Anti-NK portal reaches out to foreigners

By Jonathan Breen

Shin Ju-hyun Daily NK chief editor

Daily NK, an online news outlet specializing in North Korean issues, has reached out to the foreign community in South Korea for the first time in an effort to raise funds.

After nearly 10 years of struggling with funding, the not-for-profit Internet publication held a fundraiser at Itaewon’s Scrooge Pub on July 5 — part of an initiative to target the foreign community both at home and abroad.

Chief Editor Shin Ju-hyun, 38, sat down with The Korea Times to explain why the Seoul-based news website is branching out into the global market.

“There has always been a problem with funds for the Daily NK, it has been 10 years and funds have never been at the level we want them to be,” he said. “We want to broaden our focus. The North Korean issue does not just affect South Korea, it is an international issue.”

The Daily NK is one of a few media outlets specifically focused on North Korea. Others include NK News and Free North Korea Radio. Reporters for the online newspaper gather information by speaking everyday to sources in North Korea using Chinese mobile networks.

Shin added, “The current level of funds means there is a limit to how much we can pay the people who work for us. And that affects how much information we can get out.

“If you want to get video footage out of North Korea, it really takes a lot of money, because it is so dangerous. We need money to maintain the relationship with people who are taking such a big risk. And people working in South Korea require money also.”

The Daily NK — which publishes its content in Korean, Chinese, Japanese and English — until now sourced all of their funds through donations from organizations such as the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy and from financial institutions.

“But, there is a limitation to how much funding you can get from these donations, so we are trying to expand that,” said Shin, who co-founded the daily in 2004.

“We are targeting different countries and I think publishing in four languages is a good way to do it,” he added, saying “We want to extend and focus a lot on the foreign aspect of our website.”

The first-hand information the Daily NK is privy to means they are often called on by the South Korean government.

“They want the information that we have and we meet them occasionally,” said Shin, adding, “If there is something that is very important for national security then we give them the information, but otherwise we do not, we just put it up on our website.”

Shin, originally from South Jeolla Province, is a former student activist. Until the 1990s he was part of a pro-North Korea student faction that followed Kim Il-sung’s Juche ideology.

“At that time the student movement was headed by pro-North people. I wanted to struggle against the Seoul government for democracy. I thought that North Korea would bring unification to the peninsula.”

But after meeting with defectors from the North he changed his mind.

“Around the time of the 1990s there were reports of starvation coming out of North Korea and refugees coming to South Korea and I heard their stories and I began to change my mind about North Korea and it being the ideal political system,” he said.

The Daily NK will continue to do its work until the day a democratic government takes power in North Korea, said the publication’s President Park In-ho at the Scrooge Pub fundraiser.

Shin added, “I hope in five years to write a report saying there has been a pro-democracy protest in Pyongyang.