[Tracking the Media Cartel③] Confirmation of contract with Wikitree… Suspicions of requesting artificial public opinion operations, “Yoon Seok-yeol’s administration’s attempt to control the media continues endlessly. The nomination of Lee Jin-sook as the chairman of the Korea Communications Commission is at its peak. OhmyNews, Newstapa, Media Today, SisaIN, Hankyoreh, and five different media outlets are collaborating on a ‘Media Cartel’ series that investigates the current administration’s media control practices.
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“This document secured by the Joint Press Corps provides concrete evidence supporting these suspicions. The tasks specified in the contract with Wikitree include ▲ Social media strategy consultation ▲ Building a social media hub ▲ Building and operating a real-time response system ▲ Operating a platform for continuous issue response, among others. The contract designates MBC as ‘the requesting party’ and Wikitree as ‘the service provider.’
Specifically, there are various ways detailed in the contract to create favorable public opinion towards MBC.
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“MBC decided to pay Wikitree a total of 250 million won for the services rendered. This includes 60 million won for building the social media hub, 100 million won for building and operating the real-time response system, and 90 million won for operating the continuous issue response platform. It is worth noting that the initial contract fee raised by former MBC reporter Go Yung-ma for the suspicion of public opinion warfare was 60 million won, and this amount (60 million won for building the social media hub) is stated in the contract.
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“Representative Lee Jin-sook answered a written interview question at the National Assembly’s Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee, saying, ‘I remember signing a crisis management contract with a major press release during the long-term labor strike at MBC in 2012 when the company’s management was facing hardship due to the prolonged strike led by the MBC labor union.
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“Former MBC CEO Kim Jae-cheol, who attended the National Assembly’s personnel hearing as a witness on the 24th, answered questions from the Joint Press Corps related to Wikitree’s public opinion warfare planning through candidate Lee Jin-sook by saying, ‘To remember what happened 12 years ago, I need to think about it too. It would be inappropriate to ask me that question now.’
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Source: [Tracking the Media Cartel①] “Complete the media manipulation”… The background of Lee Jin-sook’s ‘MBC control’
[Tracking the Media Cartel②] Abusing media outlets for public opinion warfare… The central figure behind Lee Jin-sook
Joint Media Control Group: Shin Sang-ho (OhmyNews), Park Jong-hwa, Yeon Da-hye (Newstapa), Park Jae-ryeong (Media Today), Moon Sang-hyun (SisaIN), Park Kang-soo (Hankyoreh) reporters”