Religious group resistant to investigation in the past… A ringleader ‘fleeing overseas’
01/13/2015- 11:28
On May 15, 2014, MBN News broadcast about an allegation on Jung Myung Seok saying, “President Jung Myung Seok of the Christian Gospel Mission (aka JMS) sexually assaulted female members. He claimed to be the messiah in 1999. In the aftermath, these claims spread and caused public alarm.
We also broadcast that Jung Myung Seok left the country as soon as prosecutors began to investigate into those allegations. The prosecutors were checking whether or not he was doing ministry in other countries. It was alleged that for about 10 years, he was hiding in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and other countries.”
The Christian Gospel Mission has informed us that the contents of the news broadcast went contrary to facts. Therefore, we seek to make corrections.
The news broadcast contained factual inaccuracies. For this reason, we apologize for defaming President Jung Myung Seok and the Christian Gospel Mission members.
The Stigma of Unchecked Media
Although it was great that MBN News Broadcast apologized for defaming Jung Myung Seok, they still did it. Nothing can change the fact that millions of people read those false claims. As a result, MBN’s false claims have made people doubt Jung Myung Seok’s legitimacy.
In order to right such a wrong, CGM would have to invest years of effort to remove the negative stigma. For Jung Myung Seok, the media has stolen 10 years of his life. Nevertheless, he continues to live a remarkable life even in prison. In this way, false media can have a lasting effect even after corrected. Through these situations, I hope other news outlets will learn to check for false claims in their articles before they publish.
The English translation and pictures are released for public use under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
MBN News 13 Jan 2015 Original Article | Archived | Translated
