한국 신문 Korean Newspapers

Today (Sunday) preparing for my Korean school newspaper article presentation, I bought 9 Korean newspapers. It cost 6,200 won.

한글

1) 조선일보 (Chosun Ilbo / "Chosun Daily")

Paper's name is all in 한자 Chinese characters.

Kind of considered Korea's newspaper of record, like the New York Times, as I understand it.

Saturday edition. Does it have no Sunday edition???

Page after page about the Korean ship that sunk. Featuring pictures of a variety of submarines. Seems kind of speculative but very very keen to blame North Korea one way or another. Book section. No TV schedule. Two additional sections. No mention of the gender gap study I found in other newspapers, which shows that Korea has the largest gender income gap of developed nations.

2) 한국일보 (Hankook Ilbo / "Korea Daily")

"공정한 신문" ("Impartial Newspaper")

Saturday edition. No Sunday???

Similar to 조선, but no images of submarines, for example... Some 한자. And includes the gender income gap survey, although well back, on page 13. No inserts. Has book and TV sections.

3) 국민일보 (Kukmin Ilbo / "Citizen Daily")

Saturday edition. Seems like nobody publishes on Sunday!

Similar to the first two, but a bit thinner, and it has a bunch of religious advertising. Happy Easter, etc. TV schedule. No sign of the gender gap study. No 한자 either? One weekend life section.

4) 매일경제 (Maeil Kyungjae / Maeil Business Newspaper / "Everyday Economy")

Saturday edition. Weekend insert.

Clear business focus, but also covers general news (the sunken ship thing, for example) and sports, some book reviews. Covers the iPad launch, for example. Maybe the paper with the most stuff that catches my eye as worth looking into. No mention of the gender gap study.

5) 한국경제 (Hangook Kyungjae / "Korea Economy")

Saturday edition. Similar to #4, but a bit less non-business stuff I think. Seemed like it had more pages of numbers. I didn't see the gender gap study.

6) 서울경제 (Seoul Kyungjae / "Seoul Economy")

Very thin. Saturday edition. More of the same. Even the same images that I saw in other pictures, a review of the same "Apple's Strategy" book that was reviewed in #4... Not worse than 4 or 5, but I'm getting sick of looking at newspapers right about now.

7) 머니투데이 (Meonitudaei / "Money Today")

Very thin. Saturday edition. Weirdest paper. Seems like one page of general news (front page), a couple pages of general interest/business (?) articles, couple pages of stock prices, and then a life / pop culture section ending with a last-page piece about 2NE1 looking sexy even when they wear men's clothing. Maybe it's just their weekend shtick?

영문

1) The Korea Times

"First in the Nation"

2) The Korea Herald

"The Nation's No. 1 English Newspaper"

Printed on pinkish paper.

The two English language papers seem very similar, even in their claims of supremacy. Their Saturday editions lead with the same story and even the same exact photo on the front page. Both have tiny little inserts with English and Korean side by side. (The Korea Times has a portion of the script from an episode of The Office.) The Korea Times has the gender gap story on the front page. The Korea Herald has Dilbert.

Conclusions: In Korean I guess I prefer #2 한국일보, and in English probably The Korea Times. The two that have the gender gap story, hahaha. Am I missing any other papers worth looking at? I just grabbed all the different papers I could find at one subway newsstand. Any other opinions on Korean papers?