Yonhap News Agency

History

Yonhap was established on 19 December 1980, through the merger of Hapdong News Agency and Orient Press. The Hapdong News Agency itself emerged in late 1945 out of the short-lived Kukje News, which had operated for two months out of the office of the Domei, the former Japanese news agency that had functioned in Korea during the Japanese colonial era.

In 1999, Yonhap took over the Naewoe News Agency. Naewoe was a South Korea government-affiliated organization, created in the mid 1970s, tasked with publishing information and analysis on North Korea from a South Korean perspective through books and journals. Naewoe was known to have close links with South Korea's intelligence agency, and according to the British academic and historian James Hoare, Naowoe's publications became "less partisan after the late 1980s and are often useful source of information on North Korea". In 1999, Naewoe merged with Yonhap News Agency, with materials on North Korea continued to be "distributed for free as part of the government's propaganda effort". According to the U.S. Library of Congress, "Originally a propaganda vehicle that followed the government line on unification policy issued, Naowae Press became increasingly objective and moderate in tone in the mid-1980s in interpreting political, social, and economic developments in North Korea". Naowae's principal publication was the monthly magazine Vantage Point: Developments in North Korea, which continued to be published by Yonhap until its discontinuation in 2016.

Activity

Yonhap maintains various agreements with 90 non-Korean news agencies, and also has a services-exchange agreement with North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) agency, signed in 2002. It is the only Korean wire service that works with foreign news agencies, and provides a limited but freely-available selection of news on its website in Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Arabic, and French.

Yonhap is South Korea's only news agency large enough to have some 60 correspondents abroad and 600 reporters across the nation.

In 2003, the South Korean government passed a law giving financial and systematic assistance to the agency, to reinforce staff and provide equipment. though the agency does criticise the government.

Journalists

Yonhap employs about 600 reporters. It has some 60 correspondents in 26 countries.

The Cho Gye-chang award

The Korean Journalist Association in 2010 established the Cho Gye-chang Journalism Award for achievement in international news reporting to commemorate Cho Gye-chang, the former Yonhap correspondent in Shenyang, China. Cho was killed in a car crash in December 2008 on the way back, after having conducted an interview with a Korean-Chinese academic. He was assigned to Shenyang in 2006 as the first South Korean correspondent in the northern Chinese city. Cho was widely admired as an ardent news writer who focused on North Korean affairs and Korean-Chinese communities. On the first anniversary of his demise, Korean-Chinese organizations and local journalists paid tribute to him as a "truly hardworking reporter with great professionalism". Cho's death marked the first time that Yonhap had lost a reporter on an international assignment.

Global network

Yonhap News has more than 60 journalists in 33 areas in 25 countries.

Asia-Pacific

• Greater China: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Hong Kong, Taipei
• Japan: Tokyo, Osaka
• Vietnam: Hanoi
• Thailand: Bangkok
• India: New Delhi
• Indonesia: Jakarta
• Australia: Sydney
• New Zealand: Auckland

Europe

• United Kingdom: London
• France: Paris
• Germany: Berlin
• Switzerland: Geneva
• Russia: Moscow
• Belgium: Brussels

Americas

• United States: New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco
• Canada: Vancouver
• Brazil: São Paulo
• Mexico: Mexico City

Middle East

• Turkey: Istanbul
• United Arab Emirates: Dubai

Africa

• Egypt: Cairo
• Kenya: Nairobi
• South Africa: Johannesburg

References

References

1. (2009). "About Us". Yonhap News Agency.
2. Shrivastava, K. M. (2007). ''News Agencies from Pigeon to Internet''. Elgin, IL: Sterling Publishers. {{ISBN. 978-1-932705-67-6.
3. Na, Hak-jin. (December 2024}} Yonhap was the host news agency of the 1988 [[Seoul Summer Olympics]], and was elected twice to the board of the [[Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies]] (OANA).{{citation needed). "연합뉴스-빅토리콘텐츠 드라마작가 공모전서 작가 4명 수상".
4. 978-1-4020-0947-1.
5. See e.g. [http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2009/01/12/27/0301000000AEN20090112007900315F.HTML (2nd LD) "S. Korean lawmakers heap criticism on government's reversal in airstrip row"]. Yonhap. January 12, 2009.
6. "Cho Gye-chang Journalism Award".
7. [http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=102&oid=001&aid=0003001915 "조계창 특파원, 정말 부지런했던 기자"] Yonhap. Retrieved February 17, 2012.
8. "Global Network".
9. Hoare. (2015). "Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Korea (series: Historical Dictionaries of Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East)". Rownman & Littlefield.
10. Hoare, James E.. (2012). "Historical Dictionary of Democratic People's Republic of Korea (series: Historical Dictionaries of Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East)". Scarecrow Press – Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group.
11. (2005). "A Political and Economic Dictionary of East Asia (series: Political and Economic Dictionaries)". [[Routledge]] – [[Taylor and Francis]] Group.
12. U.S. Library of Congress Federal Research Division. (1992). "South Korea: A Country Study (Area Handbook series)". [[Library of Congress]].
13. (January 2016). "Discontinuance of Publication". Yonhap News Agency.