Using an analytic framework derived from the work of Martin and White (2005), this study compares Korean and American news editorials about the Korean ferry disaster in 2014. The aim of this study is two-fold: one is to explore how cultural and situational context influences stances on a specific event and the other is to demonstrate how Martin and White’s appraisal framework can be used for a comparative discourse analysis between Korean and English. The results revealed that the disaster was portrayed from a different angle in the two cultures. Korean editorials focused on details of the accident as an inside viewer on the spot and subjectively described their stances by restricting dialogically alternative positions and voices. American editorials focused on its general surroundings as an outside viewer and made allowances for dialogically alternative positions and voices. These findings suggest that psychological and physical distance as well as culture is an important variable in cross-cultural discourse study and that the appraisal framework can be of much use for a comparative discourse analysis between Korean and English.