South Korea’s Gender Equality Ministry on Thursday released a set of guidelines for the nation’s reporters to follow when covering sex crime cases, after a number of victims filed litigations against media outlets for their problematic coverage in recent years.
Some of the rules include not revealing any information that is related to the victim’s identity, such as where they live, their face and their name.
Reporters should also refrain from reporting about the victim’s private life not related to the case, as well as the details of physical damage that they are suffering.
Under the guidelines, all reporters must identify themselves when contacting the victims, and should only pursue interviews when the sources have agreed to do so.
The ministry also advises reporters not to blame the victims or their families in their coverage in any way.
“You are never to blame if you are assaulted or abused,” a ministry official said.
“Sometimes sexual violence survivors are scrutinized for the amount of liquor they drank before the assault took place. Whatever the victim was doing at the time of the attack, including alcohol consumption, can never justify the behavior of their predators.”
For example, when a 7-year-old child was raped by a man in his 20s in Naju, South Jeolla Province, in 2012, many media outlets stressed that the door of the girl’s house wasn’t locked and she was left unattended by her parents.
The victim was kidnapped while sleeping in the house alone and was raped under a bridge in the town. Her mother, who was at an Internet cafe at the time of the event, received public criticism for “not protecting her child properly.”
Some media outlets accused the mother of being a game addict, while portraying the father as an irresponsible parent who drinks a lot and is rarely at home to spend time with his children.
Many TV reporters also allegedly filmed the victim’s house without the mother’s consent, and used electricity in the house without asking. After the footage of the property was broadcast, the family said they had “no choice but to move,” as they felt they lost their anonymity.
One of the media outlets, in fact, found the wounded victim in the hospital before her parents arrived, and photographed her injuries and published them without discussing it with her mother. Many also reported on her father’s monthly income, which he never agreed to share with the media.
The parents of the victim eventually filed a defamation and damage suit against five media outlets.
In March, the court ruled that the media should compensate the parents, each paying 21 million won ($19,300) to 30 million won. It also ordered the outlets to delete some of the published online stories on the case. Three of the outlets have appealed, while two accepted the ruling.
“Media coverage sometimes causes more damage to the victims of crime, and some of the most vulnerable are the victims of sexual violence,” said Park Jong-ryul, the president of Journalists of Korea. “We came up with these guidelines in our efforts to minimize such damage and protect the victims as much as possible.”
The guidelines are available to the public for free and can be downloaded from www.journalist.or.kr or www.mogef.go.kr.
By Claire Lee (
dyc@heraldcorp.com)
