The Broadcast Media and Telecommunications Deliberation Committee has launched, moving in earnest to form an Election Broadcasting Deliberation Committee for the June 3 local elections and to resume broadcast and telecommunications deliberations that have been halted for 9 months.

On March 12, the committee held its first regular meeting with all 9 members present and elected a chair and vice chair. Members selected Ko Gwang-heon (고광헌), former CEO of the Seoul Shinmun, as chair nominee, and Kim Min-jung (김민정), a professor in the Department of Media Communication at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, as vice chair. The election of standing members was postponed to the next meeting on March 16 after differing views. Ko, the chair nominee, will be finally appointed by the president after a confirmation hearing at the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee. Until the appointment, Kim will serve as acting chair.

The most urgent issue for the committee’s first term is forming the election broadcasting panel. Under Article 8-2(1) of the Public Official Election Act, the committee must establish and operate the panel from the day before the start date for preliminary candidate registration applications. Preliminary candidate registration for the June 3 local elections began on Feb. 3. The panel should have been formed by Feb. 2, but a gap of more than 1 month has continued due to delays in forming the committee.

The election broadcasting panel has up to 9 members, including 1 each from National Assembly negotiating bloc parties and the National Election Commission, as well as nominees recommended by broadcasters, broadcasting academia, the Korean Bar Association, journalists’ groups and civic groups. The committee selects these organisations.

At the meeting, selecting organisations to be asked to recommend panel members was put on the agenda, but no conclusion was reached. The committee plans to finalise the organisations by the next plenary meeting, receive recommendations within 1 week and make a final resolution at a plenary meeting in March to appoint panel members. The Audit and Inspection Board last July recommended that recommendations be sought from multiple organisations and that the plenary meeting, not a standing committee, decide the organisations from which to request nominations.

A backlog has built up in broadcast and telecommunications deliberations, the committee’s core role. Deliberations stopped at the committee’s predecessor, the Korea Communications Standards Commission, after former chair Ryu Hee-lim resigned in June last year and the body lacked a quorum. As of March 12, pending agenda items total about 207,000 cases, including about 9,000 items for broadcast deliberation alone. At a parliamentary audit in October last year, Choi Kwang-ho (최광호), then acting secretary general of the commission, said, "Due to delays in forming the committee, telecommunications deliberation cases that lead to serious harm to people’s livelihoods, such as illegal information including gambling, drugs and copyright-infringing content, and deepfake digital sex crime videos, are not being handled immediately."

Expectations have emerged inside and outside the committee that the launch will lead to swift handling of delayed deliberations. A committee official said plenary meetings are generally held twice a month and extraordinary meetings can be convened depending on the matter. The official added that the frequency of subcommittee meetings is also flexible depending on the matter, and normalisation would allow prompt processing. The committee operates 3 subcommittees: a Broadcast Deliberation Subcommittee (once a week), a Telecommunications Deliberation Subcommittee (twice a week) and a Digital Sex Crime Information Deliberation Subcommittee (at all times).

A committee member also said, "An enforcement decree must also be drawn up and the chair’s confirmation hearing remains, but we will handle it as quickly as possible in line with procedures."

The committee is an independent deliberation body established under the Act on the Establishment and Operation of the Broadcast Media and Telecommunications Commission. It is responsible for ensuring the public interest and fairness of broadcast content and deliberating illegal information on the internet. Its first-term membership totals 9: 3 nominated by the president (Ko Gwang-heon, Kim Jun-hyun and Cho Seung-ho), 3 recommended by the National Assembly speaker (Kim Min-jung, Choi Sun-young and Kim Woo-seok), and 3 recommended by the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee (Hong Mi-ae, Koo Jong-sang and Kim Il-gon).