Tag: Hankyoreh

President Moon Reportedly One of the Original Founders of the Hankyoreh Newspaper

| January 31, 2019

Here is an interesting tidbit about President Moon, he supposedly help fund the creation of the left wing Hankyoreh newspaper back in the 1980’s to help get favorable coverage for himself and former President Roh Moo-hyun:

Moon Jae-In, right rear with glasses wearing Hankyoreh ribbon and leaning back.

South Korean President Moon Jae-In was among a group of investors who made large donations in the 1980s to establish the left-wing Hankyoreh Media Group, a report said.
Moon gave 200 million won ($552,000 in 2019 dollars) to the media group, which established the far-left Hankyoreh newspaper in 1987, according to a Jan. 28 report by East Asia Research Center.

The report also noted that Moon was the only one of the original investment group to not be refunded his donation.
Moon “purposely did not get the money back, the only one to refuse to take back the money,” the report said. (…….)

The report said: “In the late 1980s, when Hankyoreh, centered around dismissed journalists from Donga Ilbo andChosun Ilbo, started to raise funds to start a newspaper, [Moon] gave 200,000,000 won without any hesitation.  But at the time, Moon Jae-In, then a lawyer, was not in a position to readily give the 200,000,000 won.  He didn’t have that much money, living in an apartment with 2,000,000 won ($5,520) ‘Jeonse’ [refundable down payment, no monthly rent]. But Moon was determined to make a good press and obtained a loan to make the generous contribution. Thanks to Moon and 20,000 investors, Hankyoreh newspaper raised 5,000,000,000 won ($13.8 million) and printed 500,000 initial copies.”


Song In-Bae, Moon’s longtime associate and current chief personal secretary, was quoted in the report as saying: “Hankyoreh started to return the money to everyone, but there is one person to whom the money was not returned, and that is Moon Jae-In…Hankyoreh wants to return the money, but he still refused to accept.”
Song also stated that Moon gave the money in order for Hankyoreh to establish a branch in Busan, where Moon and Rho Moo-Hyun had their law office and were active politically. Rho, South Korea’s president from 2003-2008, died in 2009.
On April 9, 2017 when Moon was a presidential candidate, he said to a Hankoyreh journalist: “I think Hankyoreh has love for me and my party. I hope you remember that I’m a founding member of Hankyoreh.”

World Tribune

You can read more at the link as well as over at the East Asia Research Center.

Hankyoreh Editors Publishes Open Letter to the New York Times Complaining About Bias

| December 7, 2018

The Executive Editor for the Hankyoreh, Kim Jong-gu has written an open letter to the New York Times complaining about their bias against President Trump:

Kim Jong-gu

But as I read the newspaper’s reporting, I discovered that the Times’ reputation wasn’t grounded in fact. The pages of the newspaper were swamped with articles that openly supported Kerry. I also sincerely wanted Bush to lose the race, but the Times’ one-sided reporting made the allegations of bias in the South Korean press look like small potatoes.  (…………….)

As a South Korean citizen, however, I can’t help noticing a paradox: President Trump’s outsider status, his profound hostility to the foreign policy establishment, and his gambler-like drive to win have in fact improved the chances of peace on the Korean Peninsula. I find Trump’s unfiltered language, his wild behavior and his arrogant egotism as disgusting as anyone else. But there’s one thing for which he deserves credit, and that’s his boldness in negotiating with North Korea.

The Times is widely regarded as a progressive-leaning newspaper. Progressives believe in peace; they believe in reconciliation and win-win arrangements, not confrontation and quarrels. Obviously, it will be very difficult to bring about North Korea’s denuclearization and impossible to predict the outcome. Just as obviously, it’s the job of the press to offer a clear-headed analysis of these efforts and raise concerns when they fall short.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read more at the link, but it is a bit laughable that the Hankyoreh is complaining about bias when they are well known for being the most left wing biased major newspaper in South Korea.

I did find this statement quite entertaining from the article: “Progressives believe in peace; they believe in reconciliation and win-win arrangements, not confrontation and quarrels.”  Are South Korean conservative journalists thrown in jail for disagreeing with President Moon a sign of liberal “reconciliation”?  Is using labor unions to attack conservatives something that should be considered non-confrontational?  I could go on and on about the hypocrisy in the article which just shows the Hankyoreh should be the last newspaper in South Korea to complain about bias anywhere else.