A long time ago when I was looking for a career in journalism, most newspaper companies recruited reporters once a year through written tests and interviews. The newspaper I applied to conducted tests in essay form, English and “common sense” in the first round and then in “common sense” only in the second round.
Testing and grading one’s “common sense” on a sheet of paper (questions: 20 current affairs topics in the first exam, 20 people’s names in the second) now sounds fabulous, but the applicants had little to complain about because we did not have to make any extra preparations for it. Anyway, I got the job as a cub reporter in one of Seoul’s major newspapers through this process.
“Common sense,” as we understood, was synonymous to miscellaneous knowledge and we thought self-deprecatingly at the time that what was important in the intelligence of a newspaperman was breadth rather than depth. But as I lived and worked in the profession, I realized that common sense meant something more than that, learning a lot from publisher Chang Key-young, a great man of common sense.
Chang emphasized in weekly all-staff meetings that common sense in a newspaperman was individual ability to make a balanced judgment between right and wrong, true and false in the words and acts of people with all sorts of desires and motivations. He used to say: “Everyone can use a newspaper, but use your common sense not to allow anyone to take advantage of the newspaper.”
Soon, it occurred to me that a journalist’s common sense had some adjustment with his or her survival instinct. This was related to the harsh political circumstances during the early years of my newspaper work. Still, a reporter armed with good common sense could see things through whatever elements of distraction.
President Park Chung-hee, father of Park Geun-hye, proclaimed “Yushin” (officially translated “revitalizing reforms”) in 1972 to prolong his authoritarian rule. Newspaper editorial rooms had visits by military and civilian intelligence officers who, ostensibly on a round to sniff out information, attempted virtual censorship in the name of national interests and security.
Reporters and editors tussled with these men who conveyed requests from their higher-ups for modification or distortion of news stories, or outright removal. Under a continuing war of nerves, there were acts of open resistance, internal disputes between reporters and their management and quiet compromises. The Chun Doo-hwan government operated a “media liaison office” consisting entirely of ex-journalists who naturally had much ease in making contacts with their former colleagues.
A camaraderie of sorts existed between media workers and pro-democracy activists in opposition political parties and civic groups. Some concurred with the power holders’ logic that social order and discipline was necessary to push economic development and maintain national security, but they too had the same yearning for an end to the restrictions on the press and civic life. After all, we had a shared common sense.
Government-media relations have changed tremendously since the “democratization” reforms in the late 1980s and through the process of social polarization that divided political, industrial, cultural and even academic sectors by ideological differences. As power changed hands from conservative to progressive parties, media outlets took up positions at different distances from the government.
In the execution of their fundamental mission of overseeing and criticizing the power, journalists inevitably experience confusion in applying their common sense to the ideological lines of the media organizations they represent. It poses a serious individual problem for them to formulate their own philosophies and maintain them in everyday work. Yet, we should not have our common sense bow out.
Absurdities, improprieties and outright evils have been exposed both in the conservative and liberal governments and in the activities of unions, social organization and civic groups to face media criticism. Reporters, editors and commentators could have sympathy, empathy and antipathy of varying degrees toward the phenomena they watch. Here, only their good common sense can check their ideological inclinations from controlling what they produce.
From the autumn of 2016, President Park has been under siege from the entire mass media over the Choi Soon-sil scandal. Conservative and liberal newspapers have pooled information as ammunition for their attack on the crippled Park administration while cable channels have their heyday with nonstop debates on the affair, filling airtime with rumors and speculations that somehow raised their ratings against terrestrial networks.
As the massive candlelight protests in Seoul and provincial cities continue into their seventh week, participants and observers give credit to the media for the exposure of the malady deep inside the Blue House. Yet, many people question the appropriateness of the way irrelevant details were made public. Choi Soon-sil’s daughter is a key figure, but my common sense can hardly approve of some media outlets’ chasing of her onetime companion who fathered a son with her.
There can be no excuse for President Park’s dependence on the morally reproachable Choi family in domestic as well as state affairs and her virtual aiding of their wrongdoings. Then, how would the misdeeds weigh on the scale of history in this republic, compared to the practices of corruption under past presidencies and their political and financial consequences? Have we pondered how many of the 1 million to 2 million candles were lit by cable TV channels and smartphone social media?
We may also question if it is the unique characteristics of the key players in the scandal – with a shaman-like patriarch and his greedy offspring controlling the body and soul of the nation’s first female president – that gave an air of Greek mythology to the whole affair. Needless to say, we should not forget that the people’s frustration with both the ruling and opposition camps, which have been in serious disarray since the last parliamentary elections, has raised the fever of protests in the Gwanghwamun plaza to the limit.
At this critical moment, everyone has to heed two things now, the constitutional order and individual common sense. Our 300 National Assemblymen, who will vote on the presidential impeachment motion tomorrow, must have read the impeachment proposal, a long document of about 9,000 words. Then they should make up their minds on the basis of “practical knowledge and judgment that we need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way,” the definition of common sense by Cambridge Dictionary.
By Kim Myong-sik
Kim Myong-sik is a former managing editor of the Korea Times and a former editorial writer for The Korea Herald. – Ed.
