Yonhap News was launched in 1980 when the three news agencies in South Korea at the time were merged into one entity.
Media assets
News agency: Yonhap
Television: Yonhap News TV
State Media Matrix Typology: Independent Public (IP)
Ownership and governance
In 2003, Yonhap News was legally declared the country’s representative news agency. The agency is majority owned by Korea News Agency Commission (KONAC) with a stake of nearly 31%. The remaining shares are owned by public broadcasters KBS and MBC and several major newspaper publishers.
KONAC was purposely created as a public entity to run Yonhap News. KONAC has a board with seven members, three of whom are appointed by the National Assembly based on recommendations from parliamentary groups, two by the government, and two elected by the media industry. The Chair is designated by the President of the Republic. As members are appointed by a diversity of state bodies and political groups, concentration of similar political interests in KONAC is quite difficult to achieve, if not impossible.
Source of funding and budget
Yonhap News is funded through a combination of government grants, proceeds from the fund management that was created by the state to finance the agency and income generated by the agency (sales of content). When it comes to actual income, the agency is more or less self-sustainable, generating revenues from sales of content to news media outlets. In 2019, it generated income worth some KRW 182,8 (US$ 168m). No more recent financial reports about Yonhap have been identified.
Editorial independence
There are no editorial rules imposed by the government on Yonhap News and no evidence of government interference in the agency’s editorial affairs.
The model of governance in place at Yonhap News was designed with the goal of ensuring the editorial independence of the station.
Yonhap News has several mechanisms meant to assess and oversee the editorial independence of the agency. One of them is the Complaints Manager, which handles complaints from the public and ensures that the agency responds to them. The agency also has a Content Advisory Committee, consisting of 60 members, whose main task is to monitor content disseminated by the agency and raise issues related to problematic content with the agency’s management. The agency’s content is also evaluated regularly by an independent commission, which makes recommendations that are meant to improve the outlet’s editorial content.
October 2023