Ex-reporter in South Korea under probe for allegedly bribing news outlet to run ‘anti-Yoon’ story

SEOUL - A former reporter has become the centre of a media bias debate in South Korean politics. This comes after accusations emerged that he paid a journalist working for an independent news outlet in 2022 to carry a damaging story against then-presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol.

The ex-reporter, Kim Man-bae, is described by political insiders as being close to Representative Lee Jae-myung, the current leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Korea who rivalled Mr Yoon in the 2022 presidential election.

Mr Lee Jae-myung is also a key suspect in a spiralling controversy surrounding an urban development project led by then-mayor of Seongnam Lee. Mr Lee Jae-myung was the largest shareholder of an asset management company that made major investments in Mr Seongnam Lee’s city project.

Several of Mr Lee Jae-myung’s aides are either under investigation or already facing trial over suspicions they were handed insider information and favours to illicitly profit from the city project.

On Wednesday, Seoul prosecutors searched the home and office of Kim. If the allegations against him are true, Kim would be in violation of anti-graft laws.

Prosecutors who asked the court for an arrest for Kim, said their investigations revealed that he told the so-called informants, to give interviews portraying Mr Lee Jae-myung’s as being innocent and Mr Yoon as suspicious.

In one of the phone calls, Kim was heard telling another of Mr Lee Jae-myung’s confidant, “all of us are in this together with Lee Jae-myung”.

In a statement on Tuesday, Newstapa admitted that one of its staffers, who no longer works there, received a whopping 165 million won (S$169,000) in return for doing the story.

The article painted Mr Yoon as having a major role in the Seongnam project, from which Mr Lee Jae-myung aides supposedly profited from. The outlet, however, claimed it was unaware, at the time, of the exchange of money. They also maintained they did not know that Kim had close ties to Mr Lee Jae-myung.

The emerging details about Kim, who was a longtime reporter covering the justice systems, and how he supposedly tried to help Mr Lee Jae-myung in the 2022 presidential election through the news story, have fuelled the ruling People Power Party’s complaints about bias in the media.

The ruling party held a meeting on Wednesday, where its floor leader Representative Yun Jae-ok characterised Kim paying for an anti-Yoon story “a possible election crime that could have led to grave consequences”.

The floor leader said the recent suspicions showed members of the press and suspects in the real estate controversy “colluded to sway or even rig the election in a way that could have clouded voter sentiments with made up claims”.

He said that the ruling party would be organising a task force to look into the scope of the suspected collusion between some media outlets and the Democratic Party of Korea presidential campaign, in addition to the criminal investigation that is underway.

Mr Lee Jae-myung, who is on day seven of a hunger strike protesting what he calls a “Yoon dictatorship,” said in a radio interview on Wednesday that the People Power Party too had circulated malicious stories against him over the presidential race.

“The other party linked me to gangster groups during the race, which I think amounts to election rigging,” he said.

During a closed-door briefing on Tuesday, a senior Yoon official said the suspicions surrounding the opposition leader and the ex-reporter were “the worst fake news” from 2022.

Such instances “mar the sanctity and credibility of our election processes,” the official told reporters. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK