Daily NK has an interesting story from one of its sources inside North Korea about residents supposedly preferring the paper copy of the Rodong Sinmun newspaper to the app. The Rodong Sinmun is the daily newspaper of the Workers’ Party of Korea and North Korea’s newspaper of record.
The Seoul-based publication reports: “North Korea’s flagship newspaper can now be read through a paid Rodong Sinmun app on smartphones in 2026. According to a source in South Hamgyong province, however, few North Koreans are willing to pay for it. Some people still pay to receive the printed edition, largely because they need the paper itself for everyday household uses.”
The Rodong Sinmun app is called “공세” and has been available on smartphones and tablets for several years.
Despite it being the foremost vessel for state propaganda, access isn’t free. There are two levels of subscription. The first level covers access to the newspaper itself while the second level includes other newspapers including sectoral ones, magazines and some foreign language publications.
These are the 2026 subscriptions, according to my source:
| Level 1 Access | Level 2 Access | |
| Included | Rodong Sinmun, homepage articles, search | Newspapers, magazines, search, foreign language materials |
| 6 month price | 3,000 won | 12,000 won |
| 1 year price | 6,000 won | 24,000 won |
Daily NK reports the price is the main reason people don’t subscribe to the smartphone edition of the newspaper. But some do still pay for the paper edition. The report explains this is because people find use for the scrap paper once they are done with the newspaper.
In North Korea, paper is a precious commodity so even relatively low quality paper such as newsprint gets reused. There is an exception though: pages with photos of the Kims cannot be used or disposed of under any conditions. It’s a serious ideological crime. Instead, those pages get sent back. Presumably they are pulped and reused, but as it’s the state doing the destruction then it’s not a crime.
The article had me thinking: how many pages a day don’t have a photo of one of the Kim family? North Korean news is dominated by their statements, appearances and anniversaries of such.
I sampled the last week of Rodong Sinmun, from the PDF edition, to see how many sheets of paper I would be left with if I subscribed for its scrap paper value. Most editions are 6 or 8 pages long, which I’m counting as 3 or 4 sheets of paper, assuming the larger sheets are torn down the middle. I’m not sure if this is permitted when returning pages that contain Kim portraits.
| Sept. 25 | Sept. 26 | Sept. 27 | Sept. 28 | Sept. 29 | Sept. 30 | Oct. 1 | |
| With Kim | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Without Kim | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
So, at least in the last week it would have been a pretty good endeavor. When Kim Jong Un does appear, it tends to be on pages 1 and 2, but occasionally also on page 3 if the event is major enough. That’s what happened on October 1 with his attendance at the 80th anniversary of Kim Il Sung University.
Their appearance pushes all other news towards the back of the newspaper, leaving some pages without their portrait.
Daily NK’s source explained that after the pages with Kim portraits are put aside, “there’s a lot you can use in daily life. You can roll cigarettes with it or use it as basic wallpaper or toilet paper.”