Seoul Economic Daily is competing with The New York Times (NYT) and the Financial Times (FT) for the top spot in global digital journalism. The newspaper's integrated AI journalism platform "AI LINK" and its reader-customized newsletter "AI PRISM" have both advanced to the finals of the Global Digital Media Awards (DMA), organized by the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA). It marks the first time a Korean media outlet has reached the global DMA finals in the competition's 17-year history since its launch in 2009.
WAN-IFRA announced on its website on the 5th that 50 entries across 12 categories had advanced to the global DMA finals, with the ultimate winners to be announced at the "World News Media Congress 2026" gala in Marseille, France on June 2.
Only five outlets worldwide have advanced in two categories at this year's global DMA: Seoul Economic Daily, FT, Norway's Verdens Gang (VG), Brazil's UOL, and Canada's Indicator. Among them, Seoul Economic Daily is the only Asian outlet.
The NYT advanced to the finals in only one category, with "Cheatsheet" in the Best AI-driven News Product, Format or Strategy category. The United Kingdom's Reuters also made the finals in only one category — Best Data Visualisation.
FT, tied with Seoul Economic Daily as a multi-category finalist, placed a total of four works in two categories: three in the Best Newsletter category and one in Best in Audience Engagement. FT, a global business publication operating 51 newsletters with 1.6 million email subscribers, submitted multiple projects spread across regions.
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WAN-IFRA, founded in 1948, currently counts approximately 3,000 media organizations across 80 countries as members. The DMA, launched in 2009, has established itself as the most authoritative international award evaluating journalism innovation in the digital age.
The 12 categories cover the entire spectrum of digital journalism, including AI, newsletters, data visualization, audience engagement, subscription revenue, and disinformation response. Each year, the award's best-practices report is distributed to member outlets across 120 countries, making the results themselves a benchmark for global newsrooms' operational direction for the following year.
Judging was handled by an international panel of more than 60 judges from 25 countries. Participants included David Caswell (former head of BBC News Labs), Lyndsey Jones (former senior editor-level at FT), Angie Drobnic Holan (director of the International Fact-Checking Network and member of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning team), Upasna Gautam (former senior product leader at CNN), and Christophe Israël (WAN-IFRA Newsroom AI Accelerator lead mentor, collaborating with DeepMind). The panel balanced distinguished media figures and experts in AI, data, and fact-checking from all six continents: the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.
The rigor of the judging is also confirmed by the numbers.
This year, 811 entries were submitted from 78 countries, of which only 278 passed the regional finals. Following additional evaluation by the global judging panel, only 50 works advanced to the global finals. The pass rate from submission to global finals was approximately 6%.
Although the principle is explicitly stated that regional gold medal winners automatically advance to the global finals, additional evaluation operates at the global stage to meet the category quota of four to five teams. A total of 72 gold medals were awarded across six regions and 12 categories, but 22 of those gold medal winners failed to enter the global finals. Even India's most authoritative newspaper, The Hindu, won the South Asia gold medal in the Best AI-driven News Product category but failed to enter the global finals.
Korean media had not advanced to the global finals even once in the 17 years since the competition was launched in 2009. Korea had only won a single silver medal each in 2023 and 2024.
At the Asia-Pacific regional awards ceremony held in Manila on April 28, Seoul Economic Daily won the gold medal in the Best AI-driven News Product category for "AI LINK," the gold medal in the Best Newsletter category for "AI PRISM," and the silver medal in the Most Innovative Digital Product category for "AI NOVA," an AI tool for journalists. It marked the first gold medal, the first AI-category win, and the first triple-crown finish by a Korean outlet — all at once. Both of the gold medal-winning works successfully advanced to the global finals.
AI Category: Five-Way Race With NYT's 'Cheatsheet' — Newsletter Category: Four-Way Race With Three FT Entries
The Best AI-driven News Product category, which AI LINK advanced to, features five competitors: NYT's "Cheatsheet," Swiss media group Ringier AG's "EqualVoice Assistant," the Georgia Journalism Resource Center (JRC)'s "AINews," and "Framing Gaza," a collaboration between Lebanon's "Daraj" and Egypt's "Saheeh Masr." The Best Newsletter category, which AI PRISM advanced to, is a four-way race that also includes three newsletters published by FT: "Unhedged" (Americas regional gold), "India Business Briefing" (South Asia regional gold), and "The AI Shift" (Europe regional gold).
FT also submits many works each year to reach the DMA global finals. With multiple submissions across core digital journalism areas such as digital subscriptions, newsletters, and AI, it has become a regular finals contender. This year as well, it placed four works in the finals across two categories.
Both of Seoul Economic Daily's "AI LINK" and "AI PRISM" are projects that began after being selected for two consecutive years by the Korea Press Foundation's digital media service development support program.
The final winners among the 50 finalist works will be announced at the "World News Media Congress 2026" gala in Marseille on June 2. At the same venue, more than 1,000 media leaders from 65 countries will watch the results together. NYT Chairman A.G. Sulzberger, Guardian Editor-in-Chief Katharine Viner, and Wall Street Journal Publisher Almar Latour are among the keynote speakers attending the same program.
