There is a news outlet where both the reporters and the editor-in-chief are teenagers. It is <Clover>, an independent youth outlet launched voluntarily by middle school students in Eunpyeong District, Seoul. It covers a wide range from politics and society to school issues such as uniforms and student rights ordinances, as well as games students enjoy. In 2024, it reported on the exclusion of teenagers from the Climate Companion Card program, prompting a policy change by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. Recently, it also drew attention with an interview with a peer student who self-identifies as Yoon Again.

Yet <Clover> is not recognized as a news outlet. The current law bars minors from serving as editors or publishers. There is also a risk of criminal punishment. That is why <Clover> reporters filed a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court on the 24th of last month.

They say society becomes healthier when teenagers can speak freely. As direct stakeholders, they have much to say about the growing phenomenon of youth drift to the far right. Weekly Kyunghyang met <Clover> editor-in-chief Moon Seong-ho on the 2nd.

<Clover> began in April 2024 as a middle school club in the Eunpyeong District of Seoul. It has since grown into a local independent outlet with 30 middle and high school reporters. When a certain middle school, uneasy about students voicing views on social issues, confiscated the paper, they protested by releasing an edition with a blank front page.

Despite reporting and producing a print newspaper, <Clover> is not recognized as a news outlet. Under current law, if the person responsible for a newspaper, magazine, or online newspaper (the editor or publisher) is a minor, it cannot be registered as a periodical. Publishing a periodical without registration is punishable by up to one year in prison or a fine of up to 20 million won. It also cannot be registered as a newspaper under the Newspaper Act.

As a result, <Clover> faces several difficulties. For starters, it cannot receive the 50 percent postal fee discount available to registered periodicals. For <Clover>, which runs on donations and subscription fees, about 500,000 won per month in postage is a heavy burden. If conflicts arise with sources, it cannot seek mediation by the Press Arbitration Commission, raising concern that it could face lawsuits immediately without mediation. This is why <Clover> filed the constitutional complaint.

Editor-in-chief Moon Seong-ho said that laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol and tobacco to minors are grounded in research on harms to youth and therefore are not discrimination, but there is no valid reason to categorically bar youth from registering media. He added that they could put a parent or adult supporter in the publisher or editor role, but those adults would end up responsible for articles they did not write, and the very purpose of youth media would inevitably be diluted.

There was a similar constitutional complaint in 2012. At the time, the Court held the provisions constitutional, stating that minors are highly likely to lack the capacity for judgment, decision-making, and fulfilling the social responsibility of the press. Moon Seong-ho argued that media made by adults can also cause serious harm to society; there are outlets such as <Jeon Hangil News> and <Sky Daily> that report conspiracies. He added that simply recognizing youth media as media would not harm society, and if such a harmful youth outlet were to exist, it should instead be supervised within the framework of the law.

Moon Seong-ho says teenagers need to be able to talk freely about political and social issues. His point is that the more intense academic pressure becomes, the more teenagers need to pay attention to the social and political issues around them and express their views as a way to break free from that pressure.

<Clover> also sees this as the way to curb youth drift to the far right. Meeting peers as friends and as sources strengthened that conviction. Moon said teenagers today consume far-right content alone on smartphones, and rather than yelling at them or simply forbidding it, schools should first draw them into the classroom space to debate and talk.

The same reasoning is why Moon welcomes the People Power Party call to lower the voting age. He said it seems to have been proposed based on a judgment that teenagers have become more conservative or far right politically, yet holding elections would immediately trigger conversation and debate and could create an opening to move away from far-right tendencies.

What is needed is open conversation rather than scolding and bans. This is not a view unique to <Clover>. Teenagers Weekly Kyunghyang met a year ago said the same. They said a far-right worldview grows in classrooms like sterile rooms where students cannot even bring up political and social issues. One student said that if they say martial law was wrong, every adult around them silences them by saying politics is something to do later after growing up.

Teachers also feel stifled by an atmosphere that fixates excessively on so-called political neutrality. Many schools prohibit students from joining groups or attending rallies through codes of conduct. When political or social current affairs come up in class, many parents file complaints. In that actively depoliticizing is in fact the most political act, this atmosphere is clearly contradictory.

A reality that refuses to recognize teenagers as fellow citizens with political and social awareness is not good for future generations. Moon’s remark that youth media serve as a site of civic education in democracy that schools should provide but do not feels all the weightier.

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