Journalism in East Asia. Toh Lam Seng. Tokyo: Sairyu Sha, 2010. 292 pp.

JMCQ readers may not know that an American-owned Chinese newspaper is one of the three “Forefathers of Japanese Press” and also one of the recognized ancestors of the modern press in China. Toh Lam Seng, a guest professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University, brings us a sense of freshness and originality by pointing out those historical relevancies between journalism in East Asia and its U.S. counterpart.

Toh’s book, written in Japanese, starts with solid research on the Chinese and Foreign Gazette, a Chinese newspaper established by Daniel Jerome MacGowan in Ningpo, China, in 1854, and continued by Elias B. Inslee in 1858, both missionaries of the American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions. The Gazette was translated into Japanese and edited by Bansyoshirabesyo, a Japanese institute for the study of Western learning. [Read more...]