Exposing the Abuse of Power (2)
The chauffeur had finally reached the end of his rope. He sued Ju Hyeon-jin and blew the whistle on the recordings he had been secretly making for all those years.
What came out of Ju Hyeon-jin’s mouth on those tapes was shocking.
It wasn’t just a matter of swearing at the man and talking down to him. He didn’t even treat the chauffeur like a human being. Calling him every filthy name under the sun was only the beginning; he mocked the man’s disabled son, hit him while he was driving, and crossed every line imaginable.
His abuse of power was so grotesque it was enough to set the entire country seething with outrage.
Once the article broke and public opinion turned into a boiling mess, Ju Hyeon-jin resigned from his board seat and bowed his head before the nation.
“I apologize to the people for causing you all such concern. I will step down from every position and face the trial in good faith.”
But unfortunately for him, the timing couldn’t have been worse. It had been six months since the merger was finalized.
At that point, dragging up old scandals didn’t do much damage to the Ju family’s camp.
And the way they handled the cover-up was filthy beyond belief.
“You were fined twice for assault before, weren’t you? And your license was suspended once for drunk driving.”
My words made him jump.
“H-How did you...?”
“If you expose the abuse of power, Hanjeong Group will attack that part first.”
“W-What are you talking about?”
“They’ll say your wife left home because of domestic violence, and that your son’s treatment for abuse at school was really because of his father’s violence. They’ll also spin it as though you were drinking and driving all the time, that Director Ju Hyeon-jin felt his life was in danger, and that he only cursed at you a few times while trying to warn you. If you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger. That’s a standard way to flip public opinion.”
The media ran pieces that condemned the chaebol family’s abuse of power, but they also dug up the chauffeur’s past. Before long, they were pushing the idea that he had planned the whole thing to extort a huge settlement.
I remembered the reaction online at the time.
At first, the public had condemned Ju Hyeon-jin outright and sympathized with the chauffeur. But somewhere along the way, it turned into “both sides are bad” or “they’re all the same,” and after a little more time, the story had been twisted into “Director Ju Hyeon-jin was actually the victim.”
So what was the result?
Unable to withstand the flood of criticism, the chauffeur signed the settlement agreement Hanjeong Group put in front of him.
At trial, the assault charge against Ju Hyeon-jin didn’t stick; only the verbal abuse was acknowledged, and he got away with a fine. Once public attention faded, he quietly slipped back into his old seat.
I looked at the chauffeur standing in front of me.
That Ju Hyeon-jin’s personality was utter trash was common knowledge. Most chauffeurs couldn’t even last a year beside him, yet this man had already held on for more than two.
People liked to think that being a chauffeur for a chaebol family meant making a fortune, but that wasn’t true at all. They earned about the same as everyone else.
Sometimes they might get a tip, that was all.
If he had been taking abuse and blows all that time, why hadn’t he quit?
Because, of course, he needed to make a living. Finding another job couldn’t have been easy, either.
“Exposing a chaebol in Korea isn’t easy. I know that better than anyone.”
He let out a sneer.
“You know that better than anyone? How can you say that if you’ve never even gone through it?”
I answered as if it were obvious.
“Because I have gone through it.”
“Huh?”
“You know about the Primus scandal, right?”
“I know the basics.”
“I was the one who blew it open.”
“...”
He stared at me, eyes wide with shock.
The Primus scandal had been a major issue even in business circles. Even if he hadn’t followed the news closely, a chauffeur for a chaebol family would have heard about it at least once through the grapevine.
“Then why on earth did you come looking for me?”
“If you still have any files with Ju Hyeon-jin’s abuse and insults on them, hand them over to me.”
My words made him flinch.
“W-Who said I secretly recorded him?!”
I stared at him flatly.
“I never said you secretly recorded anything.”
“...”
“But did you really not?”
He looked thoroughly confused.
He had to be wondering how I knew, and how much I knew.
I kept going as he stood there in stunned silence.
“If you never planned to blow it up, then you can keep it. But if you do plan to expose him, then now is your only chance.”
“Only chance?”
“As you know, Hanjeong Group is about to merge its holding company. What do you think happens if the abuse-of-power scandal from the owner family breaks now?”
He shook his head with a hollow, defeated look.
“Hanjeong Group is going to win anyway.”
“Will it?”
My reply left him doubtful.
“What do you mean?”
“What I can tell you for sure is that the outcome could change depending on your choice, Mr. Kim Seung-do.”
Something like conflict flickered across his face.
With his family’s livelihood on the line, it was not an easy choice to make.
“If you’re worried about work, I’ll take responsibility for that. And I’ll make sure any problems that come after the exposure are handled properly.”
“How can I trust you?”
“First, I’m on extremely bad terms with Director Ju Hyeon-jin. You must have gotten sick of hearing him curse me while you were driving. Second, exposing his abuse helps me. I’m planning to use this case to oppose the merger.”
Why had he secretly recorded Ju Hyeon-jin in the first place?
Because, naturally, he had been nursing a grudge and wanted revenge. Even a worm writhes when you step on it, and when a slave finally explodes, he drives a knife into his master.
In the end, even if I had done nothing, he would have exposed everything six months later. All I was doing was bringing that decision forward.
“Working under someone else to put food on the table is the same whether you’re a slave or a laborer. A slave works for his master; a worker works for his employer. So do you know the difference between the two? A laborer sells only his labor, while a slave sells his labor and his dignity along with it. A being with no dignity isn’t human. That’s why slaves can be cursed at and beaten without punishment—they aren’t treated as human beings.”
His face darkened with conflict.
I looked at him and added one more thing.
“In other words, if an employer curses at and hits an employee, it means the employer sees that employee not as a worker, but as a slave. And by extension, a slave’s child is a slave too. That’s why they’re treated the same way.”
My words ignited something in his eyes.
He might have been able to endure being treated like a slave himself. But what father could stay silent if his own child was treated that way, too?
He looked me straight in the eye and asked,
“If there really is a recording like that... can you bring down Director Ju Hyeon-jin? The Ju family?”
By then, the dull, lifeless haze in his eyes had sharpened into something keen.
Even a slave, when angered, will stab his master. And once he has stabbed him, he is no longer a slave.
I gave him the answer he wanted to hear.
“Yes. I’ll make sure it’s finished for good.”
Jungheung Economic Daily had become Korea’s top financial newspaper because it had always maintained close ties with the political and business establishment.
Even now, despite the criticism that it was a mouthpiece, it still kept those government connections intact.
One of its reporters, Min Hong-soo, had been the first to break the story about the stock manipulation suspicions surrounding KNC International.
Those suspicions were eventually proven true, and the stock that had soared more than tenfold came crashing down into penny-stock territory.
Seen one way, it was just another stock manipulation case. The real problem was that the Foreign Ministry had been involved.
Because of that, the deputy foreign minister was arrested, and even Kim Han-su, the chief secretary who was one of the present administration’s real power brokers, got blown away.
All I had done was report a stock manipulation case, and somehow I had ended up taking a shot at the administration itself.
The Blue House and the New Korea Party never said it outright, but they made no effort to hide their irritation that I hadn’t tipped them off in advance.
The news director had gone ballistic.
“What, you think you’re the only smart one here? You should have talked to me before you wrote the story! If this had gone wrong, what do you think would have happened?”
Min Hong-soo looked genuinely baffled.
“So did it go wrong?”
“I mean if there had been any falsehood...”
“There wasn’t, was there?”
“...”
That left Director Kim Joo-yong flustered.
Everything in the article had turned out to be true. And because it was true, that was the problem. If it had been a false report, it would have been easier to brush off.
“I-I mean, if it had been wrong, then it would’ve been wrong! From now on, send me every article you write and let me review it first.”
Min Hong-soo cut him off coldly.
“No.”
“What?”
“That’s not review. That’s censorship.”
The director, suddenly at a loss for words, could only bark the first thing that came to mind.
“If you’re going to do whatever you want, then quit!”
Min Hong-soo nodded.
“Fine. I will quit.”
“...Huh?”
He could endure the low salary and endless overtime if he had to. What he couldn’t endure was being told he wasn’t allowed to write the stories he wanted to write.
In the end, three years after joining, Min Hong-soo handed in his resignation and left Jungheung Economic Daily.
Min Hong-soo’s senior from college, An Hyun-cheol, had been a reporter at KBC. He became deeply disillusioned with the government’s attempts to tame the press, and came to the conclusion that if he wanted to do real reporting, the only option was to become the owner of a media outlet himself.
Luckily, he had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
Backed by his father, the director of a major hospital, he quit KBC, founded his own internet news outlet, and gathered together reporters who shared his beliefs.
That was how News Trigger was born.
At his senior’s request, I moved there too.
News Trigger made aggressive use of its website, Facenote, and A-Tube to upload its articles.
The entire operation had only seven people, CEO included.
Because there were so few of us, we had to handle not only reporting and writing, but also website management, social media uploads, and all sorts of other odds and ends.
And unlike when I’d been at Jungheung Economic Daily, where a business card alone could get you into government offices and corporate headquarters and pry information loose, now I was more likely to be turned away at the door.
On top of that, my salary had been cut in half.
Still, I liked this situation much better, because now I could write the articles I wanted to write.
Recently, the biggest issue in South Korea had been the merger of Hanjeong Group’s holding company.
A few days earlier, Macaulay Consulting had argued that the merger ratio had been calculated incorrectly and that the National Pension Service should not vote in favor of the merger.
Elliott used that as leverage and sent an official letter to the National Pension Service, putting pressure on them. But despite that, it was hard to find even a single article about it in the mainstream press.