The Korea Times' mission to tell truth began with Korea War

The first edition of The Korea Times

The Korea Times born amid flames, gunfire, survives turbulent seven decades to become most influential English newspaper in Korea

By Park Ji-won

The Korea Times started from humble beginnings. It was founded amid the tumultuous early months of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Like trailblazers in other areas, its founders started the newspaper from zero.

Back in 1950 when the nation was devastated by the outbreak of the Korean War, the paper someday celebrating its 70th anniversary might have sounded unthinkable to the founders. But miracles happen and The Korea Times managed to survive the toughest times to become arguably the nation's most influential English newspaper.

The first issue of The Korea Times was released on Nov. 1, 1950.

Helen Kim, right, founder of The Korea Times, gives a doll to then-U.S. President Harry Truman, left, during Kim's courtesy visit to the Oval Office in this Aug. 5, 1951 file photo. Korea Times file

Helen Kim, who was also at the time director of the Office of Public Information under the Syng-man Rhee administration and the first dean of Ewha Womans University, said in her autobiography that the purpose of the English newspaper was to provide the foreign troops up-to-the-minute information on the war situation as well as other domestic news during the war.

"All the United Nations personnel in connection with the Army, agencies for civilian aid, and a countless number of foreign correspondents were with us. How to keep them informed was a big problem. An English daily became an acute need," Kim wrote in her autobiography "Grace Sufficient: The story of Helen Kim." Kim also served as became the president and publisher of The Korea Times from July 1951 to November 1953 after its first president Kim Sang-yong died suddenly of food poisoning.

The U.S.-educated scholar was able to gather staff and about 10 million won of capital mainly from professors of the university while persuading President Rhee to allow the establishment of the English daily.

After those efforts, the two-page inaugural edition of The Korea Times was finally released on Nov. 1, 1950, with the top story of Rhee's press conference about the war and a congratulatory message titled "Welcome, 'The Korea Times'" followed by the subtitle "Give Accurate Expression to The Very Beings of Koreans" from Kim featured on the bottom right of page one.

The first paid ad of The Korea Times on Nov. 2, 1950 Korea Times file

A captured image of the first page of Kyunghyang Shinmun dated Nov. 30, 1952, which shows The Korea Times asked U.S. President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower 10 questions before his visit to South Korea. Korea Times file

Running a newspaper company during the war was tough.

The North's forces took Seoul shortly after the outbreak of the war and the Chinese forces' participation in the war to back the North Koreans forced the U.N. forces to retreat and citizens to evacuate Seoul. The newly born newspaper also had to relocate its headquarters to Busan in January 1951, which became the temporary capital of South Korea until July 1953. The staff and headquarters were moved to Busan, but there was no room for print machines on the ships that carried people and necessities to Busan during the refugee years. The staff only took a small number of devices which included alphabet molds and typewriters.

But staff continued to publish editions in a "primitive" way in Busan, a veteran reporter recalled, and all content was scrutinized by government censors.

Hwang Kyong-choon, center, a former Korea Times reporter and AP Seoul bureau chief and president of Seoul Foreign Correspondents' Club Korea Times file

"It was such a primitive way to make the four-page papers back then. We wrote stores with typewriters, made layouts (by hand), copied them and printed them in a nearby printing company. Every story was put in one column without proper headlines. It was a hard work," the 96-year-old Hwang Kyong-choon, a former Korea Times reporter who worked with the paper from February 1951 to July 1953, said by phone. He also worked for the U.S. Embassy during the daytime.

"The newspapers were also censored by the government," he said. "I was a junior reporter in the newsroom so I had to go to the government of South Gyeongsang Province, then the South Korean government, with a draft newspaper every day … A professor, who was not that good at English, was in charge of the censorship of the papers to determine whether they fit with the national interests. None of our papers was rejected but he sometimes pointed out the grammatical errors of the paper which was funny."

Hwang, who later became AP Seoul bureau chief and president of Seoul Foreign Correspondents' Club, said reporters mainly translated articles from Korean news agencies such as Hapdong News Agency and statements from the government.

Times were tough, but he said he spent some good times at the office of The Korea Times as it was like a saloon for foreign correspondents and reporters in Busan, he said.

"The Korea Times was the only English newspaper back then. And its office was near the information office at Busan Station. So foreign war correspondents and many reporters came to the office very often, sharing what they learned during the coverage. It was like a social event. The office was very small, but we spent good times."

The aftermath of the war still remained in the articles, another veteran reporter recalled.

Hong Soon-il, former managing editor of The Korea Times Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

"We thought about the domestic and international situation that South Korea faced when reporting. The dynamics of international politics hit the Korean Peninsula. The North was able to build its communist system and tried to seek unification under communism while China also wiped out now Taiwanese forces in the name of communism. The Soviet Union led the communism movement. The South was poorer than the North until the 1970s because the North was industrialized first since the time of the Japanese occupation," said 88-year-old Hong Soon-il, former managing editor of The Korea Times from 1967 through 1974 by phone. He joined the company in February 1954 and co-wrote a book titled "History of English-Language Newspapers in Korea."

The company may have continued its operation during the war, but when it started to criticize the administration's policy through editorials in 1952, the government, which had been the main sources of revenue of The Korea Times' sales, pressured the paper by cutting aid.

"The Korea Times was financially unstable and needed government funding to operate. But when its editorial criticized then President Syng-man Rhee's unilateral implementation of the revised law on directing elections to ensure he would be reelected as president despite the National Assembly's opposition and the arrest of opposition lawmakers, the government decided not to buy our papers. The Korea Times was able to write the truth 'between the lines' because we used English. But the government was not able to shut the English daily down because it would simply promote that there was no press freedom in Korea. That was the beginning of The Korea Times as an independent newspaper ... Staff were more poised to keep reporting with more balanced perspectives because we wrote stories in English."

The financial difficulties the paper suffered forced Kim to hand the company over to Chang Key-young in November 1953. Despite such difficulties, staff continued their hard work believing the existence of The Korea Times to be important in terms of the pursuit of journalism.

"It takes more effort to write stories in English. Sometimes I felt that my efforts did not pay off. But if you go to other countries, people only recognize the country through English newspaper reports and they just don't ignore you … I was also fascinated by journalism and the fact that I could contribute to society through articles. English articles also could include more stories that were written between the lines," Hong said.

"I think workers of The Korea Times sought more professionalism and journalism in writing stories in English ― which is an international language ― than they would in Korean. Writing stories in English may have a larger influence globally and ultimately historically … I hope journalists take pride in their work."