[Lee Geun-hyung's Odok Odok] Which Comes First, Jjeonneolism or Gineolism?

Hate by Matt Taibbi: We Sell Hatred
Introducing CBS President's Remarks Criticizing the Double Standards of US Media
"Today's News Provokes Anger with Hatred Rather Than Public Interest," Also Pointed Out
Behind the Suddenly Reversed Tone Lies Commercial Calculation

Although I usually write uninteresting articles, this time I intend to write an even more blatantly boring piece. It’s about our profession. The world calls us ‘giregi,’ a derogatory term combining ‘gija’ (reporter) and ‘sseuregi’ (trash). Of course, every profession has its own derogatory nicknames. Compared to the prosecution or police, our derogatory term might be considered relatively mild.

In the past, there were many criticisms such as yellow journalism, calls for abolition, and being called a ‘fool’s box,’ but I think the widespread public backlash really began after people started accessing articles on the internet, beyond the limited spaces of TV and newspapers. Articles and headlines have always had a clickbait nature, but this intensified with the advent of the internet era. Although it no longer exists, in 2013 there was a site called ‘Shocking Croquette.’ It was a site that aggregated articles with sensational headlines like ‘Shock,’ ‘Oh my,’ and so on, even when the content was trivial, ranking media outlets accordingly. (The online leaders back then remain the same today.) The developer was Lee Junhaeng, who also ran ‘Daily Worst,’ and I remember his bittersweet interview. He said he thought media outlets would restrain themselves when criticized by rankings, but later the rankings themselves became a competition among media companies.

‘Hate: We Sell Hate’ by American journalist Matt Taibbi is a book that offers insight into the struggles of American ‘giregi’ and resonates in many ways. He argues that what is called news today is not information serving the public interest but a harmful substance that effectively incites ‘your own anger,’ and it is as harmful as tobacco. In the era of media decline, the survival strategy chosen by the press is to incite hatred, and this applies equally to both progressive and conservative media. According to the author, today’s media commercializes hatred, so there is neither responsibility nor consistent editorial stance. An example is the CBS president’s candid remark, “Trump’s election is bad for America but good for the media because it makes money,” and progressive media that mindlessly criticized Trump but suddenly changed their tone and lamented the death of democracy once he became president.

That’s right. The media incites hatred. It also stokes fear. Hatred and fear spread faster than positive emotions or various good stories. The recent case of the death of Son Jeongmin is a representative example. Regardless of objective facts and police investigations, reports continued as if the friend who was with him was presumed to be the culprit. The unfortunate point is that even established media outlets flooded with reports simply relaying baseless claims from YouTubers without cross-checking. Using quotation marks does not absolve responsibility, yet we habitually deceive ourselves through ‘quotation mark journalism.’

How about vaccine coverage? Thanks to lessons learned from reports on deaths related to flu vaccinations, reports stating ‘someone died after getting vaccinated’ without cross-checking have significantly decreased. However, early on, it was common to line up Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Janssen, and Novavax and say things like “Pfizer and Moderna have 90% efficacy, so they are the best, while AstraZeneca has 70%, so it’s an inferior vaccine,” which is a statistically meaningless comparison. Comparing surveys with different samples and periods cannot produce objective results. Until a few years ago, media outlets used to create sensational results by simply comparing polls from different companies conducted at different times. Now, it is common sense that only surveys conducted by the same company with the same pattern are valid, and no one reports otherwise. Early vaccine coverage was a replay of meaningless election poll comparison articles.

Many readers might be puzzled by the recent drastic change in vaccine coverage. The media, which had emphasized vaccine side effects all day long, suddenly switched to ‘Let’s get vaccinated too,’ accompanied by the excuse, “We were only doing the side effect checks that the media should do from a scientific perspective.” Although the tone changed, from a commercial perspective, the flow did not. When few people were vaccinated, emphasizing side effects was more effective in spreading fear, but after vaccination became widespread, tapping into the anxiety of ‘When will it be my turn?’ became more effective in spreading hatred, so it was just a choice based on that.

Nowadays, the media sells hatred too easily. In the era of click wars, this is an irresistible temptation. When simple reports bring more traffic than labor-intensive articles, it becomes a self-justification. But just as the development of meal kits led to the downfall of mediocre restaurants, if we continue to mass-produce only retort articles like now, there is a fear that artificial intelligence (AI) will bring about our downfall. For now, it seems that partnering with media companies is much cheaper than Naver developing AI reporters, so they just stick with what they have.

Reporter Lee Geunhyung ghlee@