Keijo Nippo (Gyeongseong Ilbo) was Korea's largest newspaper at its peak, boasting the best exclusive news access provided by the colonial regime, the best American printing equipment, correspondents stationed all over the world, printing from Sept. 1906 to Dec. 1945 under 3 different governments

In December 1938, Keijo Nippo newspaper published a self-promoting advertisement on a full-page spread boasting about how it is the number-one newspaper in Korea in every respect: the largest newspaper in Korea with the largest readership, the largest staff, the most financial resources, the best exclusive news access in every part of Korea, the best printing equipment with the latest state-of-the-art rotary presses imported from the U.S.A., longstanding relationships with international press agencies such as the International News Service, United Press International, and Associated Press, and correspondents stationed all over the world including in Paris, New York, Berlin, London, Davao, Hawaii, and Occupied China. Thus, the Keijo Nippo newspaper is a very valuable source of insight into the kinds of information from both inside and outside the country that Koreans might have known about during colonial rule.

In December 1938, Imperial Japan was in the middle of the vicious Second Sino-Japanese War, but it was not experiencing privations to the extent that it would experience during the Second World War, because it still managed to benefit from relatively normal world trade and foreign investment with relatively few sanctions, including from Western countries like the U.K. and the U.S. That would change over the course of the next few years, as relations with the U.S. deteriorated to the point of war.

This photo montage has a lot of things going on, but let’s parse them out. The newspaper building was a cube-shaped brick building just a block away to the north from the then Seoul City Hall (京城府庁). It housed not only Keijo Nippo, but also Maeil Sinbo, the last Korean-language newspaper to remain in Korea after Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo were shuttered in 1940. On top of the building is the flag of Seoul, which looks like a black-outlined circle sandwiched between two clamps. On the left side of the building are some slogans: one says “Don’t let your guard down after victory! (勝って兜の緒を締めよ)”, while the other one says, “Long-term construction is just the beginning (長期建設はこれからだ)” On the right side of the building are the names of its three publications: the Keijo Nippo (京城日報), Keinichi Shinpo (京日新報), and Keijo Nippo Elementary School Edition (京日小学生新聞). On the left side of the photo, staff members are at their desks drafting articles, and a cameraman is taking a picture with his news camera. To the center-bottom of the photo, a man is transcribing a news report which he is listening to over the phone. Above him is a rotary press manufactured by R. Hoe & Co., and below him are bundles of printed newspapers and the delivery trucks which will deliver them to all parts of Korea. On the right side of the photo, there are some workers setting the typesets to print the newspaper editions.

I also included an advertisement for the Elementary School Edition of Keijo Nippo, which was marketed to Korean children, especially with its rather blatant use of the word “second-class national people of Japan” (日本の第二国民). It goes to show the militaristic brainwashing that Korean children received under the colonial regime. This newspaper may have also been read by Korean adults who were studying Japanese.

In September 1906, the Keijo Nippo newspaper (known as Gyeongseong Ilbo in Korean) was founded by Itō Hirobumi to be a mouthpiece of the Office of the Japanese Resident-General of Korea, which controlled Korean foreign diplomatic affairs from 1905 to 1910, when Korea was formally annexed into Imperial Japan. The newspaper was formed by merging two existing Korean newspapers together: the Hanseong Sinbo (한성신보, 漢城新報) and the Daedong Sinbo (대동신보, 大同新報). It started out as a bilingual publication printing both Korean-language editions and Japanese-language editions, but in April 1907, the Korean-language edition of Gyeongseong Ilbo was discontinued. After the annexation of Korea in 1910, Keijo Nippo became the mouthpiece of the Governor-General’s Office, the Imperial Japanese colonial government which controlled Korea from 1910 to 1945.

The newspaper managed to keep publishing for a few months after Korea gained its independence on August 15, 1945, printing its last edition on December 11, 1945. Its printing equipment was subsequently taken over by Hanseong Ilbo (한성일보, 漢城日報) in early 1946. If you look at the logo of Hanseong Ilbo, you can see that they reworked the old Keijo Nippo logo a little bit and kept a similar calligraphy style to come up with the new newspaper logo. The Hanja fonts are identical to the Kanji fonts used in Keijo Nippo.

Keijo Nippo’s Korean-language sister newspaper, Maeil Sinbo, printed its last edition in November 1945, then changed its name to Seoul Shinmun and printed its first edition under its new name on November 23, 1945. Today, the Seoul Shinmun skyscraper stands on the site of the old Keijo Nippo newspaper building.

Today, physical copies of Keijo Nippo are stored at the National Library of Korea and Seoul National University Library. Microfilm copies of Keijo Nippo can be viewed at the Newspaper Reading Room of the National Diet Library in Tokyo, but with no photoduplication available or allowed. In October 2021, an anonymous user uploaded an extensive archive of Keijo Nippo covering 1905 to 1944, appearing to be digital scans of old microfilm. I accidentally stumbled across them just as they were being uploaded. The moment I recognized their historical significance, I decided to slowly prepare transcriptions and translations of these articles and share them online. However, there are many limitations, as the entire year of 1945 is omitted, many scanned pages are in terrible shape with tears, burn marks, and holes in many places, the quality of the digital scans themselves is often bad and makes the text illegible. The National Library of Korea does provide high-quality scans of Keijo Nippo to the public, but only for a select few issues from the early 1930s and earlier.

Currently, the copyright for Keijo Nippo is held by some murky entities. According to one bookstore website, the “Tokyo High Court and National Diet Library authorizes the reprinted The Keijo Nippo( Kyŏngsŏng Ilbo) only by the publisher, SIM Han Bo,Hanʼguk Kyohoesa Munhŏn Yŏnʼguwŏn”. That is, 한국교회사문헌연구원(韓國教會史文獻研究院). The website also says that professors at Waseda University legally go after anyone who repeatedly sells pirated editions. Only the 1905-1918 issues are available for purchase, for an exorbitant 490,000 yen. When ordering, three months are required for copyright processing to be completed. Another bookstore site, Komabook, offers a 20 DVD set containing the September 2, 1915 to December 11, 1945 issues of Keijo Nippo for a grand total of 2,908,500 Japanese yen, which is about $22,000 US Dollars at current exchange rates.

It would seem to me that withholding the content of Keijo Nippo from public release behind such a high paywall and such tight copyright restrictions is not in the public interest, especially as the actions of the Imperial Japanese colonial regime in Korea is of interest to people all over the world. But maybe there is a reasonable explanation for all of this?

My hope is that more of these archives can be made digitally available online for free and then translated more widely so that viewers all over the world can learn more about this very interesting part of Korean history.

(Translation)

Gyeongseong Ilbo (Keijo Nippo) December 26, 1938

The Dignified March of Keijo Nippo

The Great Reform of Our Press Organization along the Lines of the Leap Forward for Korea and the Rebuilding of East Asia

Bathed in the dawn of the New East Asia Cooperative, the Holy Sino-Japanese War is now rushing forward into the third spring of brilliant construction. After 30 years of rule, our Korean peninsula, which has embodied the great spirit of Hakkō Ichiu of which we are proud in world history, is also in lock step with the great strides of the Holy War, and is now playing the role of a “logistics base” in both material and moral aspects as we greet the first spring of the third year of the war. Keijo Nippo, as the honored head of the press agencies of home front Korea based on Japanese-Korean unification, is mobilizing all of its functions and personnel. With the sound of its high-speed rotary press working tirelessly, Keijo Nippo is celebrating a new spring of victorious journalism together with its loyal readers.

The Keijo Nippo has walked alongside the New Korea ever since it was welcomed at the time of its annexation, and Korea has experienced thirty years of unyielding progress ever since then. We have challenged ourselves to overcome superimposed difficulties together with the Young Korea. We have fought for each day to be filled with the light of happiness and peace, and we have won the present-day by smearing on it the words: “Leap Forward!”. The history of Keijo Nippo, which was inaugurated by the first Chief Superintendent Itō Hirobumi, is also the history of the new century of the Korean peninsula.

It is well known in the pages of this newspaper just how active we have been during the Second Sino-Japanese War, based on the precious past legacy of tens of thousands of Keijo Nippo staff. Needless to say, the complete coverage of the various parts of home front Korea is the exclusive domain of this newspaper alone. We have sent special correspondents to bring back blood-drenched news of frontline Imperial troops deployed on mainland China destroying Chiang Kai-shek‘s forces. We have established bureaus and a special telegraph network in key areas of new construction, while extending our full coverage on the situation of the dying enemy regime. In the heart of Europe and the United States, which are on the verge of being re-divided by the total collapse of the Treaty of Versailles and the outbreak of a second world war, we have established a powerful and extensive special telegraph team in cooperation with the Yomiuri Shimbun to provide vigorous and hot news. The political and economic situation in mainland Japan, which is being reorganized in various fields, is being reported to the Korean peninsula from time to time without fail by the news axes in Tokyo, Osaka, and Seoul.

Thus, Keijo Nippo, as the largest newspaper on the Korean peninsula, is preparing for a great epoch-making leap forward in 1939. Please look forward to the news reporting of Keijo Nippo, which is undergoing a great reform along the lines of the Leap Forward for Korea and the Rebuilding of New East Asia.

This photo is a montage of Keijo Nippo’s news reporting activities. It shows how the news comes to the head office from all parts of Korea, mainland Japan, mainland China, and from all over the world by telegraph and telephone every moment. Then the collected news are drafted, typeset into editions, printed on a rotary press, and then delivered to loyal readers in all of Korea. Our printing plant is the best in all of Korea with respect to its functionality, and it boasts a printing capacity of 300,000 copies per hour on two customized electric high-speed presses, as well as a multi-color high-speed press (manufactured by R. Hoe & Company). Thus, our press organization, fully equipped with human and material resources, is constantly working to provide fresh news and demonstrate their power.

The best facilities in all of Korea!

The Forefront of Wartime Journalism

A powerful and unparalleled communication network

Sharing moment-by-moment world developments to loyal readers in all of Korea

A network is also in place to report on the Sino-Japanese War

In order to accurately and promptly report on the ever-changing political, economic, and social situation in the world, this newspaper has formed a communications alliance with the Yomiuri Shimbun, the leader of the Tokyo newspaper industry, to develop a special telecommunications network, and set up a lightning-like news network around the world. In other words, through a tie-up with Yomiuri Shimbun, we have bureaus (correspondents) in Paris, New York, Berlin, and London, and special correspondents in Davao and Hawaii. We have absorbed special telegrams from the International News Service, one of the world’s three most prestigious news agencies, along with United Press International and Associated Press. Our communications network related to the Sino-Japanese War is as follows, and is unrivaled by any other news organization on the Korean peninsula.　

Permanent military correspondent in Unit [redacted] Shanxi Area
Branch office in Beijing

Keijo Nippo Elementary School Edition

No one can say, “I am an elementary school student of the shining New Year” without getting the New Year’s Day issue of the Keijo Nippo Elementary School Edition. The splendor of the New Year’s Day issue of the newspaper is the best New Year’s gift for a growing second-class national person of Japan.

There is an assault on a pillbox with live bullets! There is a bombardment by a fighter plane! The invincible march of tanks! If we sing a military song in the red sunset and dream in a field tent, our dreams will lead us home, but if we take up our bayonets and attack in full force, the cheers of ‘Banzai!’ for peace in East Asia will be as high as the wind carrying the Flag of the Great Rising Sun. Don’t you all want to raise Chiang Kai-shek’s head with this amazingly beautiful picture Sugoroku printed in four-color offset? The New Year’s Day issue is sixteen pages. That is four times the page count of a daily newspaper. It is interesting and informative. There are four times as many wonderful articles, photographs, and manga as there are in a daily newspaper.

The Governor-General’s Story
A children’s story by the famous Katō Takeo
The two-page manga series is a kingdom of laughter!
Chinese New Year, Mongolian New Year, a tablespread for the New Year
What will the air battle of the future be like? It will surely be very awesome.
New Year’s Games
The World of Science
Test your academic ability with the New Year Achievement Test

We can only tell you just a little bit about the wonders of the New Year’s Day issue. If I were to tell you about the even more beautiful colored pages, I would be in big trouble. Let’s all have fun in anticipation for New Year’s Day. On New Year’s Day, please pick up a copy of the Keijo Nippo Elementary School Edition and be surprised at how wonderful it is, how great it is, and how much you’ll love it.

Free gift: The Sugoroku of the Imperial Army’s Great Victory

Source: https://www.archive.org/details/kjnp-1938-12-26

(Transcription)

京城日報　1938年12月26日

堂々京日の進軍

躍進朝鮮と東亜再建の線に沿い報道体制の大革新

新東亜協同体の黎明を浴びて、聖戦支那事変は、いまや輝ける建設の第三春へと突進している。統治三十年、世界史に誇る八紘一宇の大精神の体現をなし遂げたわが半島も聖業の巨歩に足並みをそろえ、物心両面において『兵站基地』の役割を果たしつつ戦捷三たびの年の初春を迎えんとしている。そして、わが京城日報は、内鮮一体を基底とせる銃後朝鮮の光栄ある報道部門の首位を担当し、機能総動員、高速度輪転機不休の響きは、戦勝ジャーナリズムのさらに新しき春を、愛読者諸賢とともに謳歌せんとしているのである。

京城日報は併合と同時に迎えた新しき朝鮮とともに歩いた。三十年不屈の前進。重畳たる困難に対して青年朝鮮と共に挑戦した。そして、幸福と平和の光りに充ちみちている今日を―各界躍進の二字にぬりつぶされた今日を闘いとったのである。初代統監伊藤博文公によって封切られた京城日報の歴史は、その儘半島新世紀の歴史である。

過去幾万の京日部隊の尊き遺産のうえに立って、事変下における本紙がいかに活発な活躍をなしているかはすでにその紙面においてよく知られたところ―銃後半島の各部面に対する取材網の完璧なる布陣はひとり本紙にのみゆるされたる独壇場であることは申すまでもなく、大陸に展開されている滅蒋の前線部隊には相次いで特派員を使いして血の滴るようなニュースを送り、新建設の要地には、支局並びに特電網を配するとともに、滅びゆく敵政権の情勢にも万全の触手を伸ばしている。ヴェルサイユ体制の全面的な崩壊によって再分割の地図を描きつつ第二の世界戦争の危機をはらむ欧米の各心臓部には、読売新聞との提携による強力拡汎なる特電陣を整備、溌剌たるホットニュースを提供している。また、各方面において再組織が行われつつある内地の政治経済情勢は、東京、大阪、京城のニュース枢軸によって刻々半島への報道に遺憾なきを期している。

かくてわが京城日報は、半島最高最大の新聞としてさらに昭和十四年における画期的な大飛躍を準備しつつある。躍進朝鮮と新東亜建設の線に沿い大革新を行いつつある京城日報の報道戦果を御期待下さい。

この写真は京城日報社の報道活動を現わしたモンタージュ写真。全鮮各地から、内地から、支那大陸から、さらに世界各地から、電信、電話に乗って刻々本社へ集まって来るニュースが原稿となり活字に組まれ、版となり、輪転機にかかって印刷され、全鮮の愛読者に新聞が配達されるまでを示しています。本社の工場機能は、全鮮一を誇るもので、二台連結の京日式電光超高速度輪転機は一時間三十万の印刷能力を有し、このほか、多色刷超高速度輪転機（アール・ホー会社製）もその能率を誇っております。こうして、人的物的に完備したわが社の報道体制は不断の活動によって、清新なるニュースを提供し、その威力を示しているのであります。

全鮮一を誇る設備！

戦時ジャーナリズムの最前線

強力無比の通信網

世界各地の動きを刻々全鮮愛読者へ

事変報道網も整備

本紙は、変転極まりない世界の政治、経済、社会情勢を正確に迅速にキャッチ報道すべく、同盟通信によるほか特電網を整備するため現在、東都新聞界の驍将読売新聞社と通信提携をなして、全世界に電光のようなニュース網を布陣しております。すなわち同社とのタイアップによりパリ、ニューヨーク、ベルリン、ロンドンに支局（特派員）、ダヴァオ、ハワイに特置員を配置するとともに、UP・APとともに世界三大通信として権威をほこるインターナショナル・ニュース・サーヴィス社の全世界各地の特電を吸収しております。また本紙の事変関係通信網は現在左の如くで、断然半島他社の追随をゆるしません。　

山西方面〇〇部隊に従軍記者常置
北京に支局

京日小学生新聞

京日小学生新聞の元旦号を手にしないで『ぼくは輝く新しき年の小学生』などとはいいません。そのすばらしさ、京日小学生新聞元旦号こそ伸びゆく日本の第二国民に贈る最上のお年玉です。

肉弾トーチカに迫る突撃あり。荒鷲の爆撃あり。戦車隊の無敵進軍あり。赤い夕日に軍歌を歌って露営の夢を結べば夢は故郷へも通うが銃剣をとりなおして総攻撃にうつれば東洋平和の万歳は大日章旗の旗風とともに高い。オフセット四色刷の驚くほど美しい絵双六で蒋介石の首級をあげたいとは、皆さん、思いませんか。元旦号は十六ページ。それは日頃の新聞の四倍の分量です。面白い面白いためになる。すばらしい記事が、写真が、まんががひごろの四倍ぶんもあるのです。