Anchor-turned host Kim Ju-ha recalled a hair-raising broadcasting accident while anchoring the news.
Recently on the "Books and Life" channel, Kim Ju-ha appeared as a guest and talked with announcer Kim Jaewon about her essay "A cat walks across the frozen Han River."
That day Kim Jaewon asked, "You actually stayed at news sites for a long time. If you suddenly get a nosebleed, think about when you did 'Morning Yard' or '6 o'clock My Hometown' — if you got a nosebleed then you could say 'I have a nosebleed' and briefly wipe it with a tissue, but news is not that kind of situation. Doesn't news have a unique tension?"
In response, Kim Ju-ha said, "Of course it does. The reason news is live is not for any other reason than to reflect news and new information as it comes in. So an anchor must be prepared to reflect new information at any time, not just deliver prewritten lines. So you always need to be tense. Just don't tremble," she explained.
Then Kim Jaewon said, "Besides, you can't avoid that time, can you? And you can't evade sudden situations that happen at that time. In fact, about 10 years ago I had a broadcasting accident where the chair suddenly sank during a live broadcast. It was like 'I gained weight,' and those 100 seconds were truly embarrassing. That's the situation you're given, but anyway I faced that situation and I had to finish on time because the 7 p.m. news had to go out, so I spent that time with the responsibility of finishing the program on my shift," he said, adding, "But as many people know, in that state of indigestion I had to deliver the news sweating profusely. It's described in this book, and as a fellow broadcaster I could feel that sensation. I wondered how hard it must have been," he said, referring to the news broadcasting accident and showing sympathy.
Kim Ju-ha recalled, "At that time I really spent many years eating both lunch and dinner at the company. More than 10 years. At lunch I had to read the evening paper and prepare. Afternoon meetings are at 1:50 p.m. That day the office had run out of rice and kimchi. If I get hungry, it's hard for me to broadcast. When I did morning news I woke up at 2:30 a.m. to do the 6 a.m. news, and often I would go on without eating. Then my stomach made such a loud gurgling sound. Into the microphone. So many calls came then asking what that sound was. Or 'It sounds like something in that woman's stomach, feed her something.' After that our news department had kimbap in the morning. Since then I never do news on an empty stomach," she recalled.
He said, "So looking for something to eat in the evening, the economics chief said, 'I have a saved instant noodle, want it?' It was a big one. He gave it to me. So I gratefully ate it. But it made me sick. I didn't notice while sitting preparing the news. I had indigestion. But when I got up and went down to the news studio I felt dizzy. Looking at the situation, I thought I couldn't hold on. On the way I immediately told the producer, 'Get a replacement.' But they said, 'We can't get one right away.' So I said, 'Get one. I don't think I can hold on until the end.' The news was probably around 70 minutes. I said, 'I probably can't hold on for 70 minutes, so get one,' and a substitute arrived later. I had severe indigestion then," he confessed.
In response, Kim Jaewon said, "Actually I was watching that live broadcast that day. I thought, 'Why is that person acting like that?' — the tone was different from usual. And the very tense atmosphere and at some point the sweat becoming visible on screen," he said. Kim Ju-ha recounted the state of sweating profusely, saying, "Even though I wiped the sweat like that it didn't help."
Kim Jaewon said, "I started to worry. When the anchor was replaced I thought this was serious. So I deliberately watched until the end," and "But in the closing line anchor Kim Ju-ha seemed fine," he mentioned the ensuing incidents. Hearing this, Kim Ju-ha said, "So I went to anchor Han Sang-won and said, 'You bastard,' and I kind of yelled at him," expressing her frustration and provoking laughter.
It was because an offhand remark by anchor Han Sang-won caused an absurd misunderstanding. Kim Jaewon said, "If he hadn't said that one thing," expressing regret, and Kim Ju-ha said, "Exactly. Then people would have thought, 'Oh, was she taken to the hospital?' But as soon as she disappeared from screen and they said she was fine, people would think she didn't have indigestion but sudden diarrhea. They'd say, 'She went to the bathroom and came back fine.' It's unfair. I wasn't. I truly wasn't. If I had been I would have said so. That's my personality. But because I wasn't, it's so unfair," she pleaded.
He said, "So I contacted Naver. Because when you type Kim Ju-ha, 'sudden diarrhea' automatically appears in related searches. So I asked them to please remove it because it's not true. After that incident, for a while if you looked at Naver there were lots of debates like 'it was indigestion' or 'it was sudden diarrhea,'" he said about the aftershock.
Kim Jaewon said, "I learned from the book that that saved instant noodle was well past its expiration date," and Kim Ju-ha agreed, "Three years and three months." Kim Jaewon said, "It was a situation in which indigestion was inevitable," and Kim Ju-ha said, "And the truth is I eat a lot of expired items. I've spent time hunting for those too, emergency rations. So there were times I ate something hastily," identifying the cause. Then Kim Jaewon said, "While we do broadcasts, especially live broadcasts — I've done them a long time and anchor Kim has done them a long time too — but you can't really plan for sudden situations that occur. Anyway, you went through a lot," he said, sharing sympathy and offering a handshake of consolation.
[Photo] Books and Life
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