A South Korean tech company is partnering with the largest organization of professional journalists in the country to develop digital tools and techniques to tackle problems in the journalism industry.
Fast facts
- Media technology developer PUBLISH recently announced signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Journalists Association of Korea (JAK), which represents over 11,000 working journalists in the country as members. The partnership aims to create a better ecosystem for journalism and news media through blockchain technology.
- Under the agreement, chair of the association Kim Dong-hun said the partnership leaves a significant mark for the news media industry of Korea, as PUBLISH’s technology can offer realistic solutions to the problems the industry faces today. PUBLISH also says that its goal is to provide solutions to some of the pressing matters in journalism today such as erosion of journalistic principles, clickbait and misinformation, and competition from social media and portal websites.
- “One of the first things we plan to do is issue member journalists with blockchain-based press credentials using decentralized identification technology,” said Sonny Kwon, CEO of PUBLISH. “We are also looking to introduce NFT (non-fungible token) technology as a way of helping journalists monetize news content.” The two groups will further cooperate on research and development on tools and techniques for improving the quality of journalism in the digital news ecosystem.
- Another goal of PUBLISH is to give media publishers the necessary tools to secure financial and editorial independence. In August, PUBLISH launched PUBLISHchain, a blockchain mainnet, or an independent blockchain network to serve data-centric media applications, with services such as notarization of news contents.