Korean media cope with changing times

This year, media representatives from Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Egypt were selected by Kwanhun Club and the Korea Press Foundation to join their six-week press fellowship programme under the theme of "Korea, Establishing Partnership with Global Community".

Media experts from Korea University and news organisations said the Korean media industry started booming since 1988, the turning point for press freedom, with the war of anti-government and pro-government forces.

The sector has been growing fast until now thanks to freedom of the press and the great telecommunication infrastructure that claims to be one of the most advanced telecommunication platforms in the world.

With the increasing use of the Internet and the arrival of the digital age, traditional media particularly television, newspaper, radio, and cable TV are being transformed to synergise with multimedia. It is also a tough time for many of the old players.

Kyun Mi Kim, deputy director of Seoul Shinmun newspaper, said most of the people in Korea wanted to consume news and information from their devices instead of the old mainstream media.

This trend reflects directly to related businesses such as advertising, music, entertainment, and online TV programmes. One of the big changes that can be seen is the empty billboard screens at train stations and public areas, as advertising moves to devices to reach the audience.

"Commuters no longer look at advertising on screen in public places. Instead, they concentrate on their mobile phones or devices so advertisers realise that phubbing is killing billboard advertising," Se Jung Choi, a professor of media and communication at Korea University, said.

According to statistics, newspaper readership declined from 82 per cent in 2002 to 30 per cent in 2014. Meanwhile, out-of-home media and outdoor ads are growing because people spend more time outside homes.

With the changing media landscape, old media such as television, newspaper as well online media are moving to survive by diversifying their content to reach their audience or providing more investigative stories and hard news to readers via old and new media.

For instance, Chosun, one of top three newspapers in Korea, was the first to make available its newspaper content on mobile phone. It is synergising with online companies providing online content along with printed version in order to maintain readers. The newspaper has an audience of up to 10 million per day from all channels.

In 2000, a citizen-based online newspaper, Ohmynews, was established for providing investigative news. It was a huge success from its crowd-sourcing tactics. It is estimated that more than 5,000 people work as online journalists in Korea. In order to maintain an audience and stay in the business, some of the major newspapers will extend the retirement age of their journalists starting from next year, as newspapers need experienced journalists to do investigative reports and big data journalism.

Sung Tae Kim, a well-known professor at Korea University, noted that "Big data is the next frontier of competition. Journalists are needed to work based on data and that is happening at some TV stations in Korea."

Not every Korean needs hard news. A lot of them prefer to consume soft news and some other programmes like drama, singing contest, sports, and cooking. This may be due to high pressure from daily work.

Experts said that despite the freedom enjoyed by Korean media organisations in reporting, it seems that most of them are being controlled by Chaebol (Korean big corporates) for some reports. Giant companies are not involving directly in editorial policy, but since they have share holdings in each media organisation, the Chaebol have indirect influence on news reports. Another side of Korean media is the clash between the media and people. Reporters need to ask for permission from a person before publishing or shooting their photos or even objects irrespective of whether they are famous or not, otherwise the media may get sued.

Kang Hyun Suk, director and case management team at Korea’s Press Arbitration Commission, said it dealt with more than 2,000 cases last year and 70 per cent of the claims were successful. The centre was created as a bridge to avoid conflict and for negotiations between media and the people. Journalists in Southeast Asia have been urged to prepare for the changing media landscape. Some discussions included the increasing role of new media and freedom of the press in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Egypt.

Political conflict and data analysis were discussed for Thailand while press security in the Philippines was a major topic as the country was once described as the most dangerous for journalists with 222 of them killed since 1986. Of that number, 59 were killed in one single event in Maguindanao in 2009.

Indonesia, the most populous nation in Southeast Asia with a growing economy, is also booming for international media. CNN International has set up office in the country this year, following other regional offices of major media operators like Fox News, Bloomberg, and CNBC.