[E-Daily Reporter Kim Hyun-ah ] Users will now be able to view more top stories selected by media outlets on Naver News. A “briefing card” summarizing the day’s major news will be introduced, and in-depth feature articles will be accessible without having to navigate to a separate menu. This marks a shift from a layout that primarily listed breaking news stories to a news interface that provides context and details on the background and progression of events.

Naver (CEO Choi Soo-yeon, NAVER(035420)) revamped the layout of its “Media Editor’s Edition” starting on the 29th. The key changes include increasing the visibility of major articles from each media outlet and adding new editorial formats such as “Briefings” and “In-Depth Features.”

Launched in 2017, Naver News’ media-specific editorial pages have accumulated 28.48 million subscribers. On average, each user subscribes to 7.7 media outlets, and 80% of all media outlets have over 1 million subscribers.

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The first major change is the number of top

stories

displayed per media outlet. The number of top stories, previously capped at six, has increased to 10. The editorial formats will also become more diverse, including live video, briefing-style, and in-depth feature stories.

The newly introduced “Briefing Cards” group the day’s top news stories by time of day. The evening briefing, displayed from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., may include key economic indicators released in the morning, the most-read articles from the day, and notable events to watch for the following day. This format summarizes the major events of the day and highlights topics of interest for the next day.

The way in-depth feature articles are presented is also changing. Previously, users had to search for a separate section, but going forward, an in-depth feature section will appear by default at the bottom of the news outlet’s editorial page. Users will now be able to access not only breaking news and briefs but also articles providing in-depth analysis of specific issues right on the home screen.

“Issue NOW,” which aggregates related articles, is also noteworthy. This service allows news organizations to select major events and bundle related articles together. As of October of this year, 66 news organizations are covering 834 issues, with approximately 470,000 related articles.

The number of “Issue NOW” subscriptions rose from 710,000 in January of this year to 1.2 million in September—an increase of about 69% in just nine months. This indicates a growing number of users seeking to view multiple articles covering a single event. Naver has also revised the display area and layout of “Issue NOW.”

A “Big Tech”-style news interface… but news outlets select the articles themselves

This redesign bears similarities to changes in overseas news services. Apple News summarizes the day’s top stories, while Google News aggregates reports from multiple news outlets covering a single event. The U.S. media outlet Axios also engages readers with articles that concisely summarize key points.

Naver has also joined this trend by strengthening the visibility of “Briefings,” issue-based article collections, and in-depth features. The difference lies in who selects the news. Rather than simply having the platform automatically recommend articles based on user preferences, Naver provides editorial tools that allow news outlets to directly select and arrange important articles themselves.

As the influence of platforms surrounding news has grown, the fairness of article arrangement and recommendations has remained a subject of controversy. Naver’s decision to strengthen direct editing by news organizations can be interpreted as a move to expand the role of news organizations in news selection and arrangement while simultaneously reducing the burden surrounding the platform’s editorial responsibility.

For news organizations, this increases opportunities to expose key stories and in-depth features to readers. Naver can encourage users to go beyond simply reading a single article and explore related issues and follow-up reports as well. This can be viewed as a strategy to transform the news experience while simultaneously strengthening news organizations’ subscriber bases.

Kim Soo-hyang, Head of Naver News, stated, “Naver is listening to the opinions of media outlets and users to deliver in-depth feature stories and issue-based articles requiring ongoing analysis in a variety of ways,” adding, “We will continue to explore diverse subscription-based content formats and strive to enhance our news service.”