Chapter 4

Chapter 4. Turn the Tables (2)

"Why did you say you wanted to work with me?"

Harok and Yubin were having a smoke together in the smoking area on the first floor.

"Because I like you, Senior."

Pfft!

Harok nearly spat out the coffee he had just raised to his lips.

"What?"

He stared at Yubin in disbelief.

"Why are you so surprised? I mean that I respect and admire you as a journalist..."

Seol Yubin.

No matter how thoroughly Harok searched his memories of his previous life, he couldn't recall any particularly memorable encounters with her before their meeting at the police station's detention cell.

Her bright, smiling face now overlapped with the memory of her bitterly criticizing him before turning her back on him.

She respected me? I was her idol?

Suddenly, something from the past came to mind.

When I was fired, her group of trainees circulated a petition. Could she have been the one who organized it?

Now that he thought about it, she seemed the most likely candidate.

All he could clearly remember was how frequently he had scolded and pushed her around.

She might have had plenty of reasons to resent him, but he couldn't imagine why she would have liked him as a senior.

"All right. Make sure you maintain that respect for the rest of your life."

He said it because he remembered how harshly Yubin had spoken to him in his previous life.

When she appeared at the police station, he had thought she was so beautiful that he almost mistook her for a movie actress.

Seeing her ten years younger only confirmed that she had the kind of looks that almost seemed wasted on a career in newspaper journalism.

"Isn't respect something you continue to have for someone?"

That depends on the circumstances, you know.

Once again, Harok remembered the Yubin from his previous life, stabbing him in the heart with her words.

"Please..."

He gave her a broad grin.

"Anyway, we don't have much time. Shall we start working out our strategy?"

"Yes, sir! I look forward to working with you."

Harok and Yubin immediately moved to a quiet café.

"I'll handle the police and the Food and Drug Administration. You visit the professors and the manufacturers and interview them. I'll arrange the interviews with the professors and give you their phone numbers."

Harok intended to interview the Food and Drug Administration employee who had spoken to KBC in his previous life.

He would also arrange an interview with a former prosecutor who had become a lawyer, asking him to point out the problems with the police's excessive investigation.

A journalism professor would help criticize the media's reporting practices.

They would add testimony from representatives of the companies harmed by the police investigation.

And by obtaining an expert opinion from a video specialist, they would expose how the footage distributed by the police had been deliberately manipulated through misleading editing.

The general structure of the article gradually took shape.

Yubin carefully wrote down everything Harok said.

"Hello. I'm Baek Harok from Daehan Daily."

This investigation was a race against time.

In his previous life, the president of Mirae Food had committed suicide roughly ten days after the initial report.

Harok couldn't be certain that everything would happen exactly as it had before.

But he intended to do everything he could before the situation got any worse.

There are only a few days left.

Will Yubin be able to finish her part of the investigation in time?

Harok had used every connection he possessed to locate a source at the Food and Drug Administration.

That official had introduced him to someone at the National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation.

The person Harok met that day was Park Jonghwan, the head of the institute's Food Risk Assessment Division.

"Yes, I received the call and agreed to meet you, but... Couldn't we have just talked over the phone? Why did you insist on meeting in person?"

"Well, people tend to speak more openly and honestly when they're sitting face-to-face, don't they?"

"When you put it like that, it's a little frightening."

Even an interview required some time to break the ice.

After all, gathering information was a form of human interaction. Establishing rapport, finding common ground, and understanding the other person were all important.

Originally, at this point in his career, Harok had worked exclusively in the social affairs department, so his interviewing style was extremely aggressive.

But in his previous life, he had already become a seasoned journalist with sixteen years of experience.

Although much of his work involved writing clickbait articles, he had also conducted plenty of firsthand interviews.

In fact, his insistence on doing actual reporting was what had prompted the editor-in-chief to make the ridiculous remark that he still hadn't gotten rid of his journalist habits.

First, I need to make the source forget that he's talking to a journalist.

When people were constantly aware that they were speaking to a reporter, it became much harder to get information out of them.

The best approach was to start with a few lighthearted jokes or find something they had in common.

That could be anything from attending the same university to coming from the same hometown or having some family connection.

It turned out that Harok and Park Jonghwan had graduated from the same university.

Although there was a considerable age difference between them, Harok had at least found one thing they had in common.

He gradually lowered the other man's defenses by talking about their university.

"...So what are the criteria for determining whether something in food constitutes a health hazard?"

"We generally classify food hazards into four categories: chemical hazards, biological hazards, physical hazards, and hazards associated with novel ingredients or foods."

"Which category would the leftover pieces of pickled radish involved in this case fall under?"

"...Well..."

Park Jonghwan seemed to find the question difficult to answer.

And understandably so.

Those leftover pieces of pickled radish are edible, aren't they?

If there's something wrong with them, shouldn't the rest of the pickled radish also be considered inedible?

The media had ignored such basic facts.

Even the expression garbage dumplings had been invented by the media.

The police had never actually used those words.

Once the scandal spiraled out of control, the police had thoroughly shifted the blame onto the media.

But they were at least responsible for encouraging that interpretation.

Otherwise, why would they have distributed such deliberately misleading footage?

Harok visited lawyer Won Seongjin, a former deputy prosecutor general at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office.

"That's just how the police conduct investigations. What did you expect?"

He began criticizing the police as soon as they met.

"This is exactly why we should never give the police independent investigative authority."

It was the familiar dispute between the prosecution and the police over investigative authority, an issue that resurfaced whenever the opportunity arose.

Won Seongjin was fiercely opposed to the idea of granting the police independent investigative powers.

"Investigations where they force the evidence to fit their conclusions, coercive interrogations, treating victims like perpetrators... That's how the police operate."

Harok wanted to ask, Doesn't the prosecution do exactly the same things?

But since he had come to obtain comments criticizing the police, there was no need to ruin the interview by challenging his source.

"Editing the footage? Ha! I knew they'd do something like that."

Throughout their two-hour interview, Won Seongjin repeatedly returned to the same argument.

The police should never be granted independent investigative authority.

The following day, Harok met directly with the investigators handling the case.

At first, they were reluctant to meet him, claiming that the investigation was still ongoing.

They had also apparently heard from somewhere that Harok was not on particularly good terms with their superior, Choi Cheonsik.

After a lengthy effort to persuade them, he finally managed to arrange an interview with one of the investigators.

The investigator reacted strongly when Harok mentioned the phrase garbage dumplings.

"We have never once used the expression 'garbage dumplings.'"

"Then why do you think the situation has gotten so out of hand?"

"Isn't this entirely the media's fault? Think about who first started using the expression 'garbage dumplings.'"

Harok was already well aware of that particular detail.

"We discovered companies that were producing dried radish in unsanitary conditions, and we investigated those companies. That's all. We said that we had collected leftover pieces of radish that would otherwise be discarded."

Now that dumpling manufacturers were actually beginning to go bankrupt, the police seemed to be feeling guilty and were actively defending themselves.

When Harok interviewed the Food and Drug Administration official, he had been equally desperate to avoid responsibility.

"If you're going to call them 'garbage dumplings,' shouldn't there at least be scientific evidence proving that the dumplings are unsanitary and unsuitable for human consumption?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"Have there been any tests to determine whether the dumplings mentioned in these reports are contaminated with bacteria or how harmful they might be to people who eat them?"

"..."

The Food and Drug Administration official remained silent.

Of course, he had nothing to say.

No such tests had been conducted.

The Food and Drug Administration had neglected its responsibility, and it needed to be held accountable.

Two days later, Harok and Yubin met at a café near the National Police Agency.

Yubin had completed her part of the investigation much more thoroughly and neatly than he had expected.

"You did a good job with the reporting."

Yubin stared at Harok with a bright smile.

"What? Why are you smiling?"

"Senior, did you know something?"

"What?"

"That's the first time you've ever praised me."

Really?

He might have scolded her frequently, but surely he had praised her whenever she did something well.

"Just how many mistakes did you make during your training?"

"Hmph! To be fair, back then, you used to scold me for absolutely everything without even considering the circumstances."

"There's no way..."

"Even when I got an exclusive about a university vice president being arrested for drug use, you just yelled at me."

Ah, so she was the one who got the exclusive on the F University vice president's drug scandal.

Now he remembered.

Yubin had reported that the suspect was a part-time lecturer.

A news article needed to answer the six basic questions: who, what, when, where, why, and how.

A journalist had to decide which of those elements made the story newsworthy.

In journalistic terminology, this was called identifying the yama, or the central angle of the article.

In the university vice president's drug scandal, the newsworthiness of the story depended almost entirely on who the suspect was.

And Yubin had overlooked that crucial point.

"If we'd gone with the information you reported, it wouldn't have been a story worth publishing."

"I know that now."

Yubin suddenly bowed deeply.

"Thank you for what you taught me back then. I hope you'll continue to guide me and correct my mistakes in the future."

"Sure. Correcting people is my specialty. I'm going to pitch this article tomorrow morning, so make sure you're prepared."

"Aren't you going to write the entire thing yourself anyway, Senior?"

Come to think of it, she's right.

[(Working Title) False Reporting Caused by the Police and the Media... There Were No 'Garbage Dumplings']

Harok organized his proposal into a two-page briefing and uploaded it to the team's group chat.

When he checked the time, it was almost eleven at night.

The arrow had finally been placed on the bowstring, and the bow had been drawn.

But will the company actually publish this article right away?

The time when the president of Mirae Food would jump from the bridge was drawing closer.

Harok was the only person who knew what the future held.

If he couldn't prevent that tragedy, then there was no point in having regressed.

"As expected, your writing really has power, Senior. Even the headline is excellent."

Huh? Where the hell did she suddenly come from?

Just as Harok finished his briefing and stretched, Yubin poked her head out from behind the desk opposite his.

"What are you still doing here? Haven't you gone home?"

"How could an insignificant junior like me commit the terrible offense of leaving work before a senior as great as the heavens?"

"You've been sitting there this whole time?"

"Did you seriously not know I was here?"

Harok didn't answer.

Instead, he began gathering his belongings and preparing to leave.

"Aren't you going home?"

"I still have a few things to finish."

"All right. Good work."

Yubin bowed politely.

Judging by her behavior and the way she spoke to him, her claim that she respected him didn't seem to be mere flattery.

Suddenly, Harok remembered the time when he had been forced to leave the company in his previous life.

Nobody had tried to stop him.

But then, the youngest group of reporters, the trainees whom Harok had personally trained, had stepped forward.

One of them had circulated a petition.

They had also written a large poster expressing their support and attached it to a wall in the company hallway.

[We Will Always Remember Baek Harok as a Senior We Respect]

Harok had broken down in tears when he read those words in the hallway.

These were the juniors he had spent six months relentlessly scolding, criticizing, and pushing to their limits.

It wasn't because he hated them.

He had genuinely believed that only through such harsh training could they become journalists capable of writing even a single decent article.

Naturally, the juniors had taken to calling him that bastard in their private group chat.

And yet, when it was time to say goodbye, they had called him a senior they respected.

Ever since his regression, Harok had been wondering whether Yubin had been the one who wrote that message.

But in this life, he had no intention of being driven out of the company.

Which meant he would probably never have a way to find out.

Would he really be able to become the righteous journalist he had dreamed of being when he was still a trainee?

It wasn't something he could achieve through determination alone.

The realities of the media industry were closely connected to the problem.

Looking back on his previous life, Harok knew it was not an easy goal.

In fact, his career as a journalist had been one long series of disappointments.

He would never forget the indifferent reaction of his senior reporter when he obtained his first exclusive after joining Daehan Daily.

And it wasn't just that one senior.

Cynicism had already taken deep root throughout the journalistic community.

There were plenty of salaried employees who acted as though they understood everything about the world, constantly lecturing others while barely doing any work themselves.

How many times had Harok looked at those people and vowed never to become like them?

And yet, when he eventually looked in the mirror, he saw an ordinary, unremarkable journalist who possessed exactly the same cynicism.

The passionate journalist who had once been willing to risk his life to reveal the truth was gone.

Journalists had become ordinary salaried employees who simply waited for payday.

They had become cowards who surrendered to unreasonable pressure from outside without giving it much thought.

By the time Harok finished his training, he had already learned that a journalist's pride was worth next to nothing when measured against the company's revenue.

And in his third year at the company, he learned that lesson beyond any doubt.

The media had absolutely no interest in justice.

At that time, Harok had received a tip about an incident involving a third-generation heir to a major business conglomerate.

The conglomerate in question was Handong Group, one of the ten largest business groups in the country.

The heir's name was Kwon Jaegwan.

It was a time when the abuse of power by wealthy and influential people had become a major social issue.

And Kwon Jaegwan's behavior had gone far beyond the usual examples.

He had beaten his personal driver with a club on Gangnam-daero because the car had come to a sudden stop.

His excuse was that his head had lightly struck the passenger seat when the driver braked.

When the driver's son protested, Kwon Jaegwan had beaten him with the club as well, leaving him hospitalized.

Assaulting his driver was already newsworthy.

But assaulting the driver's son as well made the story even more significant.

The article had been scheduled to appear as the lead story on the social affairs page.

However, its publication was delayed by a day for reasons that were never properly explained.

By the following afternoon, the article had disappeared from the editorial system altogether.

The next day, a large corporate image advertisement for Handong Group appeared across the bottom of the newspaper's front page.

The man who was now editor-in-chief had secured the advertisement instead of publishing Harok's article.

The advertising rate for the bottom of Daehan Daily's front page was one hundred million won.

For a mere one hundred million won, justice had disappeared.

Harok had been furious.

But his seniors had acted as though it were nothing unusual.

They told him that everyone reacted that way in the beginning.

A few of them even bought him drinks and tried to comfort him.

They explained that revenue had become increasingly important and urged him to be understanding.

That was the reality.

Whether a media company was large or small, making money had become its top priority.

News organizations were desperately struggling to survive while constantly worrying about revenue.

This was no longer an age when they could leisurely shout about justice and truth.

After all, those things had nothing to do with revenue.

Phew.

Harok let out a long sigh.

The obstacles he faced now were exactly the same as those in his previous life.

Will I really be able to walk a different path this time?