In December 2023, INMA and Google News Initiative (GNI) awarded their fourth annual Elevate Scholarship to 50 news media professionals from 31 countries. This series features these impressive media professionals who are shaping our industry.

Jim Bulley joined the English-language arm of JoongAng Group, the South Korean JoongAng Daily, as a copyeditor in 2016, and has continued growing with the organisation since then. Just a year into his time there, he was he was promoted to an editorial role and now, as an Elevate Scholarship recipient, he looks forward to being able to expand his contributions.

In 2020, Jim transitioned predominantly to sports reporting and became the first non-Korean to become a permanent employee at the Korea JoongAng Daily. His contributions and commitment were further recognised in 2022 when he was appointed to a secondary group-wide JoongAng group coordinator role, and this year, he achieved another milestone by becoming the head of the newly-formed sports desk at the Korea JoongAng Daily.

“That makes me the first non-Korean to take on an official management role at the Korea JoongAng Daily, and possibly in the entire group,” he said. “I am in the somewhat unusual position of being in the most advantaged group in the global news industry: white, male, heterosexual, but in my corner of the industry I am still a minority.”

His role as JoongAng group coordinator places him directly under the CEO, working on newsroom and company strategy.

“As part of that role, I often represent JoongAng Group to INMA or WAN-IFRA, but I also spend a lot of time meeting with and talking to my peers from around the industry globally and reinterpreting what I’ve learned for the Korean context,” he explained.

Because of that, he has become knowledgeable in all areas of operations, including subscriptions, product, data, advertising, and business, and is always eager to discover more about what is happening within the industry from an international perspective.

That’s where Jim said his association with INMA has already been beneficial, providing insights into different departments and aspect of the industry: “Attending World Congress was more informative and useful for my career than anything else I have experienced, and I hope to continue to deepen that involvement through this scholarship.”

Some of Jim’s primary interests are product and digitisation, both of which are areas where Korea lags behind the rest of the world, but that’s just the start of a lengthy list of the topics he is interested in taking a deeper dive into as an Elevate Scholar: “Subscription models are of particular interest, although applying them to the Korean market can be tough,” he said.

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