언론제보와 공익신고

Abstract

As can be seen from the legal name, the Public Interest Whistleblower Protection Act is mainly aimed at protecting those who report so-called acts detrimental to the public interest. Whistleblowers are considered righteous in that they have prevented various losses that can be caused by acts detrimental to the public interest and improved the soundness of our society. However, it can be said that there is a high possibility of being branded as a traitor to the organization and exposed to various disadvantageous measures. If you look at the contents of the Public Interest Whistleblower Protection Act, you can see that the requirements for being recognized as a Whistleblower are quite strict and difficult, so there may be cases where legal protection is not possible. In other words,, a blind spot for the protection of whistleblowers is created. It can be said that the representative case is the case of reporting to a media organization. However, in the case of media reports, it would not be reasonable to exclude media institutions from the subject of protection on the grounds that they are not legal whistleblowing disclosure agencies. It should not be forgotten that major whistleblowing disclosures, which have had huge social repercussions so far, have been made in the form of media reports. In the future, the possibility of whistleblowing disclosure through media reports will never be small. Therefore, it is necessary to find a way to protect media reporters as whistleblowers. It can be said that the ultimate solution to strengthen the protection of media reporters is to designate media institutions as whistleblowing disclosure agencies. Considering the problems that may arise if a media institution is hastily designated as a whistleblowing disclosure agency, it is desirable to include media reporters in the scope of protection of whistleblowers on the premise of adding requirements such as urgency, supplementation, necessity, importance, and integrity.