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Outlet profile

Seoul Economic Daily

South Korean business-oriented, center-right

Owned bySeoul Economic Daily Co., Ltd., a privately held company. Chang Jae-min is chairman and Son Dong-young is president and publisher. It split from the Hankook Ilbo in 2000 and is a separate company from Hankook Ilbo Media Group. The exact shareholder breakdown is not clear from the sources I could access.
FundingMainly advertising, including corporate advertising, plus newspaper subscriptions and sales, and digital content. It receives no state budget and has no known billionaire patron. Like other Korean dailies, it depends on big-company advertisers, which can create commercial pressure on business coverage.
On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

Chang Key-young founded the paper on 1 August 1960 as a sister paper of the Hankook Ilbo. Its roots go back to a Seoul Economic Research Association study group he organized in 1947. The Chun Doo-hwan government's 1980 media consolidation forced it to stop publishing in November 1980. It resumed on 1 August 1988 and became independent of the Hankook Ilbo on 1 October 2000. It now competes with Maeil Business Newspaper and The Korea Economic Daily as one of Korea's major economic dailies. Its focus on industry, finance, trade and the chaebol (large family-run conglomerates) tends to produce a pro-growth, business-friendly perspective, and it has generally been seen as closer to conservative and market-oriented positions than to progressive ones. I did not find a clear record of editorial controversies in the sources I could access. Its recent coverage of the Trump administration (October 2026) reports Trump's threats of 300% tariffs on firms that skip U.S. plants, his pressure on Korea over the Alaska LNG investment, and his demands on allies before the midterms. These pieces mostly describe the pressure as a risk to Korean business. This is a news-heavy, economically focused posture rather than strong advocacy for or against the administration.

Sources

  1. Seoul Economic Daily - Wikipedia
  2. Seoul Economic Daily - NamuWiki
  3. Trump Threatens 300% Tariffs on Firms That Skip U.S. Plants - Seoul Economic Daily
  4. Trump Warns Korea of Double Charges Without Alaska Investment Deal - Seoul Economic Daily
  5. Trump Squeezes Allies on Fuel and Investment Before Midterms - Seoul Economic Daily

Profile compiled 2026-10-05; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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