Kim Jae-heun

Kim Jae-heun is a culture desk reporter at The Korea Herald who covers K-pop, Korean popular music and the broader entertainment industry with a focus on how creative storytelling, technology and business decisions shape artists and fans. His work treats music not only as performance, but as a cultural system built from producers’ careers, corporate strategy, fan communities and the spaces where culture is experienced. Across profiles, industry features and event coverage, he consistently looks for the narrative and structural forces behind pop phenomena rather than limiting his reporting to releases and chart moves.

K-pop careers and creative storytelling

Much of Kim’s reporting follows the people who make K-pop, especially producers and idols whose careers illustrate how the industry evolves. In his feature on Lee Hae-in’s transition “From idol to producer,” he traces her journey from performer to creative director, using extensive interview material to unpack how she approaches storytelling in music and why narrative is central to an artist’s appeal. The piece spends as much time on her philosophy of production as on her résumé, showing his interest in the craft and narrative thinking that sit behind hit songs.

Kim also covers group comebacks and concept-driven releases, such as Hearts2Hearts’ return with the summer-themed single “Lemon Tang,” highlighting how seasonal concepts, visual ideas and producer choices work together to position a track in the crowded K-pop market. He treats these stories as opportunities to explore the logic of K-pop’s content cycles and how artists and agencies build cohesion across music, visuals and promotions. This focus on careers, concepts and production decisions makes his artist coverage especially relevant when a story hinges on creative process or positioning within the broader K-pop ecosystem.

Industry, technology and corporate power

Another through-line in Kim’s work is the intersection of K-pop with technology and corporate strategy. He reports on high-level industry debates, like SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man’s push for rapid adoption of AI and blockchain in K-pop, explaining how these technologies are framed as tools for new business models and fan engagement. In coverage of experiments such as Galaxy Corp.’s “AI glasses” and “robot concerts,” he looks at how immersive hardware and automation are being tested as part of future K-pop experiences, and what that means for agencies, performers and audiences.

Kim also writes on corporate controversy and accountability, including a piece investigating the authorship of Hybe’s controversial internal report, in which he identifies the pop culture critic behind the document and contextualizes why the report matters inside and outside the company. His stories on K-pop’s position amid China–Japan cultural friction examine how geopolitics and regional sensitivities affect touring, content circulation and fan relations. Taken together, this body of work shows a reporter who is comfortable explaining complex corporate and political dynamics in clear language, linking them back to how the music industry functions day-to-day.

Live scene, legacy acts and fan culture

Kim’s beat also extends across the live music scene and the communities that sustain it. In his feature on Korean rock band Crying Nut’s 30th anniversary, he covers their multi-month exhibition and concert series “Speed Up Losers” at KT&G Sangsangmadang in Hongdae, describing how visual art, archival material and performance are combined into a multi-sensory retrospective of the band’s career. The article balances historical context on Crying Nut’s role in Korea’s indie movement with practical details on dates, venue and ticketing, reflecting his mix of cultural analysis and service journalism.

He applies a similar lens to major idol events and fan gatherings, writing about large-scale BTS celebrations and concerts where fans travel from around the world to take part. In those stories, he documents crowd behavior, fan rituals and on-the-ground atmosphere, showing how fandom operates as a global social network as much as a consumer base. This attention to live environments and fan experience makes his coverage valuable for stories tied to tours, festivals, exhibitions or other public-facing cultural events.

Broader culture and city life

Although music and K-pop are his core focus, Kim’s bylines also touch wider cultural and city-life topics that sit adjacent to the entertainment beat. He has contributed to features on book festivals, espresso bars and Christmas markets, offering concise descriptions of venues and activities that help readers navigate cultural offerings around the city. In another multi-writer guide, he profiles spaces like craft studios and riverside gyms, connecting lifestyle and recreation to the broader cultural fabric.

Kim also reports on literary culture, including coverage of the closure of Nobel Prize-winning author Han Kang’s bookstore, where he relays the author’s reflections on the space and what its disappearance means to readers and the local scene. He occasionally writes stories that link culture to education and research, such as pieces based on interviews with academics or policymakers discussing their work in relation to popular culture and public life. These articles show that, while his primary beat is music, he approaches culture holistically, treating books, venues, policy and everyday spaces as part of the same ecosystem that shapes how people encounter art and entertainment.

Across these strands, Kim’s coverage is distinguished by its combination of artist-centered storytelling, clear explanation of industry and technology, and close attention to the spaces and communities that give K-pop and Korean culture their practical form. For stories that involve producers’ careers, new technological experiments, corporate controversies or fan-driven events, his reporting frame aligns with sources who want their narratives understood in both creative and structural terms.