James Kim
Encyclopedia
James Kim was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 television personality and technology analyst for the former TechTV
TechTV
TechTV was a 24-hour cable and satellite channel based in San Francisco featuring news and shows about computers, technology, and the Internet. In 2004, it merged with the G4 gaming channel which ultimately dissolved TechTV programming...

 international cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...

 network, reviewing products for shows including The Screen Savers
The Screen Savers
The Screen Savers was a live American TV show on TechTV. The show launched concurrently with the channel ZDTV on May 11, 1998. The Screen Savers originally centered around computers, new technologies, and their adaptations in the world...

, Call for Help
Call for Help
Call for Help, also known as CFH, was a computer-themed television program that first aired exclusively on TechTV , a cable and satellite television network focused on technology, and then aired on G4techTV Canada and the HOW TO Channel in Australia...

, and Fresh Gear
Fresh Gear
Fresh Gear was a television program on ZDTV then known as TechTV that showcased the latest in personal technology. It was hosted by Stephanie Siemiller and Chris Leary. The original hosts were Jim Louderback and Sumi Das....

. At the time of his death he was working as a senior editor of MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

 and Digital Audio
Digital audio
Digital audio is sound reproduction using pulse-code modulation and digital signals. Digital audio systems include analog-to-digital conversion , digital-to-analog conversion , digital storage, processing and transmission components...

 for CNET
CNET
CNET is a tech media website that publishes news articles, blogs, and podcasts on technology and consumer electronics. Originally founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through CNET Networks' acquisition...

, where he wrote more than 400 product reviews. He also co-hosted a weekly video podcast for CNET's gadget blog, Crave, and a weekly audio podcast, The MP3 Insider (both podcasts were co-hosted with Veronica Belmont
Veronica Belmont
Veronica Ann Belmont is the co-host of the Revision3 show Tekzilla alongside Patrick Norton, and the former host of the monthly PlayStation 3-based video on demand program Qore. Formerly she was the host for the Mahalo Daily podcast and a producer and associate editor for CNET Networks, Inc...

).

His disappearance and death, and his family's ordeal, made them the subject of a brief but intense period of news coverage in December 2006.

Early life

Kim graduated from Ballard High School
Ballard High School (Louisville)
Ballard High School is a senior high school in the eastern suburbs of Louisville, Kentucky. The school opened in the fall of 1968. The first students were in grades 7-9, and a grade was added each year as the building was expanded. This kept the school system from having to transfer upper class...

 in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

 in 1989 and from Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...

 in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

 in 1993 where he double-majored in Government and English and played for the varsity lacrosse team. Son of Spencer H. Kim, an aerospace company executive and internationalist, Kim and his wife, Kati, owned two retail stores in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

.

Career

James Kim was most widely known as a television personality on the international cable network TechTV
TechTV
TechTV was a 24-hour cable and satellite channel based in San Francisco featuring news and shows about computers, technology, and the Internet. In 2004, it merged with the G4 gaming channel which ultimately dissolved TechTV programming...

, where he was a senior technology analyst for TechTV Labs. He made frequent appearances testing new products for shows including The Screen Savers
The Screen Savers
The Screen Savers was a live American TV show on TechTV. The show launched concurrently with the channel ZDTV on May 11, 1998. The Screen Savers originally centered around computers, new technologies, and their adaptations in the world...

, Call for Help
Call for Help
Call for Help, also known as CFH, was a computer-themed television program that first aired exclusively on TechTV , a cable and satellite television network focused on technology, and then aired on G4techTV Canada and the HOW TO Channel in Australia...

, Fresh Gear
Fresh Gear
Fresh Gear was a television program on ZDTV then known as TechTV that showcased the latest in personal technology. It was hosted by Stephanie Siemiller and Chris Leary. The original hosts were Jim Louderback and Sumi Das....

, and AudioFile. He was best known for his "Lab Rats" segments, in which he reviewed the latest electronic gadgets. After leaving TechTV, he became a senior editor for CNET
CNET
CNET is a tech media website that publishes news articles, blogs, and podcasts on technology and consumer electronics. Originally founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through CNET Networks' acquisition...

, a technology trade journal, which he had joined in 2004. He wrote product reviews and co-hosted a weekly podcast for CNET's gadget blog, Crave. Prior to working for TechTV, Kim had been a legal assistant at law firms in New York and France; a media relations assistant for baseball's American League; and a script reader for Miramax Films.

Snowbound

After spending the 2006 Thanksgiving holiday in Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

, the Kims (James, Kati, and their two daughters, Penelope and Sabine) set out for their home in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. On Saturday, November 25, 2006, having left Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

 on their way to Tu Tu Tun Lodge, a resort located near Gold Beach, Oregon
Gold Beach, Oregon
Gold Beach is a city in and the county seat of Curry County, Oregon, United States, on the Oregon Coast. The population was 1,897 at the 2000 census.-History:...

, the Kims missed a turnoff from Interstate 5 to Oregon Route 42, a main route to the Oregon Coast
Oregon Coast
The Oregon Coast is a region of the U.S. state of Oregon. It runs generally north-south along the Pacific Ocean, forming the western border of the state; the region is bounded to the east by the Oregon Coast Range. The Oregon Coast stretches approximately from the Columbia River in the north to...

. Instead of returning to the exit, they consulted a highway map and picked a secondary route that skirted the Wild Rogue Wilderness
Wild Rogue Wilderness
The Wild Rogue Wilderness is a wilderness area surrounding the eighty-four mile Wild and Scenic portion of the Rogue River in southwestern Oregon, U.S. to protect the watershed. The Wilderness was established in 1987 and now comprises...

, a remote area of southwestern Oregon.

After encountering heavy snow at high elevation on Bear Camp Road
Bear Camp Road
Bear Camp Road is a rugged mountain road traversing the Klamath Mountains in Josephine and Curry counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. Bear Camp Road is a combination of Bureau of Land Management Road 34-8-36 starting just south of Galice and United States Forest Service Road 23, which continues...

, they turned, by mistake, onto one of hundreds of unpaved logging roads supervised by the Bureau of Land Management
Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately , or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. The BLM also manages of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private...

 (BLM). A road gate intended to prevent such mistakes was open despite BLM rules requiring that it be closed. Media outlets reported that vandals had cut a lock on the gate, but a subsequent investigation showed that BLM employees had left it open to avoid trapping local hunters and others who might have ventured past it.

Early on the morning of November 26, the family stopped due to fatigue and bad weather. As more snow fell around their immobilized Saab 9-2X
Saab 9-2X
The Saab 9-2X is a station wagon automobile that was sold by Saab only in North America as a 2005 and 2006 model year car. It was built in Japan by Fuji Heavy Industries’ Gunma Yajima Plant Ōta, Gunma....

 station wagon, the Kims kept warm by running its engine. When the vehicle ran out of fuel, they made a campfire of dried wood and magazines. Later, they burned their car's tires to signal rescuers. Search efforts began shortly after November 30, when coworkers of Kim filed a missing persons report with the San Francisco Police Department. After investigators learned that the Kims used their credit card at a local restaurant, search and rescue
Search and rescue
Search and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, mostly based upon terrain considerations...

 teams, including local and state police, more than 80 civilian volunteers, the Oregon Army National Guard and several helicopters hired by Mr. Kim's father, Spencer Kim, spent several days looking for the family along area highways and roads, to no avail.

On December 2, James Kim left his family to look for help, wearing tennis shoes, a jacket, and light clothing. He believed the nearest town (Galice
Galice, Oregon
Galice is an unincorporated community in Josephine County in Southern Oregon, United States.-History:Galice was officially settled in 1852 as a mining community, deriving its name from one of its founders, Louis Galice. It was at first called Galiceburg, and located on Galice Creek upstream from...

) was located four miles away after studying a map with his wife. He promised his wife he would turn back the same day if he failed to find anyone, but he did not return.

Search

Although the Kims had a cellular phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

 with them, their remote location in the mountains was out of range of the cellular network
Cellular network
A cellular network is a radio network distributed over land areas called cells, each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver known as a cell site or base station. When joined together these cells provide radio coverage over a wide geographic area...

, rendering the phone unusable for voice calls. Despite being unusable for voice calls, their cell phone would play a key role in their rescue. Cell phone text messages may go through even when there appears to be no signal, in part because text messaging
Text messaging
Text messaging, or texting, refers to the exchange of brief written text messages between fixed-line phone or mobile phone and fixed or portable devices over a network...

 is a store-and-forward service. Two Edge Wireless
Edge Wireless
Edge Wireless LLC was a Mobile phone provider founded in 1999, serving southern Oregon, northern California, southeastern Idaho and Jackson, Wyoming.Edge Wireless's network, currently owned by AT&T, is a 1900 MHz GSM network...

 engineers, Eric Fuqua and Noah Pugsley, contacted search and rescue authorities offering their help in the search. On Saturday, December 2, they began searching through the data logs of cell site
Cell site
A cell site is a term used to describe a site where antennas and electronic communications equipment are placed, usually on a radio mast, tower or other high place, to create a cell in a cellular network...

s, trying to find records of repeaters to which the Kims' cellphone may have connected. They discovered that on November 26, 2006 at around 1:30 a.m., the Kims' cellphone made a brief automatic connection to a cell site near Glendale, Oregon
Glendale, Oregon
Glendale is a city in Douglas County, Oregon, United States. The population was 855 at the 2000 census.-History:Glendale started out as a small settlement called "Stumptown", because of an economy based on logging. After the arrival of the railroad in 1881, the town was named "Julia" in honor of...

, and retrieved two text messages. Through the data logs, the engineers determined that the cell phone was in a specific area west of the cellular tower. They then used a computer program to determine which areas in the mountains were within a line-of-sight
Line-of-sight propagation
Line-of-sight propagation refers to electro-magnetic radiation or acoustic wave propagation. Electromagnetic transmission includes light emissions traveling in a straight line...

 to the cellular tower. This narrowed the search area tremendously, and finally focused rescue efforts on Bear Camp Road
Bear Camp Road
Bear Camp Road is a rugged mountain road traversing the Klamath Mountains in Josephine and Curry counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. Bear Camp Road is a combination of Bureau of Land Management Road 34-8-36 starting just south of Galice and United States Forest Service Road 23, which continues...

.

On the afternoon of December 4, John Rachor, a local helicopter pilot unaffiliated with any formal search effort, spotted Mrs. Kim and her two daughters walking on a remote road. After he radioed the family's position to authorities, the three were airlifted out of the area and transferred to a nearby hospital.

Law enforcement officials said that the discovery of the cellphone connection, and the subsequent analysis of the log data, was the critical breakthrough that ultimately resulted in the rescue of Kim's wife and daughters by helicopter.

Death

Officials continued to search for Mr. Kim, at one point finding clothing that he had discarded along the way in the likely belief that he was too hot; paradoxical undressing being one of the symptoms of hypothermia. Optimistic Oregon officials stated, "These were placed with our belief that little signs are being left by James for anyone that may be trying to find him so that they can continue into the area that he's continuing to move in."

On Wednesday, December 6 at 12:03 p.m., Mr. Kim's body was found in Big Windy Creek. (42.645575°N 123.723575°W) Lying on his back in one to two feet of icy water, he was fully clothed and had been carrying a backpack which contained his identification documents, among other miscellaneous items. He had walked about 16.2 miles (26 km) from the car to that point, and was only a mile from Black Bar Lodge, which, although closed for the winter, was fully stocked at the time. An autopsy revealed that Kim had died due to hypothermia
Hypothermia
Hypothermia is a condition in which core temperature drops below the required temperature for normal metabolism and body functions which is defined as . Body temperature is usually maintained near a constant level of through biologic homeostasis or thermoregulation...

 and that his body had suffered no incapacitating physical injuries. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy guessed that Kim had died roughly two days after leaving the vehicle.

Route

Because of Mr. Kim's background as a technology analyst, observers speculated that the family had used online mapping to find their route. However, Mrs. Kim told state police that they had used a paper road map, an account supported by the Oregon State Police
Oregon State Police
The Oregon State Police is the main state law enforcement agency of the U.S. state of Oregon. They have been charged to enforce all of Oregon's criminal laws and to help local law enforcement agencies with their duties...

, which reported that the Kims had used an official State of Oregon highway map. Mrs. Kim later recounted that, after they had been stuck for four days and were studying the map for help, both she and Mr. Kim noticed that a box in the corner of the map bore the message: "Not all Roads Advisable, Check Weather Conditions."

Bear Camp Road is lightly used between October and April, even by local residents, due to its difficult terrain, spotty maintenance, steep drop offs and often inclement weather.
As they drove along the road, the Kims passed three prominent warning signs that state: "Bear Camp Rd. May Be Blocked By Snowdrifts." Mrs. Kim later told police that they had noticed only one warning sign.

Media

The Kim family's ordeal became a lead story on most major U.S. news networks, even amidst breaking news of the Iraq Study Group
Iraq Study Group
The Iraq Study group , was a ten-person bipartisan panel appointed on March 15, 2006, by the United States Congress, that was charged with assessing the situation in Iraq and the US-led Iraq War and making policy recommendations...

's recommendations on America's war in Iraq. MSNBC.com reported one million page views on the story, making it the top story in the hours after Mr. Kim's body was found. CNN.com reported twice as many page views that afternoon as the Iraq story. Within a week Mr. Kim and family appeared on the cover of People magazine. Newspapers in the region, led by The Oregonian
The Oregonian
The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...

and the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

, devoted heavy coverage to the events and their aftermath.

On January 6, 2007, The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

published an op-ed article written by Spencer Kim, James Kim's father, criticizing various government entities that had, in his estimation, played roles in his son's death. The elder Kim blamed the BLM for not locking the gate to the logging road; privacy laws that he claimed had delayed the start of search and rescue efforts; local authorities for "confusion, communication breakdowns and failures of leadership" during the search; and the Federal Aviation Administration for not keeping media aircraft out of the search area.

On February 18, 2007, a memorial service was held for James Kim at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

On April 16, 2007, The Oregonian
The Oregonian
The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...

was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize
2007 Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes for 2007 were announced on April 16, 2007.In November 2006, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced two changes that would apply for the 2007 awards:...

 for a distinguished example of local reporting of breaking news, presented in print or online or both, for their coverage of the Kim family story. The staff of The Oregonian was lauded for "its skillful and tenacious coverage of a family missing in the Oregon mountains, telling the tragic story both in print and online."

On September 12, 2007, Kati Kim gave an exclusive interview of the ordeal to UK blogging site DollyMix.

In December 2009, Kati Kim and her daughters made a surprise appearance at a Christmas party being held by the membership of Josephine County Search and Rescue.

In February 2011, the television show 20/20 aired a special 2-hour episode, "The Wrong Turn," which included interviews with Kati Kim.

In September 2011, the television show 20/20 aired a second special 2-hour episode, "The Sixth Sense," which depicted the same story as in "The Wrong Turn".

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK