULLSHIT: TRUST IN MASS MEDIA PLUMMETS” 24 Oct 2023.)

Authorities in Seoul have also raided offices of investigative outlet Newstapa and broadcaster JTBC, Nikkei Asia reported. The report said the raids were tied to a report the two published that accused Yoon of involvement in a real estate corruption case.