Ko Kung-chen (16 October 1890-22 October 1935), editor of the Shanghai newspapers Shih-pao and Shun-pao and historian ofjournalism. Tungt'ai, Kiangsu, a small town near Shanghai, was the birthplace of Ko Kung-chen. He received a primary education in the Chinese classics at a clan school which had been established by his great-aunt. At the age of 14, he enrolled at a semi-modern school ; he studied there until 1908 and then entered the Tungt'ai Higher School. After being graduated in 1912, he worked as an apprentice at a small local newspaper, the Tung-t'ai jih-pao [Tung-t'ai daily news]. He passed the entrance examination for Nant'ung Teachers College in 1913, but was unable to enroll there because he lacked funds. He soon leTt home and went to Shanghai. Ko went to work in 1913 for the Yu-cheng shu-chü [Yu-cheng book company], which published both traditional and modern books and which was famous for its editions of Chinese paintings and calligraphy. Its owner, Ti Ch'u-ch'ing, had founded the influential Shanghai newspaper Shih-pao [the Eastern times] in 1904. Ko won Ti's trust, and he soon was transferred to the staff" of the Shih-pao. He also entered the Shen-chou Law School, where he studied jurisprudence, history, and economics. Ko worked for the Shih-pao for about 13 years, during which time he rose from proofreader to chief editor and made a number of contributions to the modernization of journalism in China. Ko's principal innovations were the pictorial section (beginning in 1920), the regular publication of supplements, and the use of color printing. He also instituted expert and extensive sports reporting. Under Ko's editorship, the Shih-pao became the most Americanized of the Shanghai dailies and, according to Hu Shih (q.v.), the favorite newspaper of intellectuals and students.

As the successful editor of the Shih-pao, Ko was invited to teach journalism in a number of Shanghai colleges. This activity, in turn, led him to write books about practical journalism and the history of the profession. When the Hsin-wen chi-che lien-ho-hui [journalists association] was organized at Shanghai in 1920, Ko became its first president. In 1924 he translated and adapted The Handbook of Journalism by F. N. Clark as Hsin-wen ts'o-yao [essentials of journalism]. It was published in 1925 and reprinted in 1929. Ko was invited to teach journalism in Kuo-min University in 1925. At this time, he began to collect materials for a definitive history of journalism in China. The completed work, Chung-kuo pao-hsueh shih [history of Chinese journalism] was published in 1927, and, despite certain inaccuracies, was generally regarded as the pioneering work in the field. In 1925 Ko also helped organize the Shang-hai pao-hsueh she [Shanghai journalism society] to advance the study ofjournalism.

In 1927 Ko resigned the editorship of the Shih-pao to embark on a two-year stint of foreign travel and reportage. In January, under the auspices of the central propaganda department of the Kuomintang, but probably at his own expense, Ko left China to make a reporting tour and to study journalistic practices in Japan, Europe, and the United States. He attended the League of Nations Journalists Conference, held in August 1927 at Geneva, as the official representative of the Shanghai Daily Newspapers Guild. As a reporter, he also attended the International Labor Conference, the Conference for the Limitation of Naval Armaments, the International Conference for Communications and Transit, and the Universal Theaters Conference. He interviewed such prominent statesmen as Sir Austen Chamberlain, Aristide Briand, and Benito Mussolini. Ko attracted a good deal of attention as the first Chinese correspondent ever seen in the capitals of Europe. His frequent dispatches, which appeared in the Shih-pao, gave the Chinese reading public new insight into world events. During this period, Ko continued to collect data on the history of journalism in China, visiting libraries in England and France to locate copies of rare foreign journals published in China.

After returning to China in the winter of 1929, Ko was invited by Shih Liang-ts'ai (q.v.), the owner of the Shun-pao [Shanghai news daily], to join that enterprise as co-director of its planning department with Huang Yen-p'ei (q.v.). Ko accepted the position and introduced a number of new enterprises, including the monthly Shun-pao yueh-k'an, a pictorial, a book-rental program, and a correspondence school. Ko was in great demand as a teacher of journalism, and between 1929 and 1932 he taught courses at Nan-fang University, Ta-hsia University, and Futan University. He also worked on the draft of his Shih-chieh pao-yeh k'ao-ch'a chi [survey of the world's press industry]. Unhappily, the manuscript of this work was destroyed in the Japanese bombardment of the Commerical Press during the battle of Shanghai in 1932. In 1931 Ko finished writing Hsin-wen-hsueh [journalism], but it was not published until 1940.

After the Japanese attacked Mukden on 18 September 1931, Ko actively participated in the anti-Japanese movement. In the autumn of 1932 he accompanied the Lytton Commission to Manchuria, and in Mukden he was arrested and detained briefly by Japanese authorities. After being released, he went with the commission to Geneva in September, where he attended and reported on the special sessions of the League of Nations which discussed the problem of Japanese intervention in China. In his reports Ko expressed disappointment in the League's compromise solution and warned of the dangers of further encroachment and aggression if the Chinese people did not unite and resist Japan. After the meetings, Ko went to Madrid, where he attended the International Conference of Press Experts. He also visited and sent dispatches from Italy, Germany, France, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, along with the writings of Marx and Lenin, had become one of Ko's preoccupations after the events of 1931-32. Diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union had been restored in December 1932. Ko arrived in the Soviet Union in 1933 and remained there until the autumn of 1935. During this period, he traveled extensively and wrote a large number of articles sympathetically detailing the political, cultural, and economic strides which the Soviet Union was making. These articles later were collected by Tsou T'ao-fen (q.v.) and published as Ts'ung Tung-pei tao Su-lien [from Manchuria to the Soviet Union]. In the autumn of 1935, Ko became ill shortly after his arrival in Shanghai on 15 October. He died on 22 October of peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix.

Ko's brother, Ko Shao-lung, a minor literary figure, was a physician who practiced in Shanghai. He oversaw the publication of his brother's Hsin-wen-hsueh in 1940.