South Korea’s Current Blue House Budget for Managing Journalists “Unlimited”

2020-10-18, Tara O

The current South Korean Blue House presidential spokesperson has an unlimited budget in dealing with the pool of Blue House correspondents.  Normally, a government credit card with a spending limit is provided to the presidential spokesperson.  The budget can be used to build relationships with the journalists, such as providing meals and gifts.

Under the Lee Myung-bak administration, the budget was ₩20 million ($17,700) a month, but it was cut under the Park Geun-hye administration to ₩2 million ($1,770) a month, according to former Assemblyman Min Kyung-wook, who was the Blue House presidential spokesperson at that time.  At that time, there were 197 Blue House correspondents.  Per journalist, it would be about ~$9/person.  After asking for an increase, it went up  ₩3.5 million ($3,100) a month, which makes it ~$16/person.  That amounts to about one low-cost meal of one meeting with everyone together per month.

It is curious that under the Moon Jae-in administration, there is no limit to how much money can be spent on managing the journalists who have access to the Blue House.

The number of domestic and foreign journalists with Blue House access has increased to around 300.  Spring and Autumn Hall (Chunchugwan, 춘추관), a 2-story building in the Blue House grounds, is designated as the venue to hold the presidential press conference and as office spaces and data center for the Blue House correspondents.

The number of journalists with official passes to the National Assembly, yet another government organization with its own pool of journalists, is bigger, at about 2,000.