South Korean President Yoon Seok Yeol on Thursday justified the absence of journalists from the national television network MBC on board the presidential plane in which he was heading to several Asian countries as part of an official tour for fear of ‘fake news’ and to preserve the «national interest».
His words come after the Presidency announced on Wednesday that the media workers in question would be banned from traveling with the President and his team for his visit to Cambodia and Indonesia due to «distorted coverage» in the past.
«The president is traveling abroad with taxpayers’ money because there are important national interests at stake,» Yoon said before adding that «a service has been put in place to help cover these trips,» which he asked the media to accept.
However, he did not detail what facts have allegedly been distorted, although MBC has been splashed by controversy after broadcasting in September a video of Yoon leaving an event in New York in which he used bad-sounding words to refer to the approval of measures by the National Assembly, an issue that raised controversy in the country.
The Presidency has explained that the video was subtitled in such a way that Yoon seems to refer to the Administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, when in fact he was referring to the South Korean Parliament, according to information gathered by the Yonhap news agency.
«After considering the biased and distorted coverage made by MBC, it was decided not to offer the network the possibility of boarding the presidential plane,» the president said.
The network, for its part, has indicated that it will send journalists in another way and has accused the head of state of «restricting press coverage», an issue that has already been denounced by the opposition.
