Satire in South Korea

Lampooning the pols

A hitherto off-limits target proves irresistible

See article

Readers' comments




One Mistake. “Naneun Hasuda” (“I am sewage”)is not correct. Hasu has 2 meaning in Korean : Sewage and Person who has bad skill(beginner, non major). In this case, Hasuda means latter.


To be fair, the article should've included what kind of stories Naggomsu deals with. None of the stories from that "show" is backed up by solid facts at all, leaving them mere conspiracies, and even Kim Ou-Jun admits it.

On the other hand, the accusation of Jung Bong-Ju, mentioned on the article, was not about the show itself, but about his consecutive spreading of the false information, begun almost 4 years by now. I don't know what freedom of speech is in your governance, however it seems rational to me to have him pay for the price when someone keeps bad-mouthing about someone else with the rumours, concluded not true by the court long ago.


To be fair it takes a while for any democracy to reach the point where it is comfortable with satire, it should be welcomed when it finally arrives as I think that satire is a demonstration of the strength of democracy.

Even with its strong tradition of political satire, Britain's establishment was shocked by programmes like TW3.


as a korean people i think that we alive in desperate of age
now day , young genaraton did not find a job

getting wore again and again

Blackbird for north

This article depicts the situation of SK media freedom is like a NK's, even the reporter seems likely h/she is not so familiar with Korean culture and situation. (I assume that through the wrong translation of "naneun hasuda".) 

Especially regarding the comment on the freedom house, the FH assassed the SK degree of media freedom quite low only because of restrictions on NK related materials, which were released by nk propaganda agencies and nk authorities. I don't know how many percentage of SK population are bothered by or troubled with  such a lack of media freedom. If we presume maximum beteen 5,000 and 10,000 are working on nk related tasks, as reporters, government workers, businessmen, ngo persons, scholars or students, they are less than 0.0002%out of the korean population. Only with inconvenience of mere 0.0002 % of people, the FH's that low evaluation of sk media freedom is too much and too harsh. Almost all the sk people don't care about that restrictions. In addition, for the acamedic purpose and to write news articles, people can access NK news. 
Nevertheless, the FH treats sk media freedom situation even like a NK's. It is speachless. It is a huge obstacle when SK ngos talking about NK human rights to international community because they say that "you sk also has such a problem." It doesn't make any sense. 



Products and events


Take our weekly news quiz to stay on top of the headlines

