President posts 9 times on SNS over two days, pushing back on media coverage of foreign worker wages, farmland probe and prosecution reform

President Lee Jae Myung [Yonhap]
President Lee Jae Myung [Yonhap]

President Lee Jae Myung has been posting a string of late-night messages on social media addressing major policy issues, in what appears to be a deliberate push for direct communication with the public. Particularly notable is Lee's sharp criticism of media coverage — demanding corrections and apologies from news outlets and questioning their basic reporting ethics — raising questions about whether such confrontational use of social media will continue.

Lee posted a total of nine messages on X, formerly Twitter, over the past two days as of Wednesday.

Around midnight Wednesday, Lee called on a news outlet to correct its article about remarks made at a Cabinet meeting regarding the remittance of wages by foreign workers.

At the Cabinet meeting, Lee had been discussing public-sector jobs when he said, "Even if we bring in foreign workers, it doesn't help the national economy much — because they send all their wages back home." One outlet ran the story under the headline: "'Foreign workers don't help the national economy' — criticism mounts over President Lee's remarks."

Lee pushed back on X, writing: "There is a big difference between saying something 'doesn't help' and saying it 'doesn't help much.'" Lee added that the outlet "will correct the article and issue an apology."

The outlet subsequently added the word "much" to the headline, but when a user pointed this out online, Lee again called for an apology, writing: "If you changed the headline, shouldn't you explain why — and if the article was wrong enough to fix, isn't an apology in order?"

Lee's criticism of the press extended to coverage of a dispute over responsibility for a proposed comprehensive farmland survey.

On that issue, Lee said pointing out that the survey was originally proposed by a minister had drawn accusations from some outlets of shifting blame. "I question whether those who wrote about it actually watched the public Cabinet meeting footage and applied even a minimum standard of reporting ethics," Lee said.

Lee then wrote: "Pressuring me not to use SNS to communicate directly with the public, while distorting the facts like this, is like telling someone not to resist even when they're being hit — just take it." Lee added that the posts reminded him of a time when "insulting the president was a national sport."

Lee also posted that he needed "the help of the public and presidential friends," and wrote that "attack-style reporting in the era of hybrid policy is holding back national development" — signaling intent to push ahead with government policy to nurture advanced industries even at the risk of media criticism.

Lee also weighed in on the controversy surrounding prosecution reform, writing that some people were "in fact obstructing real reform by using it to advance their own hidden political agendas — either by grandstanding on principle or making excessively inflammatory claims." Lee said pushing an all-or-nothing approach, attacking allies who are genuinely trying to reform the system and steering the effort toward failure was "irresponsible extremism."

Lee's stepped-up direct communication has become increasingly conspicuous of late. Visiting the Chunchugwan press briefing room on Oct. 19, Lee told reporters: "Would there be a President Lee Jae Myung without SNS? Could I have become Gyeonggi Province governor?" — signaling continued heavy use of social media. Around the same time, when some outlets raised questions about the political neutrality of having the head of a new investigative agency attend a Cabinet meeting, Lee also took to social media to address that controversy directly.

Meanwhile, Cheong Wa Dae pushed back Wednesday against a media report claiming that a Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province-linked network centered on First Deputy Chief of Staff Kim Hyun-ji had taken control of personnel administration, leaving 20 percent of presidential secretariat positions vacant. "That is not true," the presidential office said, adding that the actual number of staff working in the secretariat must account for both undisclosed personnel and those seconded from various government ministries.


sang@heraldcorp.com
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