The Dong-a Ilbo

In 1933, Dong-a Ilbo launched The New Women (later to become Dong-a Women.) The publication held events such as cooking schools and wives’ picnic providing women a place to socialize outside of the home. Articles such as “The New Woman and Education”, “Liberation of Women and the Nuclear Family” and “Women and Career” were printed to stimulate women's participation in society and the development of women's rights. Dong-a Ilbo also hosted athletic events for women. “Women’s National Tennis Competition” is Korea's and Dong-a's oldest contest ever to be held.

In 1939 when World War II erupted, the Japanese government began a campaign to unify Korea and Japan as a culture. This meant the suppression of much of Korea's cultural identity.

After four attempts to close DongA Ilbo and other numerous occasions of inspection, censorship, seizure and deletion, the Japanese government succeeded in August 1940. The Dong-a Ilbo built Dong-a Broadcasting System. Under the Chun Doo-hwan regime, South Korea's media policy had changed. The regime had closed several radio and TV networks and DBS was forced to give most of its shares to the government. The Dong-a Ilbo gave up DBS in 1980.

The event that made forced closure possible was Dong-a Ilbo's deliberate obscuration of the Japanese flag in a photograph of the first ever Korean Olympic Gold medalist.

Sohn Kee-Chung won the gold medal in marathon at the 11th Summer Olympics in Berlin (1936); however, because Korea was under Japanese rule, his uniform featured the Japanese flag. The article showed pride for the Korean athlete and featured a smudged Japanese flag to promote nationalistic ideas. Lee Kil-yong (aged 37 at that time), a Dong-a Ilbo journalist who was in charge of athletics, Lee Sang-beom, a painter, photographers, and editors worked together to erase the Japanese flag on the chest of the uniform of Sohn Kee-jeong from the photograph of Sohn standing atop the honor platform for the Olympic medal ceremony. The morning after the picture was published in the newspaper, about 10 journalists of Dong-a Ilbo were hauled off to the police station where they were beaten and tortured.[6]

In the early days, the Dong-a Ilbo passively resisted Japanese colonialism and showed liberalism and Korean nationalism tendencies. In addition, since the establishment of the South Korean government in 1948, it has been a liberal media that disagrees with socialism and opposes Syngman Rhee or Park Chung-hee's far-right dictatorship.

A Hankook Ilbo reporter reading an issue of The Dong-a Ilbo with blank advertisements. In 1974, reporters from the Dong-a Ilbo held a 'Rally to Defend the Free Press' against the oppression of the press by the Yushin regime. In response, the regime put pressure on major advertisers and forced them to pull advertisements in the Dong-a Ilbo. In the end, the newspaper was distributed without major advertisements from December 26th.

The Dong-a Ilbo began the "Liberal Press Protection Fight" (Korean: 자유언론수호투쟁) in 1970. In December 1974, there was a "Dong-a Ilbo blank advertisement case" (Korean: 동아일보 백지 광고 사태). The Park Chung-hee administration suppressed the Dong-a Ilbo, which was very hostile to him, threatened companies to prevent them from posting advertisements in the Dong-a Ilbo, which caused the Dong-a Ilbo to suffer from severe financial difficulties. Eventually, Dong-a Ilbo's executives fired some of the anti-government journalists on March 8, 1975. At this time, journalists who were fired will launch Hankyoreh.[4] Since then, the Dong-a Ilbo has changed its tone to a right-wing conservative media.

The paper is considered a newspaper of record in Korea.[7]

• Receives Korea's Best Brand Award (2006)
• Dong-a Ilbo President Sang-man Kim receives Press Freedom Golden Pen award (1975)
• Awarded for efforts made in freedom of speech by US Freedom House (1974)
• Staff reporters receive Korea Reporter's Award (1971)

• Circulation: over 52 million
• About 51% of the readers are in their 30s - 40s
• Over 50% of the readers live in metropolitan area
• 55% of the readers are university educated or higher

Dong-a Ilbo has partnered with internationally acclaimed news companies such as the New York Times and Reuters. They share information including articles and video clips. Dong-a Ilbo also prints global editions in 90 cities such as Washington DC, London, Paris, Frankfurt, etc., and has 22 branches worldwide including LA, Vancouver, Osaka. It also has international correspondents stationed in 6 cities with New York, Tokyo, and Beijing among them. Also, the digital edition of the paper is available in English, Japanese and Chinese.

• Partnership:
  • The Times (UK)
  • Asahi Shimbun (Japan)
  • People's Daily (China)
  • Izvestia (Russia)
  • Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)

Dong-a Ilbo also has an active publishing sector which produces magazines and books. There are four monthly magazines, two weekly magazines and one annual magazine. The literature sector concentrates on translating and distributing foreign material and also creating domestic content. DongA Books has brought to Korea many international bestsellers and award-winning literature as well as creating million sellers on its own.

• Magazines:
  • Shin Dong-a (Current events magazine)
  • Women's Dong-a (Women's magazine)
  • Dong-a Science (Popular science magazine)
  • Dong-a Science KIDS
  • Weekly Dong-a
  • Weekend
  • Dong-a Annual
• Books
  • Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (a Pulitzer winning fiction)
  • A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (an international bestseller)
  • Sponge series (Korean content) has sold over a million copies

Dong-a Ilbo has been investing in many ventures that integrate technology into the method of spreading the news. First was the establishment of DongA.com which is the online version of the paper with much more content. It provides space for discussion and submission by the readers. From the success of the on-line content, the company also started its mobile services allowing readers to seek out the news wherever and whenever they are. With recent partnership with Reuters, Dong-a aims to add multimedia services to its methods. With raw video feeds from Reuters which Dong-a has the right to edit for its own use, DongA.com aims to reach its readers through text, images and video.

Dong-a Ilbo holds annual competition of high quality as well as hosting many cultural exhibitions.

• International Music Concours
• Dong-a Theatre Awards
• DongA-LG International Animations Competition
• Rembrandt and 17th Century Netherland Painters Exhibition (2007)

and more

Dong-a Ilbo hosts annual competitions for various sports of different levels. It first began its program to raise awareness and help promote areas in sports that were less popular.

• Seoul International Marathon
• High School Baseball Tournament
• Dong-a Swim Meet

and more

Dong-a holds annual competitions to help the brightest students. Other sectors such as Dong-a Science has its own educational program which also holds competitions to award the talented.

• National English Competition (University & high school division)
• National Scientific Essay Contest (hosted by DongA Science)

Dong-a Ilbo has established many foundations and scholarships for students and children of less fortunate circumstances. It has also established a foundation which promotes peace and culture.

• Dong-a Dream Tree's Foundation: Scholarship foundation
• Inchon Foundation: Founded in celebration of Kim, Sung-soo. Scholarship foundation.
• 21st Century Peace Foundation: Promotes peace and harmony between North and South Korea through various means of communication and more