Outlet profile

Kyunghyang Shinmun

South Korean centre-left / progressive

Owned byEmployee-owned cooperative; no single external owner. The CEO is elected by employees, and the editor-in-chief requires majority approval from journalist staff.

FundingPrimarily advertising revenue and digital subscriptions; no state funding or known billionaire backer. Uses third-party content-discovery partnerships (e.g., Taboola) as an additional revenue stream.

On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

Kyunghyang Shinmun was founded on October 6, 1946, by the Catholic Diocese of Seoul, making it one of South Korea's oldest major dailies. Its early circulation reached roughly 100,000 before the Korean War. The paper's independence was tested in May 1959 when the Syngman Rhee government shut it down, citing 'false editorials'; it was revived after the pro-democracy April Revolution of 1960. During the Park Chung-hee era the Jeong-su Scholarship Society held a controlling stake, and the paper adopted broadly conservative and anti-communist editorial positions aligned with the authoritarian government of the time. The Hanwha conglomerate later acquired the paper, but surrendered it during South Korea's 1997–98 financial crisis. In 1998, Kyunghyang's journalists and staff took over as employee-owners, making it the first employee-owned newspaper in Korea. Since then it has shifted to a centre-left, reform-oriented editorial line, frequently critical of conservative South Korean governments and sympathetic to civil society and labor concerns. It is commonly grouped with The Hankyoreh as one of South Korea's two main progressive nationals, setting it apart from the dominant conservative dailies such as Chosun Ilbo and JoongAng Ilbo.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-08-19; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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