When YTN became embroiled in a controversy over election law violations after a photo assuming the election of presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party of Korea was exposed on the broadcast, YTN responded by saying, “The preparation process assuming all circumstances was only broadcast.”
In a statement on the 23rd, YTN said, “The election team entered numbers arbitrarily in the process of comparing graphic formats, etc., and it was not entered with any intention.” In addition to the graphic that wins almost three times, it can be seen that all candidates are random numbers such as Lee Jae-myung, Yoon Seok-yeol, and Shim Sang-jeong, who each got 35% of the votes, adding up to a total of 105%. The election team entered numbers arbitrarily in the process of comparing graphic formats, etc., and it was not entered with any intention.”
This controversy arose on the 20th when the production team was interviewing YTN’s election broadcaster as an ‘epilogue’ on the YouTube channel of the YTN ombudsman program ‘Citizen Desk’ on the 20th, when a graphic print indicating the vote percentages of the candidates for the ruling and opposition parties was caught on the screen.
In the scene in which the votes were recorded in the Seongbuk region of Seoul, Candidate Lee surpassed Candidate Yoon (39.5%) with 48.6% of the votes, and in Jongno, Seoul, Candidate Lee also gained 50.5% of the votes, which is more than half of Candidate Yoon’s 38.9%. came out ahead Even a printout contained graphic data that said that Lee was elected with 49% of the votes.
Netizens raised suspicions, saying, “Isn’t it a political bias?” and “It is a violation of the Election Act.” People’s Power also mentioned the video on that day and pointed out that “YTN Election Broadcasting Corps is not preparing for the presidential election broadcast, but rather is preparing the Lee Jae-myung election broadcast.”
Meanwhile, the video has now been deleted. YTN said, “After the broadcast, the production team humbly accepted the issues raised by the Internet community, and re-edited the related video and posted it.”
Han Ji-hye, reporter for Donga.com [email protected]