'Hush' Week 2: Ji-soo pushes Joon-hyuk to stop being a trash reporter but can she do the same?
Are you wondering what is wrong with the media today? Do you think about all the outlets that sell news instead of reporting on the same? Then 'Hush', the new JTBC Korean drama, is a great show to dig deep into.
From media reports that manipulate readers' opinion about brands, politics and even crimes that are committed to the manipulation within the industry about employing freshers from second-tier colleges — the show addresses all the corrupt practices that are prevalent in the media industry across the world. Joon-hyuk, one of the city desk reporters who used to work tirelessly to report facts stops doing so after one of his reports is misused by a senior editor.
This report ends up killing one of his seniors at the MBC labor union. It has been six years since and the company has employed this senior's daughter as an intern along with three others. We saw how one of them faced the possibility of not being hired while the rest were good to go only because she passed out of a college that was outside of Seoul. That is why she decided to die by suicide because Daily Korea was her last option.
She wrote a suicide note and published it on Daily Korea's website under her byline and this created a huge scandal for the publication that was blamed for exploiting short term employees such as interns and her death also served the company in an unexpected manner when the company decided to make use of her death trending on top and publishing stories to mine the audiences for views.
Of course, this is toxic behavior, and believe it or not, it is quite prevalent in many of the websites that depend on hits to make a profit. So how would reporters who attempt to live by set ideals survive in such a publication? Can they really rebel against the organization's executive board and win? If they have to win, what would they have to do? There are things that the reporters cannot lose and one of them happens to be their livelihood.
In fact, one of the interns, Ji-soo, who was hired by senior editors and reporters had gotten in because of her belief that while the pen may be mightier than the sword, hunger is mightier than the pen. The reality that even reporters are doing a job that is their bread and butter is something that many do not realize. The show highlights how despite this immediate need, there are some reporters who fight the status quo within the organization and uphold journalistic values.
Joon-hyuk had stopped being one such rebel six years ago but with Soo-yeon's death and Ji-soo's constant taunting about how he was one of the many to blame, he begins to feel the fire that had burned out six years ago rekindling itself.
Of course, he is still not aware of the fact that Ji-soo is the daughter of his senior who had died six years ago. Neither does Ji-soo know that Joon-hyuk also suffered losses of his own while he was busy standing up for what was right. In its second week, 'Hush' showed us the depth of trash that a media house can be when ruled by corporate conglomerates.
Now, what we will see is whether individuals within the organization can clean out the trash or if they will get buried instead. In this process, it is Ji-soo's constant taunting that awakens Joon-hyuk's conscience after a long time and this improved Joon-hyuk promises the dead Soo-yeon and his own seniors in the company that he has returned and he will now really work as a reporter instead of just a desk head who comes up with clickbaity headlines for website gossip stories.
'Hush' airs on JTBC every Friday and Saturday at 11 pm and can be streamed on iQiyi.