Tongnip Sinmun

Tongnip Sinmun
First edition of Tongnip Sinmun
Korean name
Hangul	독립신문
Hanja
Revised Romanization	Dongnip sinmun
McCune–Reischauer	Tongnip sinmun

The Independent or Tongnip Sinmun (독립신문; 1896–1899) was an early Korean newspaper. Tongnip Sinmun was the first privately managed modern daily newspaper in Korea. It was founded in July 1896 by a member of the enlightened Korean intelligentsia, Seo Jae-pil (later known as Philip Jaisohn). It constituted two different language editions: Korean and English. Originally, it was published every other day and developed into a daily newspaper in Korean. The English edition, originally published every other day like the Korean edition, was later only published weekly. It has been estimated that the paper's average circulation per issue was between two and three thousand copies.

The key figure in the paper's establishment was undeniably Seo Jae-pil. After the failure of the progressive Gapsin Coup in 1884, Seo sought refuge in the United States. In exile he learned from Pak Yeong-hyo (박영효, ) that he had been pardoned from the charge of high treason as of March 1895, and further, that his "Gaehwapa" (개화파, lit. reformist) comrades had come to power during his exile. As a result, he decided to return to Korea in December of that year.

In Korea, the Prime Minister, Kim Hong-jip (김홍집, ) persuaded Seo to join the cabinet as the Oemu hyeoppan (외무협판, the modern equivalent to Minister of Foreign Affairs). However, Seo rejected the proposal, urging grassroots enlightenment to be a more urgent matter than his entry into the national cabinet. Seo viewed the absence of support from the populous as the primary cause of the Gapsin Coup failure. He also judged that the success of the Gabo reform (1894) was reliant solely on the support from the public. In order to achieve this support, it was most imperative to have a progressive newspaper as a vehicle of mass education.