This article explores how the conflicting ideological positions of two leading Korean newspapers, Chosun Ilbo and Hankyoreh Shinmun, are linguistically represented in the editorials dealing with the recent controversy concerning the abolition of the 'National Security Laws'. Within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, this article examines topics and key values at the macro-level, as well as transitivity, reference to and predications about actors, and rhetorical strategies at the micro-level. This study reveals that there are important qualitative and Quantitative differences at each level between the two newspapers, and argues that, in keeping with the 'ideological square' of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation suggested by van Dijk (2000), these differences can be seen as reflecting and reconstructing the two newspapers' institutional identities as mass media representing conservatism and liberalism, respectively.