RAINEYE

The May 18 Journalism Award is jointly organized by the May 18 Memorial Foundation and the Gwangju-Jeonnam Journalists Association to commemorate the efforts of journalists who dedicated themselves to reporting the truth of the May 18 Democratic Movement even in the situation of media control by the military regime and to carry on the spirit of journalism.

The media is called the fourth power. It implicitly expresses the great influence of the media in modern society. Because of the power of the media, power and capital sometimes used it as a means of governance.

In May 1980, the new military crushed the aspirations of the people who longed for democracy with heavy fire. Even during the brutality of Gwangju citizens being brutally slaughtered, Koreans could not access the news of Gwangju. This is because the new military tightly controlled the media by strengthening censorship of media reports and deleting articles to justify their actions while hiding conspiracies to seize power.

The new military, which emerged with the fall of the Park Chung-hee regime, conducted media censorship as a way to control the eruption of claims of democratization, which had been suppressed under the Yushin regime. It planned a plot to ultimately extend the military government while controlling the media.

The new military pushed ahead with the restructuring of the media systematically, not just media control. It controlled journalists, controlled the media, and controlled the content of the media. This was very similar to the press control method of Paul Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi party's propaganda minister, who made the German people accept the Nazi regime favorably around World War II.

Despite the suppression of the new military, many journalists across the country have made efforts to reflect on the appearance of the media in the Yushin era and return to their original attitude. In protest of the new military's media censorship and reporting guidelines, they refused to produce the product, and confronted the sword with a pen to let them know the truth of Gwangju. This is evidenced by the fact that in 1980, as many as 900 journalists were forcibly dismissed from their jobs while confronting the new military and media capital to protect press freedom. In May 1980, the new military committed the 'Gwangju genocide' at the same time.

The suppression of the press by the new military led to public distrust of the media. The efforts of reporters who resisted injustice were thoroughly hidden by the regime along with the truth. Reporting the truth is the mission of reporters and the role of reporters demanded by the times..