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Yonhap News Agency

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Yonhap News Agency
Hangul
연합뉴스 (주)
Hanja
聯合뉴스 (株)
Revised RomanizationYeonhap Nyuseu (Ju)
McCune–ReischauerYŏnhap Nyusŭ (Chu)

Yonhap News Agency is South Korea's largest news agency. It is a publicly funded company, and headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. Yonhap provides news articles, pictures, other information to newspapers, TV networks and other media in South Korea.

History

Yonhap (meaning "associated" in Korean) was established on December 19, 1980, through the merger of Hapdong News Agency and Orient Press. It maintains various agreements with 65 non-Korean news agencies, and also has a services-exchange agreement with North Korea's KCNA agency, signed in 2002.[1] It is the only Korean wire service that works with foreign news agencies,[2] and provides a limited but freely available selection of news on its Internet website in Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Arabic and French.

Yonhap was the host news agency of the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, and was elected twice to the board of OANA.

Yonhap is South Korea's only news agency large enough to have 41 correspondents abroad and 110 reporters across the nation.[1] Its largest shareholder is the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), South Korea's largest public broadcaster.

In 2003, the South Korean government passed a law giving financial and systematic assistance to the agency, to reinforce staff and provide equipment.[2] In the legislation, it has also been given the role of "promoting the country's image" to an international audience.[1] The head of the Yonhap agency is usually affiliated with the government, which critics say harms press freedom and has an impact on news- gathering. However it is government affiliation, rather than press laws (which are supportive of press freedom), which are said to be the cause of any limitations,[3] though the agency does criticise the government.[4]

Journalists

Yonhap employs about 550 reporters, which is the largest number only after KBS at home. Yonhap claims to have more than 40 correspondents in 33 countries, producing the greatest amount of foreign dispatches among Korean media.[5] Yonhap is one of few Korean news organizations that have a specialized department in North Korea reports. In 1998, Yonhap acquired from the National Intelligence Service a agency monitoring North Korean media and analyzing N.K.-related information. Yonhap incorporated the agency and its staff to the newsroom, creating a special division(often referred to as the N.K. news desk). Yonhap subsequently won a reputation for breaking news on N.K. In January 2009, two reporters from the department disclosed that Kim Jong-un had been chosen as an heir apparent to North Korea's longtime leader Kim Jong Il. The reporters later in 2010 won the grand journalism award for the exclusive story from the Korean Journalist Association. It was for the first time in 9 years that the association awarded the prize since 2001.[6]

The Cho Gye-chang award

The Korean Journalist Association in 2010 established a journalism award for the international news category naming it after Mr. Cho Gye-chang, the former Yonhap correspondent in Shenyang.[7] The act was to honor dedication to international news reporting of the late reporter. Mr. Cho was killed by the car wreak in December 2008 on the way back after finishing an interview with a Korean-Chinese academic. He was assigned to Shenyang in 2006 as a first Korean correspondent in the northern Chinese city. Fellow reporters acknowledged Mr. Cho as an excellent observer of North Korea from the Chinese border, and an ardent news writer who covered Korean-Chinese communities with respect and dignity. Upon the first death anniversary, Korean-Chinese organizations and local journalists recognized him as a "truly hardworking and admirable reporter".[8] Mr. Cho's demise marked the first time that Yonhap lost its reporter on an international assignment.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c About Us [unreliable source?], Yonhap.
  2. ^ a b Shrivastava, K. M. (2007). News Agencies from Pigeon to Internet: From Pigeon to Internet. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd. ISBN 978193270567
  3. ^ Sin, T., Shin, D. C., Rutkowski, C. P. & Pak, C. (2003). The Quality of Life in Korea: Comparative and Dynamic Perspectives. Springer. ISBN 978-1-4020-0947-1
  4. ^ (2nd LD) S. Korean lawmakers heap criticism on government's reversal in airstrip row, Yonhap, January 12, 2009.
  5. ^ [1] Yonhap News Agency official website, retrieved Feb.6th 2012
  6. ^ [2] 미디어오늘 9년만의 한국기자상 대상 연합뉴스 최선영 장용훈 기자, retrieved Feb.6th 2012
  7. ^ 故조계창 기자 추모 ‘국제보도상’ 제정 The Korean Journalist Association Bulletin retrieved Feb.17th 2012
  8. ^ "조계창 특파원, 정말 부지런했던 기자" yonhapnews article retrieved Feb.17th 2012
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