What's the cause for their demonstration?

I remember one MBC News Desk female anchor--a member of the MBC labor union--saying the other day that she was worried that their strike would be viewed as a selfish act to advocate their vested interests. Ha Ha Ha. But the fact is, that's just that. They are a union solely intent upon protecting their established interests, and nothing else.

The reason gets clear by demonstrating the dilemma they are stuck in.

They claim that if ownership of the nation's broadcasting is distributed over a number of private companies and newspapers, people's views would be disoriented and there would be lack of criticism against the wrongs of the established institutions, thus leading the nation in the wrong direction and degrading democracy.

Well, if it is true that the role of broadcasting is that immense and people are so ignorant that they are swayed by the content of the broadcasts to such an extent, then wouldn't it be safer to let them choose among more various channels based on which they can build their own opinions? More over, how dare they say their--MBC's--current broadcasts are ever just and leading the people in the right direction? Has that ever been validated with any trusted body? Who's accusing whom?

Broadcasting is a form of delivering information to people who are consumers to its content whether it be news, documentary films, or entertainment programs. It's the viewers that determines the quality of the broadcast content--"the invisible hand of the market" comes into play here. Isn't this more democratic than limiting the news broadcast channels to just a certain number?

Diversification of broadcast channels and their ownership has long been espoused in many developed countries including the US, which is often cited as the paragon of liberal journalism. Just think about how many TV channels are there in the US. How many broadcast news sources are there in that country? Is there any broadcasting company having such privilege as one MBC has in Korea?

What is so contrary to their point is that those advocates for MBC's current cause are the same people who almost everyday are expressing so much worry about the dominance of the big three newspapers in the Korean newspaper market even as their dominance is purely a result of the readers' choice, never the kind of privilege MBC is given now.

When it comes to democracy, what we need most is diversification. But the demonstrators show very contradictory behaviors. They are calling for forcible distribution of power over more newspapers while at the same time calling for forcible centralization of power to one major private broadcasting company. The only way to figure out this inconsistent and even schizophrenic behavior is, as the female anchor already unwittingly admitted, to understand that they are merely a labor union fighting for their own vested interests--which are too sweet and comfortable to lose.