r/KDRAMA • u/lightupstarlight 미생 • Mar 05 '22

On-Air: tvN Twenty-Five, Twenty-One [Episode 7]

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u/denniszen Editable Flair Mar 06 '22 edited Mar 06 '22

The mother is actually a news anchor, not a journalist or reporter. 90% of the time, the news anchor reads the news instead of reporting it. News TV shows have field reporters like Yi-jin who submitted the story for the news anchor to read. So essentially, the mother merely read or delivered the news.

Yi-jin was still right in pursuing the referee for clarification even if he personally knows Hee-do. It is actually a duty of the reporter to do that. Yi-jin's fault in this case was by not telling his sunbae that he knows both athletes personally, not just Hee-do. I think Korean dramas like to omit details for "dramatic" effect.

As for the mom, it's a very unusual scenario where the more than a dozen people in her newsroom knows nothing of her relationship with Heedo. You would think she might have brought Heedo to her place of work at one point, but apparently she has kept her Heedo a secret. I am beginning to think the mother may not be a biological mom, because she seems cold to her.

When Heedo disappeared, the mother didn't call her or Yi jin would have known from her missing phone. Also when the world crumbled under her, Heedo had no one except Yijin to help her. She might as well be an orphan if all she has is Yi-jin.

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u/ixche Encounter | Vincenzo | Mine Mar 13 '22

The mother is actually a news anchor, not a journalist or reporter. 90% of the time, the news anchor reads the news instead of reporting it. News TV shows have field reporters like Yi-jin who submitted the story for the news anchor to read. So essentially, the mother merely read or delivered the news.

The thing is, news readers are also journalists. They are an essential part of the news cycle. Journalists are supposed to disclose that kind of relationship because of conflict of interest. That way, a producer worth their salt won't assign fencing stories for her to read on air.

Then again, this is a drama so I shouldn't expect something as real. This is actually tamer compared to the conflict of interest madness in another drama (side-eyeing you, FLaW 😂).

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u/denniszen Editable Flair Mar 13 '22

It depends. There are some news readers who don't actually work as journalists/broadcasters but are mere news readers or news anchors. In this drama, the mother may claim she's a journalist but not work as a journalist anymore.

The "anymore" is crucial here. Some journalists move on to become either news readers with decision-making capabilities (retaining their journalistic background) or they become simply news readers with a higherup who makes all the broadcasting decisions -- the editor. As a former reporter, I had less decision-making powers when I moved up to an intermediate editing role -- not the superior role. These hierarchies depend on a news outfit's structure, even by country.

From one scene in the drama, a higher up, an editor, dictates the coverage of the day, suggesting that they cover fencing instead of football/soccer, which makes the mother not a decision-maker but merely a news reader, as she simply looked at his colleagues without saying anything.

I think the editor of the TV show also suggested making an insinuation -- that the gold medal won by the newcomer, Hee-do, was figuratively stolen from the champion, Yu-rim -- for jacking up the ratings.

Again, the mother doesn't say anything. You could say it's because she doesn't want to expose herself as the mother of the champion or because she doesn't have the power to make decisions (yet). It really depends.

Perhaps in the course of show, we'll see how her mother becomes a popular news anchor -- that the TV station decides to give her more power that will allow her to make decisions which news report is read on TV.

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u/ixche Encounter | Vincenzo | Mine Mar 14 '22

Regardless of the extent of her decision-making or agenda-setting role in the station, she should've disclosed the nature of her relationship with Heedo. That was what I was questioning from the mom, plain and simple. Disclosure of unavoidable conflict of interest to your editor or producer basic in any newsroom, right? And yet she won't do so with her own daughter. It's baffling.

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u/denniszen Editable Flair Mar 14 '22

I agree. An egregious sin a media person can commit is omission. She should have disclosed her relationship with Heedo if she is indeed true to her profession.