Jeff’s Words

South Koreas’ OhMy News is one of the world’s largest citizen news websites. Launched in 2000, OhMy News has become one of South Korea’s most trusted news organisations. In 2002 the website’s influence reached 4.2 per cent of the population, while in 2004 that had increased to over 17 per cent. OhMy News is more trusted than some traditional and established media in South Korea.

The structure of Korean society has assisted OhMy News to growth. The nation is densely populated and highly politicised, and in the past has been dominated by a lack of media diversity and censorship which has strangled the flow of news and information.
OhMy News takes content from citizen journalists who contribute news, comment and review to the website, with individual stories seen by up to one hundred thousand people. OhMy News does check stories to ensure accuracy and facts, but the independence of contributors enables more stories to be told to the public, further informing the population. Coupled with fast internet connections, news can be online within minutes, challenging the previous dominance the old media once held.

OhMy News has since expanded – not globally (the internet took it global to begin with) but in to English.