Hong Seok-hyun delivering a commemorative address at the 60th anniversary ceremony of the JoongAng Ilbo, held at the Lotte Hotel in Sogong-dong, Seoul, on September 17, 2025. [Photo=JoongAng Ilbo]

They say life is full of uncertainties, and lately, that rings especially true for Hong Seok-hyun (77), the owner of JoongAng Ilbo-JTBC. Last autumn—less than a year before news broke of the JoongAng Group’s disintegration due to a liquidity crisis—Hong was leisurely publishing an essay collection through his own publishing house. The title was "Things Life Has Taught Me" (JoongAng Books).

A bold blurb decorating the book reads: “Reflections and confessions of a leader who wishes to become a true adult.” What is it about? According to his confession, he wanted to "summarize in book form what I have gained from the path I have walked," and thus the book contains "the patterns life has left on my soul."

It is astonishing. We all know now that the crisis of the JoongAng Group’s collapse was already deep and irreversible by that time. Capital impairment had occurred long before that. At the time, the father-son duo of Hong Seok-hyun and Hong Jung-do would have been scrambling to reach out here and there and busy selling off real estate to stave off bankruptcy.

In such a dire phase, Hong Seok-hyun was spouting nonsense about being a “true adult” and the “patterns on my soul.” I bought and skimmed the book early this year. It reconfirmed that his mentality is truly bizarre, unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

The highlight among them is his declaration that “ink flows through my veins.” It was a boast by a man who never worked a single day as a reporter that he was born with the DNA of a journalist.

“Starting my morning routine by reading the newspaper is a habit spanning over 60 years, and after becoming the representative of JoongAng Ilbo in 1994, reading the newspaper became my main job. These days, the status of print media is not what it used to be, and I also consume a lot of news via mobile, but I cannot drive the printed newspaper out of my office. It is the blood of a ‘newspaperman’ who cannot shake off the charm of paper thick with the smell of ink.” (p. 43)

Hong Seok-hyun, who took such pride in having the blood of a newspaperman, is now on the brink of ruin. No one expected that Hong Seok-hyun, who seemed destined for perpetual success and clever maneuvering, would be reeling like this.

In fact, the bankruptcy of a media company is not a common occurrence. Banks and creditors usually give them a pass. However, with his son Hong Jung-do pursuing reckless management to the extreme, and the debt ratio skyrocketing 100-fold from 22.9% in 2013 to 2,620% last year, this was a management disaster that no one could simply overlook.

There is something else that is truly surprising: Hong Seok-hyun’s current conduct. He remains in denial of reality, acting irresponsibly. Do you remember the press conference announcing the corporate rehabilitation procedures for five companies under the JoongAng Group? Only Vice Chairman Hong Jung-do appeared on the podium, bowing his head three times and saying, “I am sorry.” The face of Hong Seok-hyun, the owner of JoongAng Group by name, was nowhere to be found.

In contrast, when Taeyoung E&C applied for a workout (corporate debt restructuring) two years ago, founder and Chairman Yoon Se-young appeared at the press conference alongside his son, Chairman Yoon Seok-min. He was 93 at the time. Nevertheless, he vowed with a serious expression, “I will devote my full efforts to an early graduation from the workout program.” It goes without saying that this sounded sincere to the public and the creditors.

That is how Hong Seok-hyun differs from others. His specialty is distancing himself from accountability as a media proprietor whenever the situation becomes truly critical. Perhaps he has lived his entire life riding on the coattails of others. Above all, JoongAng Ilbo-JTBC is not a media outlet he pioneered, is it? He merely managed a media company built by Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul, following in the footsteps of his father, Hong Jin-ki.

It was his brother-in-law, Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who appointed Hong Seok-hyun as the president of JoongAng Ilbo in 1994. He is a man who has achieved nothing with his own hands, and his sense of responsibility is truly zero.

Astonishingly, it is said that Hong Seok-hyun goes around telling people these days, “I am not at fault.” My goodness! Weren't the recruitment of the left-leaning announcer Sohn Suk-hee and the instigation of President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment all his decisions?

In that sense, the JoongAng Group’s disintegration crisis will remain a subject of study for media outlets for a long time to come. The father-son duo at the center of it, Hong Seok-hyun and Hong Jung-do, should also be examined as negative examples and case studies of failure in our time.

There is something even more important. In South Korean society, now 10 years into a systemic crisis following the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye, what matters most is that irresponsible media proprietors who preach “open conservatism,” like the Hong Seok-hyun and Hong Jung-do duo, will inevitably fall.

As the world knows, the two are quite similar, starting from their pretense of being left-leaning. First of all, the son, Hong Jung-do, is a “Gangnam Leftist.” Isn’t he the friend who blurts out that he respects Roh Moo-hyun? And above all, he is infamous for the remark, “Unverified facts can also be valuable information.”

That was a declaration of the worst kind of fake news. It was an official statement during the 50th-anniversary event of the JoongAng Ilbo in 2015. What was Hong Seok-hyun doing then? He was sitting below the stage, calmly applauding his son’s words.

Hong Seok-hyun, who should have scolded him, saying, “Hey, what kind of nonsense is that?”, was that irresponsible. What is truly terrifying is that, ever since, the two have moved as if they were one body. In other words, it is as if the two worst villains in the media landscape appeared simultaneously. In fact, didn't Hong Seok-hyun launch an agitprop campaign using a tablet PC during the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye, just one year after Hong Jung-do’s remark?

Above all, if Hong Jung-do is a Gangnam Leftist, Hong Seok-hyun is the man who championed “open conservatism.” In other words, the Hong Seok-hyun and Hong Jung-do duo are synonymous with the most flimsy and worthless ideological armament in Korean society. In fact, Hong Seok-hyun’s motto, “open conservatism,” has functioned as the de facto editorial policy of the JoongAng Ilbo, a conservative media outlet, for the past 30 years.

As a result, it was the root cause that turned that outlet into an ambiguous, centrist newspaper. No, it had an even more destructive impact. Behind the fact that “Cho-Joong-Dong” can no longer be viewed as conservative media sits this very “open conservatism.” Doesn’t this mean that the origin of today’s media crisis lies with Hong Seok-hyun and Hong Jung-do?

Moreover, Hong Seok-hyun was neither the “true adult” nor the “man with patterns etched on his soul” that he boasted of being. He was simply a man with a presidential complex, as everyone knows.

He moved according to a blueprint: using the position of Ambassador to the U.S., appointed during the Roh Moo-hyun administration, as a stepping stone to become the UN Secretary-General, and then making a flashy comeback to Korea to ascend to the presidency. It is perfectly clear that such delusional dreams were not the responsible behavior of a proper media proprietor. That is the remote cause of the current JoongAng Ilbo-JTBC crisis and its impending disintegration.

This article is the first in a series addressing Hong Seok-hyun and Hong Jung-do. In the immediate follow-up, I will examine the character and mindset of Hong Seok-hyun separately, and subsequently, I will delve into the unmanageable thoughts and conduct of Hong Jung-do, the worst kind of undisciplined media executive.

◆ Cho Woo-seok, Critic

Current affairs critic. A leading culture expert in South Korea, formerly a reporter at the Seoul Shinmun, culture editor at the Munhwa Ilbo, and culture specialist reporter at the JoongAng Ilbo. He served on the KBS Board of Directors and the board of the Park Chung-hee Presidential Memorial Foundation, and is a recipient of the Korea Publishing Criticism Award (2008) and the 25th Seoul Journalist Club Column Award (2010).