President Lee Jae-myung sharply criticized those involved in a so-called "reporter front-running" case, saying they "must stop stock manipulation and return to being normal journalists who report with honesty and integrity."
On Thursday, President Lee shared a KBS report titled "Two Arrested, Including Front-Running Reporter Who Pocketed 9 Billion Won Through 2,000 Articles" on his X (formerly Twitter) account, describing it as "normalizing the abnormal."
"If you have already committed such acts, please turn yourself in, as filing a public-interest report brings reduced punishment and a whistleblower reward," he said. "Every behavior that harms law-abiding citizens who follow the rules while gaining profit by breaking the rules is an abnormality of a bygone era."
He stressed, "To build a Republic of Korea where everyone prospers together, normalizing all abnormalities is an unavoidable task of our times."
Earlier, KBS reported that the capital markets special judicial police of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) had arrested two people, including a broker and a reporter belonging to an economic media outlet, on charges of reaping illicit gains through stock trading by exploiting articles.
According to the report, the arrested broker is suspected of working with several reporters to have favorable articles published at specific times. About 2,000 articles were released through this method, and the illicit gains were estimated at around 9 billion won.
