Most newspaper firms do have their own codes, guidebook, and internal committees. Per Broadcast Law, all television news providers must have a viewer committee to advise on content and programming. YTN, for one, runs an ombudsperson programme titled YTN Citizens’ Desk, and Yonhap News TV also runs and broadcasts a weekly ombudsperson programme.
In 2019, 671 news media outlets (26.0%) had a readers’ rights instrument out of the 2,584 surveyed, and 216 (40.1%) of print new media outlets had an ombudsperson (Korea Press Foundation, 2019d). The ombudsperson model in South Korea is very much informed by the American model, where newspapers commission an external expert to hold the ombudsperson position, but sometimes have a former journalist serve in the position and publish columns. Despite such practices, the ombudsperson programme is not very popular because individuals consisting of internal figures in the position often operate like customer service or are limited in their capacity to reflect reader criticisms in news media practice.
