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Huffington Post launches Korean edition

February 28, 2014
The Korean edition of The Huffington Post is the online news site’s 11th international edition.

The Korean edition of The Huffington Post is the online news site’s 11th international edition.

By Yun Suh-young

The Huffington Post, an online news site based in the United States, opened a Korean edition of the website (www.huffingtonpost.kr) Friday.

The Korean site is Huffington’s 11th international edition and the second Asian edition. A Japanese edition was launched in May.

Arianna Huffington speaks during a press conference in Seoul, Friday. (Yonhap)

Arianna Huffington speaks during a press conference
in Seoul, Friday. (Yonhap)

The online news provider launched the Korean edition in partnership with Hankyoreh Media Group, a liberal newspaper. The content of the news site, however, will be provided independently from the Hankyoreh by a separate team of editors at the Huffington Post Korea. The editor in chief of the Korean edition is Sohn Mi-na, a freelance travel writer and former announcer on a local news channel.

Arianna Huffington, president and editor in chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, said she believes the launch of the site will be a unique contribution to Korean culture.

“The Huffington Post is a hybrid ― it’s a combination of journalistic enterprise of 800 people involved all around the world, but also a platform that offers distribution to people who have something interesting to say, whether they are well-known or unknown. There’s no hierarchy,” she said during a press conference held in central Seoul, Friday.

“We want rich conversation to take place in all topics, not just politics and business but how we live our lives, our culture, humor ― anything that’s part of our lives and enriches our lives.”

Huffington also stressed that Korea was a market that could contribute internationally by sharing stories of how the country overcame challenges.

“This is a time when Korea can teach the rest of the world how you’re handling the challenges you’re facing and also because of the incredible ancient wisdom and traditions that are part of Korea which we hope to do a lot of coverage of and export to all other international editions,” said Huffington.

“We want, in our coverage, to use the best digital tool to stay on stories relentlessly. We’ll be putting a spotlight not just on problems, but also the solutions in innovative ways and creative ways to resolve the problems.”

Jimmy Maymann, chief executive officer of The Huffington Post Media Group, said Korea was a market the online news group wanted to be introduced to for a long time.

“Korea has always been a market on our list. We believe it has a lot of ingredients that we’re looking for when we want to bring Huffington Post to the market,” said Maymann.

“One of the things Korea is excelling at is fast Internet connection and high broadband connection. Those are things that are important for operating a digital news site like we do.”

One of the reasons for launching the Korean edition was attributed to the high usage of the Internet and online news consumption here.

“Korea has proven that you can use high-speed Internet to consume online media. Recent statistics show on average people spend 14 hours a week online in Korea. On a daily basis, that’s 120 minutes. One third of that is used to look for and consume online news which is an area that’s key for Huffington Post,” he said.

“Korea is also important because it can embrace social media more than other markets. Compared to what we’ve seen in Japan, Korea has embraced blogging, tweeting in a much bigger way than we’ve seen in Japan.”

The Huffington Post is comprised mainly of contributions from unpaid bloggers. Straight news stories are provided by news agencies the company has contracts with. The Korean edition made news contracts with Yonhap News Agency and Osen, a sports and entertainment news outlet. Eighteen bloggers who will regularly contribute to the Korean edition have been introduced to the public and there is a list of 100 that will soon be unveiled.