Yonhap News Agency

History[edit]

Yonhap (pronounced [jʌ̹n.ha̠p̚], Korean: 연합; Hanja: 聯合; RR: Yeonhap; MR: Yŏnhap; lit. United) was established on 19 December 1980, through the merger of Hapdong News Agency and Orient Press.^[1] 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.^[1]


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.^[2][1] Naewoe was known to have close links with South Korea's intelligence agency,^[2] 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".^[3] In 1999, Naewoe merged with Yonhap News Agency,^[1] with materials on North Korea continued to be "distributed for free as part of the government's propaganda effort".^[3] 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".^[4] 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.^[5]


It launched the television news channel YTN on 2 December 1996, but separated the channel in 1998. It launched again in 2011 by its namesake channel Yonhap News.