4th Week Satire in South Korea-Sneaky tricksters, unite!

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Satire in South Korea

Sneaky tricksters, unite!

Jan 16th 2012, 7:51 by D.T. | SEOUL

ACCORDING to our sister organisation, the Economist Intelligence Unit, South Korea ranks as the world’s 22nd strongest democracy, and as the second strongest in Asia. Its mainstream media, however, is a weak link. An American think-tank, Freedom House, labels the South Korean press only “partly free”, as a result of what it calls “an increase in official censorship” and “government attempts to influence news and information content”.

Journalists themselves worry. A Journalists’ Association of Korea survey conducted in 2010 showed that the top concern of people who work in the media is the “contraction of press freedom”. So-called nakhasan(parachute) appointments of government loyalists into major media outlets have contributed to the impression that newspapers and television news programmes cannot be relied on to hold to account the powers that be.

It is in this environment that one band of rebel podcasters has flourished. The satirical “Naneun Ggomsuda” (roughly, “I’m a sneaky trickster”) reaches an audience of around 10m per episode, according to its founder, Kim Ou-joon (pictured above, second from the right). This would make it the most popular podcast in the world.

The fact that the express purpose of Naneun Ggomsuda (or “Naggomsu” for short) is to pour scorn on a government that Mr Kim openly regards as “greedy” and “suspicious” has raised the hackles of its targets. One regular member of the show, Jeong Bong-ju, a former politician, was recently sentenced to a year in prison for “spreading false information” about the centre-right president, Lee Myung-bak—in contravention of election and defamation laws. Other lawsuits are said to be in the works.

Naggomsu’s case has shed light on South Korea’s unusually strict treatment of its citizens who publicly criticise others. It’s bad enough that one can be sent to jail for it. One can even be judged to have defamed someone when the allegation in question is true. Making a martyr of Mr Jeong though looks to have been an own goal for the government. “It was very stupid to jail him”, according to Mr Kim, because “it is stirring people’s willingness to vote”.

Mr Kim intends to keep his podcast running until South Korea has a new president. Official opposition seems only to encourage him: when asked how he responds to being labelled “dangerous” by a supporter of the government, he smiles broadly and says simply, “I’m very thankful.”