3		Journalism and 'Flier' The Chosun Ilbo, A35p. - Opinion Oct. 10, 2004 (Wed)  [Economy Focus] Journalism and 'Flier' A word 'journalism' is mentioned often when the role of the media is discussed. Restricted meaning of journalism is defined, 'activity to inform the current issues and opinions to the public through periodical publications.' Historical character of journalism, which was established during the people's revolution in 17th and 18th centuries, was created to converge the power of people and public opinion to confront to feudalistic and absolute despotism.   Irresponsibly unverified information Ultimately, the purpose of the journalism is being impartial, disclosing wrong traditions, maintaining balance of the society and protecting the public. It is to lead the society to the desirable way by revealing the truth to find valuable things and reflecting wrong ideas and behavior. For this reason, most of the journalists and reporters write articles with a sense of duty and they stake the reputation of themselves and the press to write articles based on verified facts, responsible and impartial editing step. Especially, they are deeply interested in the issues with regard to the reliability, and consider it just as their life. In contrast to the most of media that are based on the journalism, there is a flood of editorial information magazines and papers that is called a 'flier.' In the past, when it was authoritarian era, information reported on the fliers was often truth due to the information blockage phenomenon. However, in these days a trend of mutual distrust is created because it is free to exchange information, and news based on rumors without verification circulates in our society irresponsibly. Some people even spreads false rumors and brings huge loss, in addition to intruding upon another's privacy and defaming another's character. Social celebrities are always in the center of those issues. Their private life is talked without any verification, and sometimes, even imaginary information is circulated as a fact. In case of a company, sometimes false information on fliers are delivered to foreign buyers and invertors, and the company has to tolerate disadvantages such as a protest call or lowered stock price. In addition, some spread false flier information to hamper their competing company. The reason why the problem is critical is because many people are observing the false information interestingly without factual verification. Even some of the people who are leading our society use those unverified information freely to abuse their counterparts also without verifying whether the information they used are the facts or not, and bad effects that in the cases are real huge. It cannot be tolerated socially and it only deepens a trend of the mutual distrust.   Damaging individuals and businesses Society where false information is considered interestingly and knowing false information is recognized specially faces a serious problem. When this sort of phenomena deepens, people will rely on the false information on fliers, and distrust and misinterpretation will be more deepened, either. It does not only reveals the weakness of our society's base, but it also brings giant social-economical loss. With putting importance on impartial and factual journalism, we also need to find problems and improve the flow of information. Other then that, all of us will become victims. Especially, companies that are competing intensely with foreign companies can suffer from an economical loss and discarded by investors by false information on fliers. Although we are living in the flood of information, we need to make our society to treat information more maturely and to consider about the bad effects that is brought by misinterpreted information.