This meanders somewhat as I think out loud, so bear with me…

I normally just pass over entertainment items – even like the suicide of this actress.  I thought to mention it to my wife, and she will normally tell me tid bits if it is interesting or a big thing to Koreans.  But, I did want to read this article in the Chosun Daily:  Police Confirm Jang Ja-yeon Left Explosive List

It is what you’d expect — the actress left a seemingly long list of names (in sentence-length descriptions) of publicly known people who she was forced to “entertain” to advance her career.

I’m highly interested in seeing how this plays out for a few reasons.

One is that sex crimes in Korea are treated too lightly by the courts and the general population.  The population seems to have changed a fair amount in its attitude since the 1990s but the courts haven’t come around much and at least from here (in the US) it seems the society still has a long way to go.

And cases like this can make a significant dent.  The US used to be just as backward on these issues as Korea, but some landmark and highly covered cases/events helped change it.

In Korea, for example, I think there was a sexual harassment case in the early 1990s, at a university, I seem to remember, that brought about a lot of movement on that issue.

But – another reason I’m interested in this news item is — will it “go viral” (as they say) in the public?  Can the chaebol and public figures sweep it under the rug?

In doing some light research  on  the difference between  news coverage of “environmental crimes” by USFK or the US Embassy and by Koreans, I got to see just how much the chaebol influence the media  in Korean society:

We all know how polluted Korea’s environment is, and about how the Green Movement has at least caught on verbally in the society, but the news coverage of actual polluters is minuscule.  I could find stories about pollution problems but not about specific sources (unless it was Uncle Sam).

The stories were all generic ones about bad water or air or soil.   If they did cover specific  cases of polluters, it was always small or medium businesses.  Nothing like Pohang Steel or other chaebol.

I mean – it became really obvious how much influence the chaebol have on the media — when I found a handful of TV news and newspaper reports that covered specific instances of large scale pollution in certain industrial areas/cities, but they refused to name the businesses operating in the area.    One TV spot was on stunted tree growth near an industrial center where the reporter refused to name any names and they even used a mosaic to blot out the chaebol logos on the buildings and passing trucks.  Another was a newspaper story on water pollution with samples taken above and below an industrial area.  The story did claim the level of pollution jumped dramatically from tests of two specific factories, but it named those two companies as “company X” and “Y”.

In the year I covered, there were more positive stories I could find about what major chaebol were doing to protect the environment than stories linking them to pollution.

So —– considering this influence — and considering who might be on this actress’ list — I wonder how many of these big named public figures she named before killing herself were chaebol-connected and how well they will be able to keep this from exploding?

– Because, the internet is something they can’t control….not like they can the TV and newspapers…

There have unfortunately been a string of high profile suicides in Korea over the past year to two years.  The time is ripe for one of these stories to go viral.

This one could be it — if someone in the police gets to leaking info or the family made copies and/or has other source material from the actress’ files and decides to push the matter publicly.

I’m interested to see how it plays out….