The Chosun Ilbo is a leading daily newspaper in South Korea. It is also considered the oldest daily newspaper in the country. With a daily circulation of more than 1,800,000, the Chosun Ilbo has been audited annually since the Audit Bureau of Circulations was established in 1993. Chosun Ilbo and its subsidiary company, Digital Chosun, operates the Chosun.com news website, which also publishes web versions of the newspaper in English, Chinese, and Japanese.
History
The Chosun Ilbo Establishment Union was created in September 1919 while the Chosun Ilbo company was founded on 5 March 1920 by Sin Sogu. The newspaper was critical of, and sometimes directly opposed to, the actions of the Japanese government during Japanese colonial rule. On 27 August 1920, the Chosun Ilbo was suspended after it published an editorial criticizing what it said was the use of excessive force by the Japanese police against Korean citizens. This was the first in a string of suspensions. On 5 September 1920, three days after the first suspension was lifted, the newspaper published an editorial, "Did the Japanese central governing body shut down our newspaper?" Then, Chosun Ilbo was given an indefinite suspension. In 1927, the Chosun Ilbos editor and publisher were arrested. The editor was also the chief staff writer. The alleged offense in this case was an editorial describing the mistreatment of prisoners by the colonial government. In May of the same year, in response to an editorial criticizing the deployment of troops into Shandong, the newspaper was suspended for a fourth time - in this case for 133 days. The publisher and chief staff writer, An Jae-hong, were again imprisoned. After these events, the Chosun Ilbo remained at the forefront of events, trying to improve general public life and sponsoring collaborative events. This was a turbulent period; within the space of three years, the president was replaced three times. On 21 December 1935, in opposition to compulsory Japanese education and plans to assimilate the Korean people and language, the Chosun Ilbo published 100,000 Korean-language textbooks nationwide. Over the years, the Chosun Ilbo company also published many additional titles, including a monthly current affairs magazine, Youth Chosun, the first of its kind in Korea. Others included its sister publication, Jogwang. In 31 July 1940, the newspaper published "Lessons of American Realism", the fourth part of an editorial series. Ten days later - following issue 6,923 - the paper was declared officially discontinued by the Japanese ruling government. In the twenty years since its founding, the paper had been suspended by the Japanese government four times, and its issues confiscated over five hundred times before 1932. When Korea gained independence in 1945, the Chosun Ilbo came back into publication after a five-year, three-month hiatus.
Subsidiaries
Besides the daily newspaper, the company also publishes the weekly Jugan Chosun, the monthly Wolgan Chosun and other newspapers and magazines. Subsidiaries include Digital Chosun, Wolgan Chosun, Edu-Chosun, and ChosunBiz.
North Korean position
The Chosun Ilbo has taken a skeptical line on governmental policy towards North Korea such as Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine policy". For this reason, it has attracted heavy criticism and threats from the North.
Controversy
On 31 May 2019, the newspaper reported that, based on "an unidentified source", the head diplomat of North Korea's nuclear envoy Kim Hyok-chol, had been executed by a North Korean Government firing squad. However, two days later, on 2 June 2019, the top diplomat was seen at a concert sitting a few seats away from North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un. The Educational Broadcasting System's popular instructor Choi Tae-seong, sued a Chosun Ilbo reporter for publishing an article that defamed him as a supporter of North Korea.
