Naver and Kakao are separating their processes for reviewing portal news entries and exits. This change comes two years after the cessation of activities by their jointly operated News Partnership Evaluation Committee. On May 23, Naver announced the upcoming launch of its own ‘Naver News Partnership Committee’ in June, which will propose and manage a new media partnership model. Meanwhile, Kakao had already established and implemented criteria for the entry and exit of news on its Daum portal since November of the previous year.
Initially, in September 2015, the two companies created an independent body, the News Partnership Evaluation Committee, to evaluate media entry and exit on their portals. However, in May 2023, they suspended its operation to explore partnership models better suited to the current media environment. With the establishment of the Naver News Partnership Committee, the entry and exit of media outlets on the portal will now be handled completely separately.
The Naver News Partnership Committee will include a Policy Committee responsible for establishing and revising screening regulations, a Partnership Evaluation Committee for evaluating new partners, and an Operations Evaluation Committee for assessing compliance by existing partners. Additionally, an Appeals Committee will be set up separately to review entry and evaluation processes.
The Policy Committee will consist of 11 members, including academics, legal professionals, former journalists, and political appointees, directly recruited by Naver. Members of the Partnership Evaluation Committee and Operations Evaluation Committee will be recommended by specialized organizations like the Media Diversity Committee, the Public Opinion Concentration Investigation Committee, the Internet Newspaper Ethics Committee, and the Korean Newspaper Ethics Committee. Furthermore, candidates from expert pools composed of former board members of media-run reader and viewer committees will also be appointed.
To support the operations of the Partnership Evaluation Committee and the Operations Evaluation Committee, a pool of 300 to 500 expert members will be assembled. Committee members will be randomly selected from this pool for each round of evaluations, which, according to Naver, will enhance the impartiality of the assessment process.
The evaluation of new partner entries will primarily focus on quantitative assessments, which contribute more than 50% to the total evaluation. Qualitative evaluations will have each evaluation member review their specific field of expertise. All evaluation criteria will be reviewed by academics and experts.
Unlike Naver, Kakao uses a 100% quantitative assessment process for determining the entry of news media onto its platform. Media outlets applying for entry must be associated with at least one journalistic or journalist-related organization to be eligible for quantitative evaluation. This evaluation involves verifying ‘original articles’ and ‘specialized articles’ in the applied category. Media outlets meeting a certain production ratio for original and specialized articles will be allowed entry. In a recent round of applications in March, 49 out of 78 media outlets met the criteria.