Charging that the Chosun, Dong-a and JoongAng Ilbo in 2002 offered through their distributors free copies in excess of 20 percent of paid copies, the commission fined the Chosun Ilbo W240 million and the Dong-a and Joong-Ang W174 million each. The FTC inspected the three major dailies based on complaints filed by a pro-government group calling itself Citizens' Coalition for Democratic Media and other civic organizations. Experts questioned the move.

Professor Park Chun-il at Sookmyung Women's University said the“commission has interpreted the concept of paid newspaper copies for expedience." Prof. Kim Woo-ryong at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies said it is “unfair to regulate premium newspapers while leaving free newspapers untouched." Others questioned the motive of the FTC, which has its hands full dealing with violations by big corporations, decided to swoop on the newspaper market, which accounts for no more than 0.001 percent of GDP.

Kim Won-joon, the director of the FTC’s Business Group Division said the core issue was whether paid newspapers constituted money collected from distributors or money received from the subscribers.

"We've decided that the number of paid copies at the head office should be identical with that of the paid newspaper copies its distributors deliver and collect money for from subscribers,” he said.

During a briefing on unfair transactions by 54 newspaper distributors, however, Kim said newspaper distributors “are independent businesses ... Because a newspaper differs from a distributor, it’s inappropriate to announce the amount of fines for distributors together with those of newspaper firms rather than individually."

This contradicts an earlier FTC announcement that newspaper head offices are sanctioned based on the number of paid copies handled by their distributors, which seems to treat distributors as subordinate entities to the publisher. The combined 2005 sales of the country's 10 largest newspapers stood at W1.51 trillion, a mere 0.001 percent of GDP. Yet the FTC's sanctions are concentrated on the newspaper market. http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200703/200703130033.html; March 13, 2007