North Korea

North Korea permits no independent domestic journalism. Reporters Without Borders describes the Korean Central News Agency as the only permitted news source for North Korean media, while the regime controls the production and distribution of information. Unauthorised access to foreign broadcasting and foreign media content is prohibited and subject to severe criminal penalties, and distribution of illegal foreign media can be punishable by death. Ordinary users are generally limited to state-controlled domestic networks rather than the global internet. DataReportal’s Digital 2026 analysis estimates that fewer than 100,000 people can access international websites and that more than 99 per cent of the population remained effectively outside the global internet at the end of 2025.

North Korea ranked 179th of 180 countries in the 2026 RSF World Press Freedom Index with a score of 12.67, ahead only of Eritrea. It held the same rank in 2025, with a score of 12.64.

State Media Monitor’s 2026 North Korea roster contains nine active records and one closed record, none in the independent family. Eight are classified State-Controlled: the Korean Central Broadcasting Committee, encompassing KCNA, the country’s four state-run terrestrial television channels and its principal radio services; the Workers’ Party organ Rodong Sinmun; Minju Choson, the joint organ of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly and the Cabinet; Joson Inmingun, the Korean People’s Army newspaper, distributed primarily within the military; Chongnyon Jonwi and Rodongja Sinmun, the organs of the youth league and trade union federation respectively; Pyongyang Sinmun, the capital’s Party newspaper; and Chollima, a general-interest monthly. The ninth, Choson Sinbo, is classified Captured Private: published in Tokyo by Choson Sinbo Co., Ltd., a Japanese corporation, as the organ of Chongryon, it operates under Japanese law and has documented subscription and advertising sales. Control operates through Chongryon rather than through direct North Korean state ownership.

The most consequential recent change began as a doctrinal shift and was subsequently implemented institutionally and constitutionally. At the end of December 2023, Kim Jong Un fundamentally revised policy towards South Korea, redefining inter-Korean relations as relations between two hostile states and ordering the overhaul of organisations responsible for relations with the South.

On 11 January 2024, DPRK Today went offline alongside Uriminzokkiri, Arirang Meari, Tongil Voice, Ryomyong and Ryugyong, six externally oriented propaganda sites directed primarily at South Korean audiences. DPRK Today, the only one of these operations included as a closed record in the current State Media Monitor roster, has not resumed publication. The Central Committee of the Democratic Front for the Reunification of Korea formally dissolved itself on 23 March 2024, explicitly citing the new doctrine on relations with South Korea.

The policy shift was further formalised in 2026. North Korea revised its constitution in March, and the text disclosed in May showed that all references to Korean reunification had been removed and a new territorial provision had been introduced defining North Korean territory in relation to South Korea as a separate state. In May 2026, Chongryon also removed references to reunification from its rules. These organisations and media operations were institutionally separate, but the changes reflected the same broader abandonment of North Korea’s previous reunification doctrine.

Funding is the condition State Media Monitor could not quantify for any of the nine active records. No published outlet budgets, financial statements or appropriations sufficient to establish their funding structures were identified. For the North Korea-based media, scattered evidence of commercial or transactional activity exists without establishing its scale or destination: Korean Central Television carries product exposure resembling indirect advertising; the Manbang IPTV service has operated on a subscription model; Rodong Sinmun has a nominal domestic subscription and South Korea resumed paid imports in May 2026, importing 644 copies for KRW 1.58 million over three months; and product advertising has previously appeared in Pyongyang Sinmun. None of this establishes the proportion of outlet funding derived from commercial activity or, in the case of the North Korea-based outlets, where the resulting payments ultimately go.

Choson Sinbo provides the clearest exception to this opacity. Its Japanese publishing company directly sells print and digital subscriptions and advertising, demonstrating commercial revenue-generating activity, although no published accounts identified by State Media Monitor establish the amount of revenue involved or its share of total funding. The classifications therefore rest principally on ownership, governance and editorial control, with funding recorded as undisclosed or unquantified rather than inferred.

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