We are an independent, privately owned specialist site focused on North Korea. We have no affiliation to any political organisation or country.
We set up three years ago and are headquartered in Washington, D.C., with staff also based in Seoul, London, San Jose, and Amsterdam.
AN UNRIVALED RESOURCE OF INFORMATION, POLICY, ANALYSIS AND NEWS ABOUT NORTH KOREA
In addition to our team of experts who closely follow all developments in North Korea, ranging from the political and military to social and culture, we have a trusted network of anonymous sources both inside and outside the state who help us shape our analysis.
This helps us give you a perspective that is different to regular news wires where journalists are often shipped in and shipped out to give fast-turnaround reporting on breaking events without specialist long term knowledge of the country.
We also aim to offer perspectives and insights that challenge the think-tank orthodoxy of Washington DC and promote a better understanding of North Korea.
NORTH KOREA FORUM
We are a vibrant and popular platform for intellectual exchange on an isolated state, traditionally covered in mainstream media from a perspective that demonstrates little knowledge of the language, culture, and complicated history of the Korean peninsula.
We encourage users to comment or contribute either by contacting us directly or using our comment facility to remark on news, features and specialist data.
COMPREHENSIVE AGGREGATION
Our free news aggregating service is the most specialist and comprehensive on North Korea in the world. Subscribe here.
OUR EXPERTS
Curtis Melvin
Curtis Melvin is editor of North Korea Economy Watch and curator of the North Korea Uncovered Project, a vastly comprehensive project to map out North Korea in unrivalled detail using satellite imagery, news reports and eyewitness accounts. Curtis has been researching and writing about the North Korean economy since 2004.
Martyn Williams
Martyn is a North Korea media and tech specialist, and sole author / editor of the website North Korea Tech. He spent 16 years covering technology in Asia and is now based in Silicon Valley.
Nate Thayer
Nate Thayer is a journalist with over 25 years experience of working in Asia where he famously tracked down and interviewd Pol Pot in the Cambodian jungle. He has written on defense, intelligence, and security issues in Asia and elsewhere for more than 200 publications.
Michael Madden
Michael is a specialist in North Korea and sole author and editor of the website NK Leadership Watch, a blog that comprehensively tracks the movements of the people behind the power in North Korea. He is the author of over 200 profiles on North Korean elites and political organizations, and a leading authoritiy on th North Korean leadership.
Subin Kim
Subin is a defense and security specialist based in Seoul. He is known for writing for specialist publication Defense 21 and is a long time North Korea observer.
CORE TEAM
In addition to our experts, NK NEWS is staffed by a core team that includes:
Chad O’Carroll – Founder, lead Director
Chad founded the website in 2010 and has four years experience in senior communications roles for leading think tanks in Washington, DC. Since 2008 Chad’s research has focused on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. He has travelled to North Korea multiple times.
James Pearson – News Director
James Pearson BA (Lond), M.Phil (Cantab), is Seoul Director of NK NEWS. He read Chinese and Korean at SOAS, and East Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge, where he worked on UK-DPRK academic exchange programs. He is also editor of koreaBANG, a popular blog on South Korean internet culture.
Gianluca Spezza – Academic / Research Director
Gianluca focuses his research on education & IT in the DPRK. He holds a Master in Humanities from the University of Torino (Italy) and is completing his M.Sc. in Asian Studies at the University of Turku, Finland. He worked in East Asia (including South Korea) as an education consultant for over five years.
A note on the romanization of Korean names:
North and South Korea use different ways to romanize Korean language names. Although it is common practice for many news outlets to use the South Korean system, NK NEWS uses North Korean convention for North Korean names, and South Korean convention for South Korean names, in accordance with what we assume each individual’s personal preference is most likely to dictate.
In North Korea, Kim Il Sung is written as three separate names. ‘Kim’ is the last name, ‘Il Sung’ is the first name. Each part of the name is capitalized.
In South Korea, a hyphen is used between the two first names: Kim Il-sung.
Kim Jong Un would therefore not be written as Kim Jong Eun, Kim Jong-eun or Kim Jong-un. Similarly, ‘Lee Myung Bak’ would be incorrect, whereas ‘Lee Myung-bak’ is fine.
Some names, such as Syngman Rhee, are already well-established anomalies to the rule, and are thus left untouched.
