[Media] Alumna Kang Su-jin, News Bureau Chief at Channel A
- Date2021.11.18
- 5043
Alumna Kang Su-jin, News Bureau Chief at Channel A
Today, Ewha Today interviewed alumna Kang Su-jin[LEEJH1] (Social Studies Education, graduating class of 1992), who is currently the News Bureau Chief at Channel A and was awarded the “Ewha Journalist of the Year Award” in May 2021. We listened to her story of starting as a reporter at the Dong-A Ilbo and becoming the first female news bureau chief of a general programming channel in Korea as a founding member of Channel A.
Q. Hello! Please tell us about yourself briefly.
Hello, I am Kang Su-jin, the News Bureau Chief at Channel A. I was in the incoming class of ’88 for the Department of Social Studies Education (Social Science Education major). In high school, I worked as a reporter for the school newspaper and dreamed of becoming a journalist. When I came to university, I began preparing to become a reporter and I eventually joined the Dong-A Ilbo through open recruitment in 1992, the year of my graduation. As of this year, 30 years have passed since I began my career in journalism.
While working as a reporter at the Dong-A Ilbo, in 2010, I began planning the launch of Channel A at the Dong-A Ilbo’s promotion team for establishing a broadcasting station. That was when I learned about the broadcasting business. Since then, I went back and forth between the Dong-A Ilbo and Channel A for my work, and started to work as the news bureau chief of Channel A last year. It’s extremely rare for someone to go between a newspaper and a broadcasting station like this. I consider myself lucky to have had the unique opportunity of experiencing both the print journalism and broadcasting sectors during a time when the Dong-A Ilbo was expanding its business scope to the broadcasting industry.
Q. Congratulation on receiving the “Ewha Journalist of the Year Award.” How do you feel about the achievement?
The award is particularly meaningful to me because it was awarded by my alma mater. I believe that Ewha gave me this award because I am the first female news bureau chief in the ten years since the launch of general programming channels in Korea. It was a great honor to receive wholehearted congratulations from many of my colleagues in journalism, and at the same time, it was touching to feel a sense of solidarity with my fellow female reporters who also endured the traditionally male-dominated field of journalism. By doing my very best to live up to the title of “the first female news bureau chief in Korea,” I will strive to turn that title into a commonplace position in journalism in the future to the point that it is no longer a newsworthy story.
Q. Have you gathered any particular knowhow from your path towards becoming the “first female news bureau chief in Korea”?
I’ve always done the best I can to focus on each task at hand, both during my early days as a reporter and after I became a desk editor. If I had to describe my secret, although it’s not much of a secret, it’s probably that I refused to narrowly set the scope of each task and instead actively sought to broaden the scope of the tasks assigned to me. There’s not always a clear-cut division between tasks. When given the same task, some people might only complete the task within the minimal scope, while others might expand the task. As for myself, I’ve always tried to think of ways to write better articles and produce better broadcasts alongside my colleagues.
As I hinted at earlier, I would like to be the first and last “female news bureau chief.” By that, I mean that I would like to contribute towards ensuring that those who come after me will be known as news bureau chiefs who simply happen to be women.
Q. We’d like to know how your lessons from Ewha helped your career or your life.
That makes me reflect on what I learned at Ewha in a new light. To be honest, I never really thought about the strengths of Ewha when I was a student. On the contrary, while working as a reporter after graduation, I began to reflect on the advantages that Ewha gave me and the competitiveness of Ewha graduates.
Most of the female leaders that I’ve met in society after I became a reporter were also Ewha graduates like me. In the past when much fewer women were able to publicly participate in society, Ewha graduates had an unrivalled edge as female leaders. I once talked about this with younger journalist colleagues who also graduated from Ewha, and we concluded that this was because the time we spent at Ewha allowed us to grow and influenced us, whether we knew it or not. Thanks to the time we spent at Ewha, we were able to grow into women leaders by overcoming the social prejudices or distorted perspectives that we faced simply because we were women.
Q. What is your idea of the Ewha DNA?
Progressive thinking, self-belief, the sense of responsibility to finish what we’ve started, and solidarity among women.
Q. If you could choose just one trait that is essential for a journalist, what would it be?
All of the traits that I described as the Ewha DNA are also essential for a journalist, but if I have to choose just one, it’s the sense of responsibility. Working as a reporter is harder than you think. Reporters are often criticized rather than praised, and sometimes it is our duty to expose wrongs that others want to conceal. We have to work on public holidays while other people rest and sacrifice personal plans or private life to cover a story in the field. If you truly want to continue on this path in spite of it all, then it’s important to have a sense of responsibility and calling. Above all, reporters must never forget that a single article that they write or a single comment that they make on air can drastically affect someone else’s life. As such, they should always be mindful of such risks and always verify and think about stories twice without forgetting that the pen is mightier than the sword.