Format Online Publisher Park In-ho Staff writers 20 | Founder(s) Han Ki-hong Editor-in-chief Shin Joo-hyun | |
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Founded December 2004 (2004-12) | ||
Daily NK is an online newspaper focusing on issues relating to North Korea. The site, which is run by citizens of both Koreas alongside a small handful of staff and volunteers from third countries, is based in South Korea where it reports stories allegedly obtained from inside North Korea via a network of informants.
Daily NK is a recipient of funding from multiple institutions and private donors, including the National Endowment for Democracy, an NGO run by Carl Gershman and funded by the U.S. Congress. The Daily NK's president is Park In-ho.
History
Founded in December 2004 by Han Ki Hong and the Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights, Daily NK covers stories pertaining to North Korea with a focus on inside information and human rights issues. It publishes primarily in Korean, but also in English, Chinese and Japanese. Its sources inside North Korea communicate with the main office using Chinese cell phones, while it also has several correspondents based in China who interview people coming and going across the Sino-North Korean border. It also carries stories from North Korean defectors and monitors the output of the North Korean media.
Daily NK reports are frequently cited by international media, and former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's eldest son Kim Jong-nam describes it as the most accurate source of inside information on North Korea, particularly the country's markets. Sometimes even South Korea's National Intelligence Service contacts Daily NK asking for information.
On the other hand, North Korea's National Reconciliation Council, in an official statement carried by KCNA, once criticized Daily NK for what it called "anti-DPRK smear campaigns," and Lee Chan-ho of the South Korean Ministry of Unification warned in 2010 that the “flood of raw, unconfirmed reports” from organizations including Daily NK "complicates efforts to understand the North."
Hwang Jang-yop, a leading political figure in North Korea prior to his 1997 defection, contributed a regular column to the site prior to his death in Seoul in 2010.