Korea Times news exported worldwide

Korea’s first global daily

By Lee Chang-sup
Chief Editorial Writer

The Korea Times is the first English daily born at the height of Korean War (1950-1953). Its inaugural issue appeared on Nov.1 in 1950, with the goal of letting the world know the development of the fratricidal war. The paper is the longest-running independent English daily. Dr. Helen Kim (1899-1970), the pioneer woman educator-journalist, proposed launching an English daily in order to promote Korea abroad in 1949 when she became the first president of Ewha Womans University. The American-educated President Syngman Rhee endorsed her idea. The first issue of a two-page tabloid featured an editorial headlined “A Really New Start.” The editorial stressed the national need for promoting goodwill, mutual understanding and cooperation with all nations over the world. The first editorial team largely comprised a handful of English literature professors from the Ewha Womans University.

In less than two months after the inauguration, the paper was forced to suspend its publication as the Chinese soldiers occupied Seoul. On January 3, in 1951, the paper secured a corner in the office of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions in Busan to open its editorial room. It resumed publication on Jan.17. The daily moved back to Seoul in 1953 following a cease-fire.

Official daily of international events

The Korea Times boasts of becoming official dailies for international events, including the Seoul Olympics, the Asian Games, the APEC Leaders Meeting in Busan.

The daily had the honor of publishing the official Olympic newspaper, titled The Seoul Olympian, for the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. It was a landmark event in the history of the English journalism. The 64-page official Olympic paper was printed every day throughout the games. In addition, a 124-page special edition contains full entries. Another 404-page book covered the full results and scores. It published many official papers for international events, including the Busan FESPIC (the Far East and South Pacific Games for the Disabled) in 2002, the Universiade in Daegu in 2003, the ninth Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) in 2004, the APEC Leaders forum in Busan in 2005, and the second inter-Korean summit in 2007. The daily’s publication of official papers has played a key role in publicizing prominent international sports or events through a contract with the government or government- funded agencies.

Read between the lines

Although The Korea Times was born under the aegis of the nation’s first president, it had not compromised with his dictatorial rule. Syngman Rhee, an avid reader of the daily, suspended the government’s purchase of newspaper copies and pressured Korea Times publisher Helen Kim into adopting the pro-Rhee editorial line. The Rhee government was unable to tame the daily and decided to establish a progovernment English daily, the Korea Republic, which was later renamed the Korea Herald.

The Korea Times was in a serious financial pinch as the government stopped subscription. Chang Keyyoung, then president of the Chosun Ilbo and later founder of the Hankook Ilbo, took over the English daily on April 23, 1954.

Korea Times editorial staff wrote and edited news stories and commentaries in such ways as to help readers understand implications or hidden facts by reading between the lines. The job was indeed nerve-wracking like walking a tightrope under the ensuing autocratic military-backed governments. The paper irked the authoritarian regimes for its critical articles. For example, in 1958, the government took issue with a column article titled “Definition of a Gambler.” The authorities charged the article as agitating as it implicitly drew an analogy between an Iraqi revolution and Korea’s pro-democracy movement against the Rhee regime. The article’s contributor, Henry Chang, was detained for interrogation by the prosecution for 16 days.

In 1973, two foreign commentators encountered hardship as they satirically criticized the so-called “gisaeng party” tourism among Japanese tourists. The government reacted harshly as it falsely concluded that it would undermine Korea’s fledgling tourism. Editor Hong Soon-il and staff reporter Bae Chul-soo were interrogated and physically assaulted overnight at the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA). The management resisted the government’s pressure to sack Hong as a persona non grata for the dictatorial “Yushin” administration of Park Chung-hee.

In 1974 when Hong resigned the editorship to become an editorial writer of the Hankook Ilbo, another incident took place, this time, involving an article he filed to both the Hankook Ilbo and The Korea Times from Saigon, making a comprehensive analysis of a terrible situation in South Vietnam in the closing days of the Vietnam War. Defying a government instruction banning local news media from running critical articles on Vietnam, both papers printed the article. As a result, publisher Chang Kang-jae and a few Hankook Ilbo editors were forcibly taken to the KCIA for interrogation, an incident that touched off a widespread struggle by the editorial staff members at many local newspapers for the freedom of the press.

The Korea Times played a key role in establishing the Kwanhun Club, now a prominent fraternity of journalists, and the Korean Newspaper Editors Association in quest for a free press and establish “Newspapers Day” in 1957 on the occasion of the 6lst anniversary of the publication of the Independent, Korea’s first newspaper in a modern format.

Easy to learn English

The Korea Times publishes a four-page tabloid supplement called Guide to Current English. It is designed to help readers learn English. It features translated version of editorials, test samples on TOEIC, TOEFL, daily idioms and writing methods on English articles and essays as well as film scripts. Readers can hear Korea Times news through the text to speech (TTS) service on its homepage. The Korea Times Campus is a department store where readers can learn everything through their own sampling for hearing, writing, reading and strengthening vocabularies. Readers can polish their speaking ability through daily conversation with native speakers through the Times Call phone English conversation service. On the homepage, readers do not need a dictionary for learning vocabularies for its automatic dictionary service. Once readers click the word they do not know, it automatically informs them of the meaning of the word in Korean. Over the past 15 years, The Korea Times monitored how many words the daily has used. About 11,000 words were used in the daily during the period. If 2,000 names of organizations and companies were taken out, it used 9,000 words. An avid reader of The Korea Times could get a perfect score in TOEIC test, which uses 8,500 words.

Anew start as export item

Printed media worldwide has been on a downturn stage. There are a few exceptions, one of which is The Korea Times. Prior to the Internet age, English dailies had struggled to make both ends meet due to the limited domestic readership base. In the Internet and iPhone era, The Korea Times could expand its readership worldwide.

All Korean-language dailies are struggling. They have no overseas market for export. The Korea Times is an exception. Suddenly it became an export commodity as Korea has been growing rapidly. In keeping with foreign interest in Korea, demand for English information has been growing. The Korea Times has an online visitor of more than half a million daily as of October. The Korea Times is the first Korean daily to put its PDF on the iPhone and iPad. Anyone with a smartphone can read Korea Times online at any place at any time as soon as the news are posted.

Thoughts of The Times (First personal journalism)

The Korea Times was the first daily in Korea which adopted the personal journalism and neighborhood news-gathering through the introduction of the daily essay column Thoughts of The Times. The column gives a panoramic global view as contributors encompasses housewives, businessmen, English teachers, scholars, diplomats, physicians, missionaries, and journalists. Since its introduction in 1968, the column has now become one of the most popular columns. The paper runs sections and columns that other dailies do not have. All editors contribute News in Review columns. Its sectioned page covers in-depth report on Issue Today, embassy news, education, entertainment, technology and golf.

Independent English daily

The Korea Times is the longest-running
independent English daily in Korea. Since its foundation 60 years ago, it has been free from government funding and sponsorship. As part of the Hankook Ilbo media group, the daily is the nation’s first global daily with the audience around the globe. Former President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kim Dae-jung was one of the “loyal” readers of The Korea Times. Kim said he learned English and could have broadened his global perspective through The Korea Times. He told The New York Times on Feb. 25 in 1998 that he learned English from an American Peace Corps volunteer and by tutoring himself, puzzling over The Korea Times with a dictionary. He was the first incumbent Korean head of state who contributed an article under his own name to The Korea Times. He expounded the dawning of Universial Globalism on the Nov. 5 issue of the daily in 1998.

Modern literature translation awards

The Korea Times is a torchbearer in cultural dissemination. It introduced the Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards in 1970 to mark its 20th founding anniversary. The literature translation awards were introduced with an objective of letting the world know Korean literature through qualified translations. The translation award is the first of its kind in Korea. It consists of four sections- novel, short story, poem and drama.

Events organizer

The Korea Times has launched new events aimed at promoting friendship and getting closer to readers. In 2005, the daily started the Diplomatic Tennis Championship. In the same year, the Economic Essay Contest for college students started to help the young generation learn perspective on the market and capitalism. Through cooperation with the Korea History Foundation, essay contests for Patriot Ahn Jung-geun, Dokdo and other issues of historical importance were held in 2008. This year, the paper joined hands with the Korea Institute of Public Administration to run a 60-part series on Korea Development Model. The two organizations co-hosted the international conference on the role of government in the development of Korea ahead of the G20 Seoul Summit. The series were compiled into a book for distribution during the G20 Seoul Summit. The paper has also pioneered globalization of religion. As part of the project, 20 Temple Stay program providers were featured in the paper.

Soul of Korea

The Korea Times is not just a Korean daily. It is the messenger of the soul of Korea and Koreans. From hallyu to “ajumma,” Korea Times reporters write articles with the noble mission of conveying the soul of the Republic of Korea. Readers of The Korea Times can appreciate Korean spirit and uniqueness of things Korean in all articles.