On September 9th, Dispatch issued an article to provide more evidence after Kim Hieora refuted the first school violence report.
Earlier, Kim Hieora and her agency refuted the school violence suspicions raised by Dispatch, saying “I did not maliciously, continuously, or intentionally torment the weak, as portrayed in the article.”
Dispatch said, “ A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K… We heard stories from 11 informants. Including acquaintance Y, there are 12 informants in total”, adding “The first report contains A, B, C and D’s confession about assaults, verbal abuse, money extortion, etc. Therefore, Dispatch directly visited various locations in Wonju, such as the karaoke, the arcade, and the alleys, where they said they got hit and also conducted interviews. However, we did not include any of such information in the report because it was difficult to verify the claims of the victims.”
They emphasized, “We only addressed the fact that Kim Hieora admitted to being a member of Big Sangji. In other words, we reflected more of Kim Hieora’s arguments”, adding, “Nevertheless, Kim Hieora and their agency refuted the entire report”.
Dispatch is aware of the dangers of making school violence reports and understands how risky it can be to publish the victims’ one-sided claims since it could potentially turn a “disclosure” into “assault”.
According to Dispatch, they approached Kim Hieora’s school violence issue with caution and even tried to stop informant A from posting anonymous disclosures on online communities, such as Nate Pann. They also met with Kim Hieora to exchange stories and arranged a meeting for both sides.
Therefore, Dispatch insisted that their report on Big Sangji’s school violence acts was true and added a story that was not included in the first article.
In particular, they asked Kim Hieora if it was true that X extorted money from others to buy birthday gifts for her, Kim Hieora replied, “Yes. But I did give them gifts in return.” In fact, the media previously took this part out of the first report because they tried to reflect on Kim Hieora’s statement that she did not order X to do it.
Claiming that Kim Hieora and her agency’s response crossed the line, Dispatch decided that they would reveal the testimonies of informants E, F, G, and H, who actually experienced violence or witnessed the incidents, in the follow-up report.
Source: Daum