OhmyNews (

Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The let ...

: 오마이뉴스) is a South Korean online

news website An online newspaper (or electronic news or electronic news publication) is the online version of a newspaper, either as a stand-alone publication or as the online version of a printed periodical. Going online created more opportunities for newspa ...

with the motto "Every Citizen is a Reporter". It was founded by

Oh Yeon Ho Oh Yeon-ho (born 18 September 1964) is the founder of "citizen journalism" in South Korea, and CEO of OhmyNews a new approach to cyber-journalism in which ordinary citizens can contribute to a major news organization through being at news events ...

on February 22, 2000. It is the first news website in Korea to accept, edit and publish articles from its readers, in an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

style of news reporting. About 20% of the site's content is written by the 55-person staff, while most of the articles are written by other

freelance ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

contributors who are mostly ordinary citizens.

Political position

OhmyNews is a

liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

and progressive media. OhmyNews is a media that shows liberal-leaning bias, unlike the somewhat moderate liberal

Hankyoreh ''The Hankyoreh'' (, literally "The Korean Nation" or "One Nation") is a centre-left liberal daily newspaper in South Korea. It was established in 1988 after widespread purges forced out dissident journalists, and was envisioned as an alternati ...

and Kyunghyang. OhmyNews is an

anti-imperialist Anti-imperialism in political science and international relations is a term used in a variety of contexts, usually by nationalist movements who want to secede from a larger polity (usually in the form of an empire, but also in a multi-ethnic so ...

and

anti-racist Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate ...

, but anti-China/anti-Japan government

left-wing nationalist Left-wing nationalism or leftist nationalism, also known as social nationalism, is a form of nationalism based upon national self-determination, popular sovereignty, national self-interest, and left-wing political positions such as social equali ...

media that is common among South Korean liberals. OhmyNews is very critical of the 'hegemonic nationalism' of the Chinese and Japanese governments, and supports 'resistance nationalism', but opposes

ethnic nationalism Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnocratic) approach to various politi ...

. OhmyNews criticizes

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

prevalent in Korean society against Chinese and Japanese people. OhmyNews very strongly criticizes and opposes the phenomenon in which anti-Japanese and anti-Chinese feelings are expressed as racist hatred rather than anti-imperialism among some South Koreans. OhmyNews is not anti-American, but criticizes foreign policy in U.S. policy. OhmyNews opposes improving Japan-South Korea relations, it is particularly negative about cooperation in the military sector. OhmyNews criticized the U.S. attempt to improve Japan-South Korea relations to check China as sacrificing South Korea, a victim of

Japanese imperialism This is a list of regions occupied or annexed by the Empire of Japan until 1945, the year of the end of World War II in Asia, after the surrender of Japan. Control over all territories except most of the Japanese mainland (Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyus ...

History

''OhmyNews'' was influential in determining the outcome of the

2002 South Korean presidential election Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 19 December 2002. The result was a victory for Roh Moo-Hyun of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party, who defeated Lee Hoi-chang of the Grand National Party by just over half a million votes. ...

. After being elected, President

Roh Moo-hyun Roh Moo-hyun (; ; 1 September 1946 – 23 May 2009) was a South Korean politician and lawyer who served as the ninth president of South Korea between 2003 and 2008. Roh's pre-presidential political career was focused on human rights advocacy for ...

granted his first interview to ''OhmyNews''. ''OhmyNews International'' is an English language online newspaper that features " citizen reporter" articles written by contributors from all over the globe. Its content is almost 100% citizen reporter. On February 22, 2006, ''OhmyNews'' and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese firm

Softbank is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...

signed an investment contract valued at US$11 million. In 2006 ''OhmyNews'' started to build a Japan-based citizen-participatory journalism site called ''OhmyNews Japan'', launched on August 28 with a famous Japanese journalist and 22 other employees working under ten reporters. These journalists' articles were the object of much criticism; on November 17, 2006, the newspaper ended the citizen-participation aspect of the paper. The South Korean newspaper admitted that ''OhmyNews Japan'' had failed. In July 2008, all staff of OhmyNews Japan were dismissed, and by the end of August operations had ceased on the site. The 2nd Citizen Reporters' Forum was held by ''OhmyNews'' in Seoul, Korea from July 12–15, 2006. The 3rd International Citizen Reporters Forum was held by ''OhmyNews'' in Seoul from June 27–29, 2007. On November 24, 2007, ''OhmyNews'' opened a "citizen journalism school" to serve as a "collaborative knowledge center" for classes in journalism, digital cameras and photojournalism. It is located 90 minutes from

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

in the refurbished building of an

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

. The faculty will include ''OhmyNews'' editors and other journalists from print, radio and television. There is in-school lodging and dining capacity for 50 guests. On August 1, 2010, ''OhMyNews'' of South Korea announced a change in its format from an "edited citizen journalist news site" to a "blog dedicated to covering and discussing the world of citizen journalism itself," starting the following month. "Curators are important to our operation. They are given a great deal of trust. In order to maintain credibility amongst our team members, new curators join through recommendations of existing curators. And even amongst the curators we have different levels depending on their experience and contributions. This is to maintain a steady level of quality and credibility with our readers."

Financing

Critics argue that ''Ohmynews'' is losing original features as alternative–independent media in financial independence. Oh Yeon-ho said, “70 to 80 percent of our revenue came from corporate advertising and sponsorships. In contrast, contributions from readers only totaled five percent of total revenue.” Oh also said, “We have not received a cent from

Lee Myung-bak Lee Myung-bak (; ; ; born 19 December 1941) is a South Korean businessman and politician who served as the 10th president of South Korea from 2008 to 2013. Before his presidency, he was the CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, and the ma ...

government for central government advertising.” However a government report to National Assembly in 2009 revealed that ''Ohmynews'' received 120 million won (approximately 100,000 dollars) for government advertising from February 2008 to July 2009. An ''Ohmynews'' report also indicated that they had received about 870 million won (approximately 900,000 dollars) for government advertising from 2003 to 2007 by introducing government official reports to National Assembly. An alternative medium Pressian reported Oh's comments, "I respect Samsung as major business partner," and introduced about 20 percent of the total advertising and cooperation revenue of ''Ohmynews'' is coming from Samsung for years, the biggest business corporate of Korea. On July 8, 2009, Oh Yeon-ho revealed that ''Ohmynews'' was losing up to 700 million won yearly, and appealed to website users to join a voluntary subscription scheme.

OhmyNews International

In September 2010, OhmyNews International changed its format from citizen journalism to becoming a forum about citizen journalism. OmN became a victim of its own success; verifying facts from around the world became too difficult. The old site is an archive and does not accept new articles.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ohmynews 2000 establishments in South Korea Asian news websites Anti-racist organizations Anti-imperialist organizations Jongno District Korean nationalist organizations Left-wing nationalism in South Korea Liberal media in South Korea Magazines published in South Korea Newspapers published in South Korea Online companies of South Korea Progressivism in South Korea Publications established in 2000 Internet properties established in 2000 South Korean news websites