Controversies
In 2001, YTN president Baek In-ho said that "President Kim Dae-jung is the second founder of YTN", causing a scandal within the staff of the network, and the union demanding his exit. Accusations have emerged that YTN received government support in order to sustain itself, with a 130 billion won capital increase; the network was accused of pro-government bias.[16] The recent (2024) privatization of YTN has also been criticized.[17]
During the aftermath of the sinking of MV Sewol, YTN was accused of manipulating photos.[18]
On April 19, 2018, misinformation that the investigative authorities were seizing and searching the office of Gyeongsangnam- do governor candidate Kim Gyeong-soo of the Democratic Party of Korea was issued as breaking news, and the anchors even mentioned that the search and seizure was in progress.[19][20] Such misinformation came out just before the declaration of running for office, which could be treated as interference with the election campaign. After this report, reporters camped in front of Congressman Kim Gyeong-soo's office from the morning.presumably postponing Kim Kyung-soo's declaration of running in Jinju City, Gyeongsangnam-do, and held a press conference as well as a declaration of running at the National Assembly building in Seoul the same afternoon. He interviewed a reporter from Shinho YTN, who was on strike, on TBS Radio. In addition, according to the Shinho reporter, he said that there was no in-house discipline for the misinformation that had continued since the end of March. According to the opinion of the Director of the Reporting Department, the production team leader sent a person to the office of Congressman Kim Kyung-soo to the remarks of the camera reporter at the National Assembly, but the door was locked and he did not answer the phone, instead replying that it was confiscated and searched. Eventually, the Election Broadcasting Deliberation Commission received a state sanction for this.[21]
During the Kim-Trump summit in May 2018, a YTN reporter who was on a business trip to Singapore to cover negotiations for the North American summit was arrested by the Singapore police while illegally filming US military facilities in Singapore without permission. There was no disciplinary action against the reporter.[22]
Early in the pandemic, YTN aired reports about Koreans at a quarantine camp in Da Nang on February 25 and 26, 2020. The network was accused by Vietnamese netizens of complaining from South Koreans about the measures imposed, as well as downplaying cultural differences between the two countries.[23]
