North Korea: newspaper runs commercial advertisements!

From Korea Times: "A Pyongyang newspaper recently began to run commercial advertisements, a pro-North Korea newspaper in Japan reported last weekend. The unexpected development in the North is considered as an attempt to trigger change in its media sector, a North Korea expert in Seoul said Sunday. The Chosun Shinbo, published by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongnyon, reported on its Web site Saturday that the Pyongyang Shinmun, a four-page newspaper for the North's capital, has begun running commercial advertisements. The internet news story did not say exactly when the Pyongyang Shinmun began to place commercial advertisements, which have been criticized in the communist country as a symbol of capitalism... "I think North Korea is conducting a small-scale experiment for its media sector by using the small newspaper in Pyongyang," Prof. Chin Hee-gwan of Sogang University's Institute of Social Science told The Korea Times. He said the North tends to check the effectiveness of a pilot program before expanding it into a full scale. ``If the experiment turns out to be successful, I guess people in the North will see advertisements appearing even on the Rodong Shinmun,'' Chin said. The Rodong Shinmun, the largest newspaper in the North, is published by the ruling Workers' Party."

Source: Korea Times through Asia Media