Professor Lee Jae-gap said at a safety academic seminar held by the February 18th Safety Culture Foundation and the KBS Public Media Research Institute on the 16th, "The media is putting a political color on expert remarks due to the difference between the 2015 MERS outbreak and the COVID-19 report."
(Picture from Unsplash)
Professor Lee said, "Since the first outbreak of COVID-19, political confrontations such as the ban on Chinese entry have occurred, and as political schedules such as parliamentary and presidential elections have been combined, experts' opinions have turned into pro-ruling and opposition parties."
The damage caused by the media's competition for breaking news was also pointed out. The media competitively reported the number of deaths since the flu vaccination in October last year. Professor Lee said, "The media reported the number of deaths without considering the causal relationship with the flu vaccine," adding, "With these reports, 29 million vaccines prepared by the government were simply discarded, and they were not able to properly match 10 million vaccines due to similar circumstances.
Professor Lee said, "There are articles every day from January to February this year that have not properly proven the causal relationship with the vaccine in the COVID-19 situation," adding, "Some media are competing for breaking news by selecting sensational content from the Blue House petitions posted by the bereaved families."
"In foreign countries, the first principle of vaccine reporting is 'vaccination is beneficial', and we do not report deaths with no causal relationship, but avoid reports related to who died," he said. "Only in Korea is reporting that the news cannot get vaccines."
Professor Lee said, "I hope that news that has been fact-checked once will not be revived." If a specific media fact-checks and reports information related to COVID-19, other media will report fact-checks on the same topic a month or two later, resulting in citizens feeling that there is a problem.
I believe that the most important principle of the Ministry of Public Administration and Security in a disaster situation is the principle of empathy, and the media is no different from YouTube if they do not properly adhere to the principle of empathy for victims.
Writer: Yeyoung Jeon
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