Yonhap News was founded in 1980 when the three news agencies in South Korea at the time were merged into one.
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 designated as the country’s representative news agency. The agency is majority owned by the 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 deliberately set up as a public corporation to run Yonhap News. KONAC has a seven-member board of directors, three of whom are appointed by the National Assembly on the recommendation of parliamentary factions, two by the government, and two elected by the media industry. The chairman is appointed by the President of the Republic. As members are appointed by a variety of state bodies and political groups, the concentration of similar political interests in KONAC is difficult, if not impossible.
Source of funding and budget
Yonhap News is funded by a combination of government grants, income from the management of a fund set up by the government to finance the agency, and income generated by the agency (sales of content). In terms of actual income, the agency is more or less self-sustaining, generating income from the sale of content to news media. In 2019, it generated income of approximately KRW 182.8 (US$168 million). No more recent financial reports for Yonhap could be found.
Editorial independence
There are no editorial rules imposed by the government on Yonhap News, and there is no evidence of government interference in the agency’s editorial affairs.
The governance model in place at Yonhap News is designed to ensure the editorial independence of the network.
Yonhap News has several mechanisms to assess and monitor the agency’s editorial independence. One of them is the Complaints Manager, who 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 the content disseminated by the agency and to raise issues related to problematic content with the agency’s management. The Agency’s content is also regularly evaluated by an independent commission that makes recommendations to improve the Agency’s editorial content.
September 2024