Naver Relaunches News Partnership Committee After Two Years... Additional Media Outlets to Join Within the Year

Unlike JePyeongwi, Naver will directly recruit committee members
Committee members randomly selected from a pool of 300 to 500 experts
Quantitative assessment for new admissions raised from 20% to over 50%

Naver announced on May 23 that it will relaunch a new "News Partnership Committee," which will review the admission, sanctions, and potential expulsion of media outlets, after a two-year hiatus.

The News Partnership Committee, set to launch next month, will be comprised of a "Policy Committee" responsible for establishing and revising screening regulations, a "Partnership Review Committee" in charge of evaluating new partners for admission, and an "Operations Evaluation Committee" tasked with assessing compliance by existing partners. Additionally, an independently operated "Appeals Committee" will be established to review the admission and evaluation processes. Naver explained that, compared to the previously suspended News Partnership Evaluation Committee (JePyeongwi), the new system places greater emphasis on fairness and objectivity.

Yonhap News Agency

The Policy Committee will consist of a total of 11 members, including experts from various fields such as academics and legal professionals, former journalists, and political party nominees, all of whom will be directly recruited by Naver. The Partnership Review Committee and Operations Evaluation Committee will each draw from a pool of 300 to 500 expert members, with committee members randomly selected from this pool for each review session. The previous JePyeongwi operated with 30 committee members, with 15 media-related, user, academic, and expert organizations each recommending two members. The disclosure of committee members' identities to the public raised concerns about potential lobbying and fairness.

When evaluating new partners for admission, the proportion of quantitative assessment will be raised to over 50%. This is more than 30 percentage points higher than the previous JePyeongwi's quantitative assessment ratio of 20%, and is expected to enhance objectivity.

However, it will be virtually impossible for additional media outlets to be admitted before the presidential election. A Naver representative stated, "The News Partnership Committee will be fully formed next month and will establish new evaluation regulations," adding, "We plan to provide guidance on the schedule for new admissions reviews within the year."

Previously, Naver and Kakao established JePyeongwi in 2015 to review media outlets seeking to partner with their portals for news distribution. However, amid ongoing controversies over fairness and allegations of ideological bias among committee members, its activities were suspended in May 2023. Kakao began admitting new media partners based on 100% quantitative assessment starting from the end of last year.