SEOUL, Sept 25 — K-pop agency HYBE is in the news again and this time it’s for allegedly trying to minimize the success of girl group NewJeans.

CBS Radio program Kim Hyun-jung’s News Show aired a phone interview earlier today with a journalist who claimed he was approached by HYBE’s head of public relations to “correct” a news article he did.

Jang Hyung-woo, who describes himself as an industrial journalist covering sectors including aviation and shipbuilding, had written about HYBE’s stock price while covering NewJeans’ Tokyo Dome performance on July 17.

“Following that, I received a request from HYBE to amend the article.”

He told by the HYBE rep that the statement in his article that NewJeans had sold 1.02 million copies in Japan was incorrect and that the numbers encompassed sales globally as well.

What surprised him was when HYBE’s PR person “then added that the sales weren’t as strong as thought and that the record wasn’t as impressive.”

It made no sense to him that instead of talking up and promoting their group, the HYBE rep was downplaying the group’s sales, especially as selling a million copies is still no small feat.

In a leaked recording of the call, the individual alleged to be from HYBE can be heard saying, “We need to correct the facts, don’t we? It didn’t sell that well in Japan. It didn’t perform as well as expected, so we need to set the record straight.”

The HYBE rep also alluded to scheduling a golf meeting with Jang’s editor and stated that he would invite Jang along as well.

Golf meetings are often considered a euphemism for corruption in South Korea

HYBE has put out a statement in response, clarifying that the golf meeting had been scheduled prior to the call and that the agency would be making a complaint on the leaking of the call recording.

As to NewJeans, HYBE said: “We have made every effort to promote ADOR, including NewJeans’ albums.”

Interestingly HYBE did not disown the statements made by their PR rep.

Today NewJeans is supposed to receive an official response to the group’s request to reinstate Min Hee-jin, former CEO of their agency ADOR, a subsidiary of HYBE.

Will this recent revelation throw a spanner between HYBE and NewJeans negotiations? Watch this space.