The death of actress Kim Sae-ron at the age of 25 on February 16 has sparked criticism and self-reflection on the excessive reporting behavior of some media outlets. Even after she paid the legal and moral price for her drunk driving, reports of personal attacks at the level of "malicious comments" on her continued, pushing her to a dead end in her life. Experts pointed out on the 17th that strong sanctions against such yellow journalism are needed.

Kim suspended her activities in May 2022 after the drunk driving incident and dropped out of the show she was starring in, but public opinion was not favorable. In particular, the media reported her every move. Every single one of Kim's social media posts was turned into articles with mocking headlines.

The controversy over her working as a part-timer at a cafe in April 2023 is a case in point. When Kim posted a photo of herself working part-time at a cafe in a uniform on her social media account, there were a series of reports that she was " pretending to be struggling to make ends meet (when she actually wasn't).” Youtuber Lee Jin-ho whose channel has 610,000 subscribers has posted several videos criticizing Kim, including “The Last of the Part-Timer, The Two Faces of Struggling Kim Sae-ron,” which was uploaded in May 2023. The channel made the videos private after Kim's death.

When Kim posted a photo of herself with fellow actor Kim Soo-hyun in March of last year, he was criticized for attracting attention with a "self-love rumor." Articles with sensational titles such as "The Crying Wolf" and “The Social Media Addict Who Can't Be Cured” fueled already unfavorable public opinion.

Even without any special incidents or accidents, the ridicule continued. On January 19, entertainment media A wrote an article titled “'3 years after Kim Sae-ron's drunk driving... now protesting with her face.” The reason was that she posted a picture of her face without any content on her social media account. This vicious cycle of malicious articles aimed at garnering views, which in turn triggered malicious comments on social media and online communities, pushed Kim to the brink.

Kim's fanbase posted a statement on the Women Celebrities Gallery on online community Dcinside, saying, “Kim Sae-ron has acknowledged her mistakes, reflected on them, and tried to get back on her feet, but the criticism and public rejection she had to deal with in the process were beyond human limits," Singer Migyo also wrote on her social media account, saying, "The hands of keyboard warriors stop only when a person dies. I don't think they even know that they are posting malicious comments.”

Experts pointed out that celebrities have been repeatedly victimized by some media outlets that are desperate for increasing views and online trolls thrive on such stories. The same pattern was seen with actresses Sulli from girl band F(x) and Goo Ha-ra from girl band Kara who died in 2019 and actor Lee Sun-kyun last year.

Recently, management agencies have been strengthening their efforts to sue and report those who write malicious comments, but the structure of agencies being passive about media companies that wrote such articles is also a limitation. As long as there is a media that feeds online trolls, they will not disappear.