On the Launch of Dunia

In the world of international journalism, there has long been a debate about the meaning of “the field.”

“Do journalists go where the news happens?” vs. “Does news happen where journalists go?”

The latter phrase, often cited in contrast to the first, is said to have been coined as a critique of certain foreign correspondents or bureau reporters who, identifying themselves with the “imperial-era explorers,” drew a self-image from Julius Caesar’s famous line announcing the dawn of the Age of Discovery: “Veni, vidi, vici”—“I came, I saw, I conquered.”

Eighty Years of Korean Media: A Failed Foreign Correspondent System

Within Korea’s 80-year media history, the foreign correspondent system has largely failed.

Centered on major powers and capital cities, the mindset that “news happens where journalists go” is still very much alive—constantly reproduced as the dominant frame of the news we consume. Compared to the claim that “journalists must go to where news breaks,” the latter is often viewed as the more “cost-efficient” approach when time and budget constraints are considered. And indeed, when we examine international news today, outside of major global political events, wars, disasters, or terror attacks, most news is generated from places where journalists happen to be. This is why more stories emerge from Asian capitals where Korean media maintain bureaus or correspondents.

Meanwhile, even when events are newsworthy, they often fail to gain attention. A train derailment in India may kill 1,000 people, yet a hurricane in a U.S. state that leaves a dozen missing will dominate headlines. Indonesia’s largest ruling party may hold a national congress, but if the Seoul-based correspondent in Jakarta visits a Korean company’s plantation or factory, that becomes “the Jakarta story of the day.” This long-running debate in international journalism ends up being, at its core, a question of values and positionality that determine what counts as news.

In the realm of international reporting, Korean media have virtually no independent criteria for deciding what is news. If major Anglo-American or European outlets cover it, it becomes news. If the correspondent in a foreign bureau finds it interesting, it becomes news. If the embassy or Korean corporate expat community circulates information, that too becomes news. What’s missing is the field itself.

Ironically, Korea’s foreign correspondent system—designed to send reporters into the field—has fallen into a contradiction: correspondents rarely do real field reporting. This is the reality I saw firsthand from 2011 onward in Jakarta, New Delhi, Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur, and Bangkok.

There are many reasons for this. Language barriers are the steepest, and there are the short two- to three-year posting periods, and there are steep barriers to deeply understanding a country’s politics, society, religion, and cultural history. But the foundation of news is information drawn from the field. If language is a problem, outlets can invest in interpreters. If short postings are an issue, they can hire local reporters who remain in place. If understanding history is lacking, studying it is a basic competence any correspondent must cultivate for reporting.

In other words, instead of dismissing these obstacles as insurmountable, if the Korean media had made the effort—one challenge at a time—to overcome them, the foreign correspondent system could have evolved over the past eighty years.

The deeper problem is that since 1965, when Korean media first dispatched reporters to cover the Vietnam War, the structure has never fundamentally changed from “parachute journalism.” As a result, it remains stuck in the limits of the “I came, I saw” style of reporting. Some media outlets or former correspondents may feel this criticism is unfair, but this is the clear and sober reality of the correspondent system maintained by Korea’s commercial media.

Why Dunia — an Asia-focused, field-driven, nonprofit independent international journalism?

Dunia is a word that reflects Asia’s interconnected world and its expansive possibilities. It means “world” across South Asia—in Nepali, Hindi, Urdu, and Bengali—and across Southeast Asia in Malay and Indonesian. Its root is the Islamic–Arabic term for “the earthly world of human beings,” which spread across Asian regions shaped by Islamic religious and cultural influence.

Dunia will not rely on commercial interests or the patronage of political, corporate, or religious power. It will stand on the strength of reporters rooted in the field, and on the trust and support of readers and donors.

On this foundation—field reporting, public support, and trusted information networks—Dunia will offer Korea and Asia a model of independent international journalism that produces on-the-ground reporting, interviews, and analysis from South and Southeast Asia, home to more than 2.7 billion people.

By building investigative networks with independent media, journalists, civil society organizations, and researchers across Asia, Dunia will bring fresh, unfiltered news and perspectives from the region. This is the mission and vision of Dunia, founded in Seoul in November 2025.

We will confront the inequalities and silences directed toward Asia—and those within Asia shaped by nation, ethnicity, religion, gender, and identity. We will carry Asia’s voices into the languages of the world.

That is Dunia’s first promise.

>Dunia — For a world of equals. Exposing power, across borders.