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| A paperboy hurries past The Korea Times building early in the morning, seen in The Korea Times 25th anniversary issue on Nov. 1, 1975. / Korea Times Archive |
By Jon Dunbar
In a walk-in closet at The Korea Times office, large bound tomes containing archives of The Korea Times' past published newspapers are preserved. I am pretty sure I am one of the few people who look in them, but every time I do, I find something highly entertaining, relevant or just plain trippy worth sharing. So I decided to add The Korea Times Archive to our newspaper's social media channels in time for the paper's 70th anniversary.
The idea is to share visual elements, including photographs, editorial cartoons, illustrations and ads of the past 70 years of the newspaper's history. It mostly excludes written text beyond captions and whatever else makes it into the scans, because those would provide less-than-instant gratification. Besides, anyone wanting to read long-form history can turn to columnists Matt VanVolkenburg and Robert Neff, who continue to test the bottomless demand for historical content (it was actually in editing their contributions that I started making regular use of the archive, leading to the inception of this project).
I thought it would be a hard sell to get approval from my superiors, but everyone I discussed it with showed keen interest. Several other retro image channels enjoy popularity online, but here we have an extensive collection, totally authorized for The Korea Times to re-share ethically on a new platform years or decades later with our readers. Pages are faded and due to the binding it is hard to get perfectly straight lines in all the scans, but hopefully everyone agrees that this is part of the charm.
But where to start? From the beginning? The quality of the paper has changed over the decades, and I suspect people want to see clear pictures, preferably in color when possible. So the first couple of decades' print quality is fairly poor, and it takes a lot of imagination to view them properly. Still the early issues are filled with fascinating ads and political cartoons that come out clearer and are much more interesting in hindsight.
It turned out the 1980s and early 1990s have been my favorite era so far, as the period is far enough back to be markedly different from today, while also visually strong, as the paper switched to digital printing in 1984. We had spectacular extensive coverage of the 1980 Miss Universe beauty pageant and the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, and Expo 1993 in Daejeon (then Taejon) produced so many interesting and amusing images, including takes on the future that have not aged so well ― such as then-President Kim Yong-sam rolling up in a retro-futuristic solar car.
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| Shawn Weatherly, Miss Universe 1980, visits The Korea Times, seen in the 30th anniversary issue of The Korea Times, Nov. 1, 1980. / Korea Times Archive |
These events increased the country's contact with the rest of the globe, which before this period was minimal. It is always interesting, sometimes cringe-inducing, to see how contact with people from other countries has been reported in the paper.
The coincidences that play out in the pages are interesting. Sometimes there are ironic juxtapositions in objects laid out adjacent to each other, or strange links between different articles that look especially mysterious when viewed in hindsight. Whenever the authoritarian governments of the past had a scandal, they would often drag out North Korean refugees to remind us we have it pretty good here, even if Koreans had to put up with the occasional building collapse, or student protesters being tortured and killed by police.
I have also found a fair amount of coverage of now U.S. President Donald Trump, including editorial cartoons in 1990 belittling his shady business practices and news of his pro wrestling debut. And I found a 1971 birth announcement of Canada's now Prime Minister Justin Trudeau while his dad was prime minister. However, neither will be shared by the Archive because they are not closely related to Korea's history.
The Archive's followers seem to respond best to pictures of recognizable landmarks at earlier times, such as how buildings used to look and the development of the Han River. There is also interest in fashions of the times, and fading Korean traditions reported on back when they still had more vitality. Of course I do not exactly get a free choice, and can only rely on what has been published ― so that means I always have to keep looking. We are a little weak on showing ordinary everyday life and contemporary cityscapes. And I wish it was a more common practice to credit the photographer.
What we can show is how the country viewed itself and how historic events we now study in schools were reported while they were still unfolding. And there are a lot of surprises, sometimes of the completely unexpected kind, sometimes at how plainly stated things were. The Korea Times had a reputation of doing its own thing and not reporting how the government wanted, but it was also cozy with some pretty shocking people and ideas. I have made a disclaimer that what is shown is not the editorial policy of the paper today ― same as how the retro ads are not paid content … anymore.
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| A picture of the newsroom where The Korea Times and other affiliated newspapers were made in 1994, seen in the 44th anniversary special published Nov. 1, 1994. / Korea Times Archive |
So far nobody has commented that most of the posts are dated Nov. 1 or 2. That is when we ran anniversary specials, which contained special color supplements as well as interviews with the president of the time, showing our predecessors enjoyed contact with Roh Tae-woo, Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung.
It was the anniversary issues when staff tried their hardest to put out an interesting paper, with the results of the Korean Literature Translation Awards published, along with spectacular photo essays showing the country's state at the time, as well as highly visual large ads placed by advertisers, often with an announcement congratulating the paper on another anniversary milestone. And advertisers would take out huge ads congratulating the paper on its latest anniversary, accompanied by sometimes-baffling, sometimes-psychedelic, sometimes-excessively old-fashioned folksy imagery. It is abnormal that a newspaper turns attention on itself, so the anniversary issues have been helpful in getting to know the Times better.
As well as highlighting the paper's ubiquitous presence throughout Korea's tumultuous modern history, and finding new relevance in yesterday's news, The Korea Times Archive is a non-divisive initiative in which everyone can see the value. Not once has anyone complained, or told us we should not be publishing this.
Whether you are conservative or liberal, young or old, Korean or foreign, whether you think the paper is an important witness to history or amateur trash, revisiting the archives is entertaining and informative. Everyone can see the value in the collection, and it brings us together, finally able to agree on something after years of deepening partisan divides. The nearly 2,000 readers following the Facebook page are welcome to join us for the ride.
Visit fb.com/koreatimesarchive to follow along.
