Feature

After the final examination week and the spring semester were over, HUFSans began to go on their peaceful summer break. However, HUFS student society was chaotic from the start as a problem cropped up. HUFS Journal, one of the independent student presses was withdrawn forcibly by the school authorities. The withdrawal of student press is an unprecedented action, so it was embroiled in controversy among the student society. The Argus looked into the whole story of this situation and the problems that are seen from the school and HUFS Journal.

The school’s blunder

In the 84th issue of HUFS Journal that was released in June, an article raising a question on the qualifications of Honorable HUFSan Awards winners ? Ko Dae-young, president of Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), and Park No-hwang, president of Yonhap News ? was included. The reporter criticized their assault incident, pro-government reporting attitude, and violation of the editorial rights. In a few days, a member of HUFS Alumni Association read the article and expressed their upset about the situation to the university authorities. The university read the article and decided to withdraw approximately 3,000 to 5,000 copies, judging there was a problem with the article. The withdrawal was done on June 18, which was 10 days after the journal was published.
Kim Tae-seong, the Dean of Student Affairs, said, “The withdrawal was an action to prevent trouble between alumni and HUFS Journal editorial committee, and protect student reporters from possible legal problems such as libel.”
The problem was that students were ignored during the withdrawal procedure. The withdrawal was done unilaterally, without prior consultation with the HUFS Journal editorial committee. The HUFS Journal editorial committee never knew their journals were being withdrawn beforehand and received a notice from the university on June 20 in the morning, which was two days after the withdrawal. The university did not even try to notify HUFS Journal editorial committee in advance about the withdrawal.
Kim Tae-woo, the editor-in-chief of HUFS Journal editorial committee, said, “Whatever the reason is, giving notification after withdrawal is an action that cannot be justified.”
Among HUFS student media organizations such as The Argus, Foreign Studies Broadcasting System (FBS), The Oe Dae Hagbo and HUFS Journal, HUFS Journal is the only student press that is managed by HUFS students’ membership fees every semester. In other words, HUFS Journal is students’ property since it is being published by students’ direct support. Aside from the problem of distributing a controversial article, HUFS Journal which is produced through students’ finances is not the university’s possession. By the fact that the university unilaterally recalled the students’ journal, it infringed on students’ property rights.
Moreover, the act of withdrawal ignores the role of student media organizations. The Argus and The Oe Dae Hagbo are university newspaper administrations, so the publisher is the HUFS President, Kim In-chul. Unlike those, HUFS Journal is an organization composed of only HUFS students, so it is published by the student editor-in-chief. The university has stated the withdrawal was done out of concern of libel, but it is HUFS Journal editorial committee’s business, not the university’s. Therefore, the forced withdrawal of HUFS Journal can be seen as violating students’ right of autonomy.

HUFS Journal editorial committee’s shortage

In this incident, not only the university but also HUFS Journal editorial committee is at fault. The one that withdrew the journals was the university, but the one who complained about the article was HUFS Alumni Association, which gives the Honorable HUFSan Awards every year.
This year’s winners Ko Dae-young and Park No-hwang are not only the CEOs of Korean top press but were also rewarded  Korean Journalist of the year. Thus, They were awarded due to the fact that they are taking important roles in Korean society as HUFSans.
The association composes a committee to award the Honorable HUFSan Awards and gets recommendations to select deserving winners. It reviews the candidates’ merits and demerits according to the criteria. Through this process, the committee has already known and admitted the demerits of those awarded.
However, the reporter of the article wrote that since the two winners have records of assault incidents, a pro-government reporting attitude, and violation of the editorial rights, they do not deserve the Honorable HUFSan Awards. He spent eight pages of the journal emphasizing their demerits.
Cho Gyu-tae, the secretary general of the HUFS Alumni Association, said, “Everyone has merits and demerits. However, the article focused excessively on their demerits. It was uncomfortable that the reporter wrote the story to paint a bad image of the alumni and denounce them.”
The reporter did not cover the reason why the alumni association awarded them along with the purpose and criteria of the Honorable HUFSan Awards. In other words, HUFS Journal only emphasized the winners’ faults and reported lopsidedly. If it had heard the association’s position and knew about both merits and demerits of those awarded, the article could have been fairer and more neutral.
The bigger problem was that the HUFS Journal editorial committee did not realize that they lacked neutrality in the article. After the journals were withdrawn, it uploaded a post denouncing the university authorities for infringing the rights of property, autonomy, and the right to know. It requested many people to share this issue, asked for support on the HUFS Journal Facebook page and “Everytime” social network service account. The post got 1,600 “like”s on Facebook and spread to many HUFSans, even to major mass media such as Hankyoreh and Seoul Newspaper. On HUFS Journal Facebook page, no posts indicating time taken for introspection about their article can be found from June 20, the day they got withdrawal notice, to June 21.
However, as the chief editors had a face-to-face talk with the Dean of Student Affairs on June 21, HUFS Journal editorial committee began to show a change in their attitude.
Kim Tae-woo, the HUFS Journal editor-in-chief, said, “I admit the fact that the article could be shown to be criticizing the alumni association and Honorable HUFSan awarders unintentionally due to my lack of capability” through the Facebook page after the second talk with the Dean of Student Affairs on June 23. He also has stated that he is going to apologize to Ko Dae-young and Park No-hwang.

What should have been done

The biggest problem and cause of the HUFS Journal issue was a lack of communication between the school and students. If the university had discussed the problems that may influence students beforehand with students and both had respected each other’s opinion, this situation may not have occurred.
Kim Tae-seong, the Dean of Student Affairs, said, “I acknowledge that withdrawal violated students’ right of autonomy. And with apology, I promise that this kind of situation will not occur again.”
This is not the only such incident, as HUFS has continuously shown a unilateral attitude towards its students in the past. Students have made continuous outcries, dissatisfied with the lack of communication between the university and students.
Lastly, the HUFS Journal editorial committee should have rightly performed the role of mass media ? to seek truth and maintain neutrality. They should have worked on writing articles with balance and a neutral perspective.
The editor-in-chief of HUFS Journal said, “We tried our best to assert the right of autonomy, but we admit that it could be shown as a submissive attitude that does not represent HUFSans’ right of autonomy. We apologize for our mistake.”
Fortunately, this incident ended with a peaceful atmosphere by apologizing for their mistakes to each other. Taking this example as a foothold, when such a conflict between the school and students occurs again, every member on campus should put on effort to prevent this kind of happening from reccurring.  

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