ID :
204931
Fri, 09/02/2011 - 16:43
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/204931
The shortlink copeid
Highest court clears 5 MBC workers over U.S. beef report
(LEAD)
(ATTN: UPDATES with court comments and separate suit in para 4-7, 10-13)
SEOUL, Sept. 2 (Yonhap) -- The Supreme Court, upholding a lower court ruling, on Friday cleared five TV journalists of defamation charges related to their controversial report critical of the Lee Myung-bak administration's decision to resume U.S. beef imports in 2008.
The four producers and one script writer of MBC's investigative program "PD Notebook" were accused of defaming Cabinet ministers who allowed the resumption of American beef imports by exaggerating the danger of ingesting the beef in an April 2008 episode of the program.
The episode, which the prosecution saw as malicious, mainly dwelled on how U.S. beef could cause the human form of mad cow disease, or variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), and local negotiators' excessive tolerance for imports of specified risk materials like cattle spinal columns and brains, believed to contain infectious proteins.
In the latest ruling, the nation's highest court acknowledged that the episode did include some erroneous information about the safety of U.S. beef, but that does not directly lead to defamation, it said.
"The lower court's decision is fair," Supreme Court justice Lee Sang-hoon said in issuing the ruling.
Although the program contained wrong information, the defendants could be acquitted "because their production dealt with public issues in a way it can contribute to the formation of public opinions toward state food policies," he said.
A district court had previously acquitted the five of the charges, saying the episode did not seem to contain false information. An appeals court upheld the not-guilty verdict, saying that the defendants did not deliberately defame the officials, although the program contained some contents that exaggerated or distorted the threat of mad cow disease associated with U.S. beef.
Aired days after the Lee government signed a deal with Washington to resume halted imports of U.S. beef and impose much lighter restrictions on such inbound shipments, the program sparked weeks of street protests throughout the summer of that year, forcing the government to back off and renegotiate detailed terms of the import resumption deal.
Imports of American beef had been suspended since 2003 after a case of mad cow disease was confirmed at a U.S. cattle farm. After taking office in February 2008, Lee struck a deal to restart imports with the U.S. in hopes of encouraging Washington to ratify the free trade agreement with Seoul.
Meanwhile, the court returned another suit filed by the agriculture ministry against the same MBC program back to a lower court for a review after dismissing the lower court's guilty ruling.
The ministry filed the separate civil suit in 2008, requesting a correction of the much-disputed piece on the grounds that false information in it defamed its minister.
The Seoul Central District Court and the High Court had ruled in favor or the agricultural ministry, but the broadcaster appealed it to the highest court.
The Supreme Court's latest decision seems to come in favor of the production team of PD Notebook as it makes the appeals court to reconsider its previous ruling that accepted the ministry's request to order the broadcaster to air a correction for the 2008 episode.
pbr@yna.co.kr
(ATTN: UPDATES with court comments and separate suit in para 4-7, 10-13)
SEOUL, Sept. 2 (Yonhap) -- The Supreme Court, upholding a lower court ruling, on Friday cleared five TV journalists of defamation charges related to their controversial report critical of the Lee Myung-bak administration's decision to resume U.S. beef imports in 2008.
The four producers and one script writer of MBC's investigative program "PD Notebook" were accused of defaming Cabinet ministers who allowed the resumption of American beef imports by exaggerating the danger of ingesting the beef in an April 2008 episode of the program.
The episode, which the prosecution saw as malicious, mainly dwelled on how U.S. beef could cause the human form of mad cow disease, or variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), and local negotiators' excessive tolerance for imports of specified risk materials like cattle spinal columns and brains, believed to contain infectious proteins.
In the latest ruling, the nation's highest court acknowledged that the episode did include some erroneous information about the safety of U.S. beef, but that does not directly lead to defamation, it said.
"The lower court's decision is fair," Supreme Court justice Lee Sang-hoon said in issuing the ruling.
Although the program contained wrong information, the defendants could be acquitted "because their production dealt with public issues in a way it can contribute to the formation of public opinions toward state food policies," he said.
A district court had previously acquitted the five of the charges, saying the episode did not seem to contain false information. An appeals court upheld the not-guilty verdict, saying that the defendants did not deliberately defame the officials, although the program contained some contents that exaggerated or distorted the threat of mad cow disease associated with U.S. beef.
Aired days after the Lee government signed a deal with Washington to resume halted imports of U.S. beef and impose much lighter restrictions on such inbound shipments, the program sparked weeks of street protests throughout the summer of that year, forcing the government to back off and renegotiate detailed terms of the import resumption deal.
Imports of American beef had been suspended since 2003 after a case of mad cow disease was confirmed at a U.S. cattle farm. After taking office in February 2008, Lee struck a deal to restart imports with the U.S. in hopes of encouraging Washington to ratify the free trade agreement with Seoul.
Meanwhile, the court returned another suit filed by the agriculture ministry against the same MBC program back to a lower court for a review after dismissing the lower court's guilty ruling.
The ministry filed the separate civil suit in 2008, requesting a correction of the much-disputed piece on the grounds that false information in it defamed its minister.
The Seoul Central District Court and the High Court had ruled in favor or the agricultural ministry, but the broadcaster appealed it to the highest court.
The Supreme Court's latest decision seems to come in favor of the production team of PD Notebook as it makes the appeals court to reconsider its previous ruling that accepted the ministry's request to order the broadcaster to air a correction for the 2008 episode.
pbr@yna.co.kr
