Declaration of solidarity for normalizing public media

Arirang TV pledges support for KBS&MBC’s battle

A new era has come.
A new world may be imminent.
But the fight is not over yet.
Millions of South Koreans poured out on to the streets last year for candlelight vigils to change the regime, but those who have blinded the truth and stained the values of journalism are still in power at Korea's national public broadcasters.

Over the past nine years, suppressed by the conservative administrations of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, South Korea's public media and its journalism have been seriously tarnished.

Reporters were forced to write in favor of the government even when it was against the truth, and those who opposed such orders were punished or removed from posts - often relocated to non-broadcasting and irrelevant positions. The same thing happened to producers who tried to discover the truth about the government.

Korea's public broadcasters, KBS and MBC, on Monday, have launched all-out strikes in their desperate bid to normalize public media, five years after their last attempt in 2012 failed to do so.

A tough battle lies ahead for our colleagues at KBS and MBC.

It may take even longer to recover the values of journalism at the public broadcasters, but our colleagues at KBS and MBC are willing to give everything they have got. No matter how long it takes, they will fight to rebuild their broadcasters back to a level where they enjoy the public's trust and support, producing trustworthy news and entertainment.

We must fight with them. We must support their battle.
It takes more than just media workers to back their fight. We need the entire nation to stand by our journalists, so that they can win this battle and bring back true journalism for the people.

We will cheer together on the day when victory comes and assist you when and wherever you need our solidarity. We, the workers at Arirang TV, stand with our colleagues at KBS and MBC in their fight to bring public broadcasting back on the right track.

National Union of Media Workers
Arirang TV Chapter