With the recent tragedy of the sinking of the ferry Sewol, all the journalists in Korea were busy reporting the news as much as they can to the public. The public was very sensitive about the interviews they made, the process of how they obtained the information, and even the very language journalists used.

Much to people's disappointment, a lot of media agencies were focusing just on merely giving out information on the air. They did not hesitate in interviewing the victims' families, which could have been very hard for them to talk about their lost children and friends. However, in the middle of the criticism, JTB's anchor Son Seokhee's interviews have drawn the public's attention. His interviews were focused towards how the bereaved families must have felt after the Sewol disaster.

His interviews have moved the viewer's minds, which had led to the rising of the ratings of JTBC news. The recent phenomenon of the Sewol ferry disaster and its news reporting has given a chance for the Korean society to rethink about the true posture of a journalist. It even created a newly coined term, Kiraeki, which is the combination of the word Kija(reporter) and Seraeki(rubbish). This term shows how much Korean journalists today are missing the media ethics when broadcasting the news. They are so obsessed with the ratings and the competition between the other agencies that they forget about the importance of what have to come first.

Journalists will always come across dilemmas whether to keep the objectivity, and one between the public interest and media ethics. However, they need to know that the media ethics should always come first. This is why the journalists will need hands-on training before they become an official journalist. Nowadays, there are no strict lines between a blogger and a journalist. Bloggers online sometimes tend to deliver faster information than the journalists due to their ubiquity. However, journalists will have to keep in mind that they are different from any kind of blogger. Before the fast delivery of information or the ratings of their channel, ethics and objectivity of their news should always be the top priorities.

When looking at the world famous news journalists of the United States, we can see that they try to keep objectivity as much as possible. These newspapers are also called the 'newspaper of record'. In reporting a news item, they prioritize the three values, which are accuracy, objectivity, and high credibility. In the case of two of the world-famous newspapers, The NewYorkTimes and The Washington Post, the journalists are known not to accept any invitations that are provided for free, even if it was an invitation from the White House. This invitation could have been the best opportunity for them to gain a great source for their paper. However, they are not allowed to accept not only an offered meal but also even small drinks from their sources of information. All this is to keep the objectivity and keep out the outside pressure that might come when covering a certain case.

On one hand, this might seem too strict and inflexible in keeping the ethics of a journalist. However, this strict mindset is truly something that Korean journalists should learn. The media of Korean society is full of briberies and rumors and vague information. Journalists today should reflect on themselves and learn to be a proper journalist of this era.