How have past Korean presidents fared after holding crisis press conferences?

As President Lee Jae Myung held his seventh press conference since taking office Friday at Cheong Wa Dae's banquet hall, past South Korean presidents have similarly turned to emergency press conferences as a way out of crises — from sudden shifts in security and economic conditions to plunging approval ratings.

The outcomes, however, varied widely from president to president. Former President Yoon Suk Yeol, facing mounting controversy over the so-called "Myung Tae-kyun gate" scandal and allegations of first lady Kim Keon Hee's interference in state affairs, held a national address and press conference on Nov. 7, 2024, after his approval rating had collapsed into the teens.

Yoon bowed his head and apologized, saying "all of this is the result of my own negligence and lack of virtue." But during the question-and-answer session that followed, he pushed back against reporters' questions one by one, drawing widespread criticism that the event was a hollow exercise — and his approval rating failed to recover.

Former President Moon Jae-in took a different approach. At his New Year's press conference in January 2021, he acknowledged policy failures on real estate — the most pressing issue at the time — and outlined a plan to expand housing supply. Polls afterward showed a rebound in positive assessments of his job performance, and the press conference was widely credited with helping turn his approval ratings around.

According to Gallup Korea, Moon's average positive job-approval rating during the final quarter of his five-year term — January through March 2022 — stood at 42 percent, the highest of any president elected since the restoration of direct presidential elections.

Former President Lee Myung-bak also saw his approval rating plunge from 52 percent to 21 percent in his first year in office, battered by the fallout from the US beef import controversy, but a special press conference on June 19, 2008, is widely credited with helping him stage a comeback.

Lee bowed his head at the time, saying, "As I watched countless candles flickering in the dark streets, I deeply blamed myself for what I had done wrong." He then reshuffled key presidential office aides and met directly with Park Geun-hye, then a Grand National Party lawmaker, to minimize intraparty divisions — efforts that helped him sustain approval ratings in the 40 percent range in the third year of his presidency, in 2010.

Former President Park Geun-hye also managed to halt a slide in her approval ratings through a public address. After she delivered a national address on May 19, 2014, following the Sewol ferry disaster, a Realmeter poll showed that a five-week downward trend in her approval rating came to a stop. However, when the so-called "Choi Soon-sil state-meddling scandal" erupted in 2016, her public apology failed to prevent a further decline.

Going further back, former President Kim Dae-jung held a televised national dialogue on May 10, 1998, during the Asian financial crisis, explaining the severity of the situation and appealing for public cooperation on restructuring and shared sacrifice. His approval rating was already high at the time and did not rise further.

Former President Roh Moo-hyun held a public briefing and press conference immediately after the conclusion of the Korea-US free trade agreement in April 2007, and a Realmeter poll at the time showed his positive job-approval rating at 32.5 percent — up 10 percentage points from the previous week.