Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism spent 1.8832 billion won in budget over the past three months
A large budget is spent on YouTube video production and policy advertisements.
Lim Oh-kyung criticizes “budget aimed at pushing fake news”
It was confirmed that the Yoon Seok-yeol government spent at least 1.8 billion won over the past three months to promote the safety of contaminated water from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant. Criticism has been raised that the government took the lead in promoting the issue to the public by creating and distributing brochures and videos even before the discharge of contaminated water began.
According to data submitted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism by Lim Oh-kyung, a member of the National Assembly Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee, the budget spent by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism over the past three months to promote the safety of Fukushima contaminated water is 1.8832 billion won.
It is understood that even more costs were incurred when including the cost of the portal site’s blog content. Considering that only the budget of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is counted, some say that the execution budget will increase if promotional costs of other ministries are included.
The budget used by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to run policy advertisements using YouTube, KTX, subways, and Facebook is 1,794.2 million won. Among these, it was confirmed that 89 million won was spent to print and distribute 165,000 copies of the booklet ’10 Ghost Stories of Fukushima Contaminated Water’.
It was found that a budget of hundreds of millions of won was invested to produce YouTube videos.
From July 10th to September 28th, the videos ‘The truth about Fukushima’s contaminated water as told by Korea’s top experts (4 minutes and 26 seconds)’ and ‘Are our marine products safe? (1 minute)’ were broadcast through YouTube advertisements, costing 1 billion won. 50 million won was spent.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism spent 570 million won from last August to October to produce YouTube videos such as ‘How are we managing radioactivity in our seafood?’ and ‘Unchanging standards for radiation testing of imported seafood, only for the peace of the public.’ .
It took 74.2 million won to air promotional videos on subways and KTX trains.
The government also produced card news to promote the safety of contaminated water from nuclear power plants. Specifically, it cost 100 million won to distribute the card news ’10 ghost stories about Fukushima contaminated water’.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism printed and distributed 90,000 copies of the booklet ’10 Ghost Stories of Fukushima Contaminated Water’ with a budget of 50 million won in July, before the discharge of contaminated water from the nuclear power plant began on August 24.
The main distribution locations were public institutions and places of multiple use, such as central administrative agencies, public libraries, and community service centers.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism distributed an additional 75,000 copies of the booklet to KTX and SRT from September 1 to 7, and the additional budget was 39 million won.
They started promoting the safety of contaminated water from nuclear power plants by investing the budget into brochures that will be provided for a week and then discarded.
Rep. Oh-kyung Lim pointed out, “The majority of citizens and many scientists are concerned about the discharge of contaminated water from Fukushima, but it is questionable which country’s government is spending the budget to dismiss this as a ghost story or fake news.”
He added, “Discharging polluted water is not a matter of science or a ghost story, but a matter of the right to survive and life to protect the country and its people.”
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.