South Korea was thrust into a dramatic political crisis Tuesday night amid President Yoon Suk Yeol's unexpected declaration of martial law.

The rapidly unfolding situation, which developed over approximately six hours, exposed shortcomings in media coverage as major broadcasters struggled to respond in real time.

While Yonhap News TV and Seoul Broadcasting System were among the few outlets to provide immediate live coverage of the martial law declaration, others lagged behind.

The state-run Korean Broadcasting System and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation failed to promptly air live coverage of President Yoon's address, which began at 10:23 p.m. KBS commenced its broadcast at 10:25 p.m., while MBC interrupted its scheduled program, "PD Note," to begin coverage at 10:48 p.m.

MBC faced additional criticism for technical errors. On screen, the network misspelled the Korean word for martial law, rendering it as "gye-yeom" instead of "gye-om." Furthermore, MBC's live stream of Yoon's martial law declaration on its official YouTube channel was interrupted midway and restarted. MBC's troubles continued in the early morning when its live TV coverage of Yoon's address lifting the martial law order was interrupted due to a technical error and restarted a few seconds later.

Harsh backlash was also directed at state broadcaster KBS.

On Wednesday, the National Union of Media Workers issued a statement, calling KBS' handling of the martial law declaration a "journalistic disaster." The union accused KBS of failing to promptly transition to comprehensive coverage of the crisis and criticized its lack of live reporting on the events unfolding at the National Assembly.

The union also took issue with KBS' delayed coverage of press conferences held by opposition leaders following the National Assembly vote that revoked martial law. It further condemned the broadcaster for airing unverified claims made by People Power Party floor leader Choo Kyung-ho, who alleged that "the National Assembly doors were closed, preventing the vote."

The union contended that the recent "journalistic failure" reflects a pattern of power-biased reporting that has persisted for over a year under the leadership of current KBS President Park Min.