Moon Jae-in a Founding Member of Hankyoreh Newspaper

2019-1-28, Tara O

Moon Jae-in was a founding member and a shareholder of Hankyoreh Media Group (publishes Hankyoreh newspaper), according to Song In-bae (송인배), who gave a lecture on May 24, 2014 entitled “Rho Moo-hyun and Moon Jae-in as seen by the former “participatory government” [as the Rho Moo-hyun government called itself] Personal Secretary Song In-bae.” (8:59

Song was the Chief of Staff to then National Assemblyman Rho Moo-hyun in 1998 and worked for Rho at the Blue House.  In 2017, Song became a scheduling manager for Moon Jae-in‘s presidential campaign, and followed him to the Blue House as Moon’s Chief Personal Secretary.  Song made the news headlines during the Druking (드루킹) case, which is an online opinion rigging scandal.(1)

Hankyoreh means “one nation” or “one people.”  In this case, it is referring to the oneness of the Korean people.  Hankyoreh, is a far left newspaper established in 1987 under Hankyoreh Media Group.  Its target audience is 40s-50s, but also “younger generation, including college students, who will grow to have influence on the society.”  It founded other publications, broadcasts, and organizations.(2)

• 1987:  Hankyoreh Media Group
• 1994:  Hankyoreh 21, weekly magazine
• 1995:  Cine21,weekly film magazine
• 1997:  Hankyoreh Foundation for Reunification and Culture
• 1999:  Hankyoreh Plus, Inc.
• 2003:  Cine21 Company
• 2005:  History for the Future (a textbook on the modern history of three East Asian countries) –  2005: Hankyoreh Language and Literacy Institute
• 2006:  Hankyoreh Publishing Company
• 2007:  Hankyoreh Economic Research Institute
• 2007:  Cine21i Company for film distribution
• 2008:  Hankyoreh Education Company
• 2009:  Hani TV webcast
• 2009:  Hankyoreh Silver Service Company for the elderly
• 2009:  Le Monde diplomatique, Korean edition
• 2010:  Economy Insight, monthly magazine
• 2014:  Huffington Post Korea
• 2014:  People and Digital Research Institute (사람과디지털연구소)
• 2015:  Media Cafe Hu (near Hongik University)
• 2016:  Seoul& (lifestyle magazine for Seoul residents)
• ____:  Hankyoreh Hu Center (한겨레 휴센터) (place for meditation, relaxation, health)

In the 1980s, when Hankyoreh began to raise funds to establish the newspaper, Moon Jae-in readily gave 200,000,000 won ($552,000 in 2019 dollars), a very large sum at that time, and something far beyond his means.(3)

In the late 1980s, when Hankyoreh, centered around dismissed journalists from Donga Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo, started to raise funds to start a newspaper, [Moon] gave 200,000,000 won without any hesitation.  But at the time, president Moon jae-in, then a lawyer, was not in a position to readily give the 200,000,000 won.  He didn’t have that much money, living in an apartment with 2,000,000 won ($5,520) ‘Jeonse’ [refundable down payment, no monthly rent].(4)  But President Moon was determined to make a good press and obtained a loan to make the generous contribution.  Thanks to president Moon and 20,000 investors, Hankyoreh newspaper raised 5,000,000,000 won ($13.8 milion) and printed 500,000 initial copies.(5)

—Insight, “President Moon who sponsored 200,000,000 won for the foundation of Hankyoreh in 1988,” May 16, 2017

Moon purposely did not get the money back, the only one to refuse to take back the money.

“Hankyoreh started to return the money to everyone, but there is one person to whom the money was not returned, and that is Moon Jae-in…Hankyoreh wants to return the money, but he still refused to accept,” said Song.  (10:50)  Song also stated that Moon gave the money in order for Hankyoreh to establish a branch in Busan.  (10:24)  Busan is where Moon Jae-in and Rho Moo-hyun had their law office and were active politically.(6)

On April 9, 2017 when Moon was a presidential candidate, he said “I think Hankyoreh has love for me and my party” to a Hankoyreh journalist. Moon also said “I hope you remember that I’m a founding member of Hankyoreh.”

President Moon Jae-in and Hankyoreh had a long and special relationship. Several questions are raised:

1. How was Moon able to get such a large loan when he did not make much money?
2. Why was Moon the only one who did not take the money back from Hankyoreh?
3. How did he repay the loan?  Or did he?
4. Given the special relationship, is Hankyoreh an unbiased news source?

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Footnotes:

(1) The Druking online opinion rigging scandal is said to have influenced the 2017 presidential election as well as the public opinion before and after the election.  Song In-bae is the one who introduced Druking (김동원 Kim Dong-won) to Kim Kyung-soo (김경수), Deobureo Minju Party, current governor of South Kyeongsang Province, who was a National Assemblyman during meetings with Druking.  Song received 2,000,000 won from Druking. He also had been receiving 3,000,000 won per month for a total of about 200,000,000 won from Signals Country Club (시그너스컨트리클럽), which is suspected of being a political slush fund.

(2) More sources: http://company.hani.co.kr/images/main/brochure_k.pdf , http://lifeindigital.org/ , http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/media/610532.html#cb , http://hanihu.hani.co.kr/center/introduction.php

(3) adjusted for inflation 617,450,000 won in 2019 or $552,000

(4) adjusted for inflation 6,174,500 won in 2019 or $5,520

(5) adjusted for inflation 15,433,000,000 won in 2019 or $13,800,000

(6) Moon Jae-in describes his times in Busan when he joined Rho Moo-hyun’s law office in his memoir Oonmyeong (Destiny).