Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Is it the general practice of Korean newspapers to exclude names of accused (or indicted)?

Woman indicted on fraud charges
A 45 year-old woman's crime spree in which she defrauded investors of a total of 96 billion won ($82 million) has come to an end. The prosecution indicted the woman, identified only as Ms. So, on fraud charges yesterday. According to its investigation, Ms. So had been targeting fellow college alumni and people attending her church since October 1999. Victims said she went around telling people that she was participating in a joint venture with a senior official close to the president and told them to bring cash if people needed "help."
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200405/03/200405032351279279900090409041.html

Taped testimony convicts molester
The Seoul District Court yesterday found a 60-year-old man guilty of molesting a five-year-old child based on the child's videotaped testimony. This is the first case in which a court accepted a child's recorded statement, made during a police investigation, as valid evidence.The man, identified only as Mr. Kim, was sentenced to eight months in prison. Mr. Kim was indicted in July for sexually assaulting the five-year-old and a four-year-old sibling after the children's parents sued him on child molestation charges. Mr. Kim was a driver at a kindergarten the two children attended.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200401/06/200401060133025009900090409041.html

Policeman on rampage kills one, wounds one
A police officer here killed a neighborhood acquaintance and wounded the friend's wife yesterday after a quarrel that he allegedly instigated. Police here said the 38-year old police officer, named only as Mr. Lee, fired a total of five pistol rounds at the man and his wife, the owners of a video rental shop.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200403/30/200403302325160309900090409041.html

Alleged robber arrested
Police here filed an arrest warrant yesterday for a 30-year-old Korean man on charges of committing robberies in Mexico. The unemployed man, identified only as Mr. Seok, had engaged in a trading business with Mexico since 2000, but went bankrupt last year. Last September, he began working on the vegetable farm of an ethnic Korean living in Mexico.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200403/22/200403222247183779900090409041.html

Why do these articles contain the full name of the accused (indicted)?

U.S. doctor charged in molesting case
Seoul District Prosecutors Office said yesterday that they have indicted without detention Dr. Lance May, 43, an American physician with the U.S. 8th Army hospital in Yongsan. He is accused of sexually molesting his adopted Korean son. According to prosecutors, Mr. May molested the 2-year-old boy by touching his genital area while bathing him. He adopted the Korean boy in March, 2003.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200405/02/200405022332271739900090409041.html

A fatal accident becomes a major test of the revised Status of Forces Agreement
When U.S. Army Sergeant Jerry Onken climbed behind the wheel of his Hyundai Sonata around midnight on Nov. 28, someone should have taken his keys away. The soldier had been drinking, tests would later show.
Leaving a bar in Osan, Sergeant Onken was driving with two companions back to their quarters at an air force base in Suwon. The accident toll was one dead and four injured.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200401/05/200401050040052709900090309031.html

[Joseph Fitzgerald]

Good point real reality!!!!!

It proves how bias the media in korea is!!!!!

[VanIslander]

Westerners are fully identified in most Western newspapers so why shouldn't they be in Korean ones as well?

The dual standard in the reporting practice here holds Westerners to Western standards and Koreans to Korean standards. It makes sense to me. We aren't all equal citizens in this country, shoot! the vast majority of us aren't even citizens at all, just migrant workers here for a couple of years.

And culturally, there's a totally different cultural dynamic of shame between Westerners here and Koreans. The latter would likely feel motivated to suicide and be ostracized; the former could either leave the country and maintain relative anonymity or else get Christian forgiveness so standard in the West when one has "paid one's debt to society".

The different practices reflect the different realities.

We needn't be so quick to judge everything by the mono-societal standards of fairness that we learn back home. Our initial reactions to things aren't always as wise as our considered reflections.