of the product line.
Samsung’s hard-earned brand—the castle Chairman Lee built—was
tottering.
—
ON OCTOBER 24, 2016, a team of investigative journalists working for the
news channel JTBC went on television with a scoop that would change
South Korean politics forever.
It all started with a tablet.
“The JTBC reporting team obtained and analyzed Choi Soon-sil’s
computer files,” said the news anchor on JTBC, referring to the adviser of
South Korean president Madame Park Geun-hye.
“We were able to confirm the fact that Choi received the president’s
speeches. But the dates Choi received these speeches in the form of forty-
four files were all before the president had made the speeches.”
It was South Korea’s Watergate. The journalists had obtained evidence
that the president’s adviser had been a sort of puppet master, editing her
speeches and cabinet briefings and getting access to her private
appointment information. She had the president’s itinerary and even private
chat messages.
Yet Choi was a private citizen with no government clearance. She had
no permission for special access to state secrets. South Korean media began
calling her the “daughter of Korea’s Rasputin,” a reference to the Russian
mystic who influenced Russia’s royal family in the years leading up to their
imprisonment and execution during World War I.
Within weeks, President Park’s approval rating collapsed to 4 percent.
Swarms of protesters cried foul over what they called a “shadow
government” run by a “shaman adviser.” The largest protests in the nation’s
democratic history took place in the wake of the reports, at one point
reaching more than 424,000 people, according to police estimates.
I watched the protests from the eighteenth floor of the Seoul Foreign
Correspondents’ Club off Gwanghwamun Square. Below me, luminescent
dots lit up like fireflies as protesters held candles and smartphone screens
in solidarity.
“You have been surrounded, Park Geun-hye! Surrender!” protesters
cried over loudspeakers outside the Blue House.