hankyoreh

The Hankyoreh headquarters in Seoul

The Hankyoreh was named by university students once again this year as the most trusted general daily newspaper. The newspaper has been ranked first in trustworthiness for 20 years running.

On Oct. 26, the University News Network (UNN) published results from a 2020 survey of university student perceptions and company/commercial brand preference conducted with 1,000 university students nationwide for the 32nd anniversary of the UNN’s inaugural issue. The results showed the Hankyoreh ranked first in the category of “trustworthiness” for general daily newspapers, with 17.3% of respondents naming it as their most trusted general daily. The Hankyoreh has held down the first-place ranking for trustworthiness ever since the survey began in 2001. The second most trusted newspaper was the JoongAng Ilbo (17.1%), followed by the Dong-A Ilbo (13.5%), the Chosun Ilbo (11.2%), the Kukmin Ilbo (6.8%), the Kyunghyang Shinmun (6.7%), and the Hankook Ilbo (6.3%).

Among economic dailies, the Maeil Business News had the highest preference rate at 22.9%. It was followed by the Korea Economic Daily (22.4%) and Herald Business (12.5%), with the same “big three” newspapers as last year holding down the top spots. In the category of sports newspapers, Sports Seoul ranked highest for preference with the support of 21% of respondents.

In the “industry” category, the companies where university students most hoped to be employed were KB (banking), Samsung Electronics (electronics), SKT (telecommunications), POSCO Engineering & Construction (construction), Hyundai Motor (automobiles), Dong-A Pharmaceutical (pharmaceuticals), Hyundai Heavy Industries (heavy industries), and the Korea Tourism Organization (public enterprise).

Conducted between Sept. 23 and Oct. 6, the survey adopted an online (mobile/PC) and e-mail based response format, with a 95% confidence level and a margin of error of ±2.7 percentage points.

By Moon Hyun-sook, media correspondent

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