[Open Radio YTN] The media about Jung Woo Sung's extramarital affair for the past week.

[Open Radio YTN]

■ Broadcast: YTN Radio FM 94.5 (20:20-21:00)
■ Air date: November 30, 2024 (Saturday)
■ Host: announcer Choi Hwi
■ Dialogue: Kim Un-kyung, Director of the Human Rights Research Institute for Media and Human Rights

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information.

◇ Choi Hwi: It's a week of time to chew the news, media criticism. Today, I'm on the phone with Kim Un-kyung, director of the Moongle Media Human Rights Research Center. Hello,

◆ Kim Eon-kyung: Hello.

◇ Choi Hwi: Actually, there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed in the media these days. Politically, the number of politicians involved continues to increase due to the fact that the Myung Tae-kyun gate is a wave. Regarding Korea-Japan relations, the Sado Mine memorial ceremony is being treated as a major issue. In the meantime, there is an issue that is being dealt with in the media somewhat absurdly, so you decided to deal with this issue. It's the controversy surrounding actor Jung Woo-sung's birth man. Let's first hear how you decided to deal with this news.

◆ Kim Eon-kyung: In fact, I'm consciously trying to deal mainly with issues related to media human rights in this broadcast. Therefore, even if it deals with issues in the entertainment industry, it mainly deals with human rights related to celebrities, and mainly deals with human rights of children, adolescents, and entertainers and suicide reports. I wasn't very interested in this issue, so I didn't intend to deal with it. To be honest, I got a call from a reporter. I got a tip that there's a lot of coverage. I didn't realize it because I didn't watch a lot of entertainment news. In fact, when I searched Big Kines, a news big data site operated by the Korea Press Promotion Foundation, I was able to confirm that there was a considerable amount of related reports. Also, the coverage was quite sensational. I thought I could talk about various things through this issue, so I quickly changed the subject to this.

◇ Choi HW: Then shall we look at the amount of coverage first?

◆ Kim Eon-kyung: The amount of coverage was limited to before 9 a.m. on November 24th and 27th, when related reports began to appear. As I said, I searched for Jung Woo Sung on Big Kines. After extracting all related reports, I deleted all non-related reports, and deleted duplicate reports. As a result, a total of 472 cases were reported in three days. If you look at the amount of coverage by type of media. The central comprehensive daily newspaper reported 114 cases. The economic daily reported a total of 202 cases. Local daily newspapers reported 23 cases. The broadcaster reported 54 cases. Sports newspapers reported 51 cases, five specialized newspapers and 23 online media. It should be noted that Big Kines is different from Naver, so there are fewer broadcasters, specialty magazines, and Internet media companies that can search for news in the first place. That's why there's so little coverage. If it is extracted from Naver, it will be much more reported. Therefore, when looking at the news extracted from Big Kines, we looked at the types of media reports focusing on major media companies. It would be good to see it in this concept, and it should be taken into account that there are definitely limitations because telecommunications companies are missing. Nevertheless, even considering these limitations, you can point out the meaning of comparing the amount of coverage with the results extracted by one extraction method within Big Kines.

◇ [Choi Hwi] I see. When I heard what you just said, Jung Woo-sung's birth is news, and this is 51 cases reported by sports entertainment magazine. I understand this. I think it's a little too much to report 114 cases in the general daily newspaper and 202 cases in the economic daily newspaper.

◆ Kim Eon-kyung: I think so too. First of all, I'll solve it a little more and tell you. Among the central daily newspapers, the Segye Ilbo and the JoongAng Ilbo each reported 19 cases. Next, the Seoul Shimbun reported 15 cases, the Chosun Ilbo reported 13 cases, and the Kookmin Ilbo reported 12. Of course, not all of these reports were reported on the page, and most of them appear to be online reports. However, it is necessary for the general daily newspapers to look back on whether they need to report so much news about their love story, Deuknam. The Hankook Ilbo and the Dong-A Ilbo reported 9 cases, Asia Today reported 6, Kyunghyang Shinmun reported 5, Munhwa Ilbo reported 4 cases, and Hankyoreh reported 3. If you look at the economic magazine. There were a total of 202 cases, and the economy every day was the most at 35. Next, there were 28 related reports with Money Today, 25 cases with Aju economy, 23 cases with the Herald economy and the Korean economy, 21 cases with Financial News, and 20 cases with Asian economy. In short, I thought I enjoyed the click-through fun with this issue.

◇ Choi Hwi: Was there a lot to report like that? What was the main content?

◆ Kim Eon-kyung: First of all, on the 24th, the first day of the report, there were many reports about the fact that Moon Ga-bi had a son and that his biological father was found to be Jung Woo-sung. In the following content, Jung Woo-sung said, "I will be responsible until the end. It was followed by the position that "I will not get married." There were also reports of who Mr. Mungabi was. Up to this point, it was focused on simple facts and positions rather than critical content.
However, from the 25th, we began to move on to digging up past remarks about Jung Woo-sung, digging into privacy, and controversy over morality. It was Jeong Yu-ra's comment that lit the fire here. Choi Seo-won's daughter Jeong Yu-ra, who was the main character of the Park Geun Hye manipulation of state affairs, attacked Jung Woo-sung by using inappropriate expressions such as "I don't want to get married because I said I'll take responsibility," "Let's get refugees," and on the show. However, various media companies published this SNS post without filtering. Of the 472 cases extracted from Big Kines, 18 were reported by Jung Yu-ra, and 31 were reported by Jung Yu-ra when searched on Naver.

◇ Choi Hwi: Isn't it because Jung Woo-sung's out-of-wedding news is such a rare issue in our society that we reported a lot like this?

◆ Kim Eon-kyung: First of all, I think it would be good to organize the issues related to Jung Woo-sung from the back. Before that story, I regret that among all the controversies related to this time, there were many reports that Jung Yu-ra's SNS posts were spread as it is. I didn't know before. Jung Yu-ra said she was a single mom, and she said she was having a hard time living as a single mom due to social prejudice. However, some of his remarks were expressions that could hurt Jung Woo-sung's child and Moon Ga-bi. The media even translated this expression and delivered it. This is what I thought. Maybe the media companies were waiting for someone to curse over Jung Woo-sung's case. So someone said, "Yeah, that's it. Let's report this," and people say, "That's what I mean. I'm sure they'll click it while doing it, and they'll be talking in the comments section." Isn't it that they quickly released the report? In fact, I could see the characteristics of the leftists, the inner South, and the comments on these reports. If you're reporting like this... How can we evaluate the meaning of a media company and the meaning of a reporter?

◇ Choi Hwi: The director made a comment on the issue in today's media report. I think the issue of Jung Woo-sung's non-marital birth is a subject that can be dealt with in the media, but you think there is a problem that is overheated, right?

◆ Kim Eon-kyung: Yes. Considering scarcity and fame in terms of news value selection criteria, Jung Woo-sung gave birth to a famous model and son before marriage, and the fact that he will not marry him but fulfill his responsibilities as a father can be newsworthy. Therefore, I don't think we should warn the media not to report this morally. However, the media's behavior to attack individuals who do not marry with moral standards is problematic. It's the idea that we can't force someone to marry or not. The media doesn't give us all the information, and I don't think we deserve to judge that. Of course, you can give your opinion, but it should be for us to have a private conversation. I don't think it's appropriate for the media to publish this as a report, open a comment box with the report, and lay the groundwork for the discussion to citizens. Above all, I think it is a problem that these discussions that emphasize morality strengthen the "normal family frame" and even make remarks that hurt non-normal families. I think the media should talk about how to create the environment and system so that children can grow up well under any circumstances, at a time when they warn that they will be unhappy if they don't get married.

◇ Choi Hwi: Yes. This has been Kim Eon-kyung, director of the Moongle Media Human Rights Research Institute.

◆ Kim Eon-kyung: Thank you.