1. Magazines have been in deficit for a long time. I barely survived the profits from the book. Book sales shrank year by year due to a shrinking publishing market. Even in the last year, even books were turned into deficits from the previous year. We've cut down on people and cut down on spending. It sold to the office building, which was like a self-confidence. After paying 70% of the inheritance tax and the capital gains tax, there was not much left. Since the 90s, the accumulated deficit of 300 million won every year has grown like a snowball. I thought that I would not be able to give my employees severance pay. Eventually I decided to raise my hand. In October of last year, Samter announced that the last year, 598, would be suspended indefinitely. It was the de facto abolition of Samter, which was never missed since the first issue was issued in April 1970. It was at the time when the 50th anniversary of the publication and the publication of the 600th ticket was in front of the eyes.

The news of the indefinite suspension of <Samtor>, the longest-running liberal arts magazine in Korea, was shocking. There was a voice saying that Sam cannot be closed like this, and a lot of people cheered and supported. Donations and support messages flooded. New subscriptions and subscription extensions were close to 3,000. In 'Sam', it meant that there wasn't one or two who solved the thirst of the soul and rested thirsty. It was decided to continue issuing springs a month after the declaration of suspension. Issued 600 tickets in February this year and celebrated its 50th anniversary last month. People say that a miracle happened.

Soon, Sam, who seemed to be taking his breath shortly, survived with the reader's first aid. That doesn't mean that Samtor is completely regenerated. The deficit continues. The crisis is ongoing.

Sam is a legend. In the 70-80s, 500,000 copies were taken a month. The courtroom, Prof. Cheondeuk, Lee Hae-in, Choi In-ho, and Jang Young-hee published the confusing articles in the magazine, and Yeom Moo-woong, Seung-ok Kim, Han-gang, Ho-seung Jeong, and Chae-bong Jeong went through the editorial department here. Is there anyone who doesn't know the red Samtor office building, the symbol of Seoul University Road? Samtor, a liberal arts center for the happiness of ordinary people, was literally a national liberal arts magazine.


2. I opened a speech with the story of Sam, but this article is not about Sam, but about Kim Seong-gu, the publisher of the Sam. If you say the term ‘Sum Geum’, it is not just a person born in a wealthy family, but a person born in a family who can see and learn and enjoy the values ​​of proper culture and art.

Born in 1960, Kim Jae-soon's fourth son, former chairman of the National Assembly, studied in the United States for five and a half years in the early 80s, and worked as a publisher and chief director in 1995 in the Chosun Ilbo reporter. He is also a major shareholder with 60% of the company's stake.

Former National Assembly Speaker Kim Jae-soon, a former member of the 7th National Assembly, was also a major member of the publishing culture world that founded 'Sam'. His father is the chairman of the National Assembly and is a publishing giant, so he does not call him a gold spoon.

Since he was a child, he was drawn by his father and traveled three times to the homes of major writers including Pichondeuk. At that time, he wasn't the only one he received. He grew up receiving knee training from them when he was close to the main writers of the spring, such as Giraseong. It was a precious education that could not be learned even after giving billions of gold, and it was a privilege that only genuine gold spoons could enjoy. He is a disciple and successor who gladly accepted the teachings of these great teachers.

He is the heir to the spiritual heritage of major writers such as the court monk, Sister Lee Hae-in, Professor Young-hee Jang, and author Choi In-ho. He is like an adoptive son of the essayist Prof. Cheondeok Phi, and the writer of Chae Bong Jung.

If you look at the prose collection <Okay, That Mind> published in 2018, you can see why he is the spiritual heir of the legal monk, Sister Lee Hae-in, Professor Picheondeuk, Professor Young-hee Jang, writer Choi In-ho, and author Chae-bong Jeong. Looking at his writings from 2003 to 2018 as a spring publisher, there is a place where the courtroom monk's non-ownership, where the writer Chae-bong Jeong's sadness, where a nun's prayer, and whereabouts a teacher's devotion. Even Choi In-ho's peculiar joke can be felt throughout his writings. If you quote just a short passage, it is like this.

"If you want to change this world of contradiction and ill-natured like a projection, but when you hear the sound of the trees and the wind, your mind will be calm again, and the truth of the world will continue to flow like the wind. You have. "

In 2017, the beginning of the year was the time when millions of candles covered the whole country, and the shouts of anger of millions of people reached the sky. At that time, he was hearing the dry branches and the sound of the cold wind. He doesn't know what he was thinking about then, what he wants and what he wants, but he'll think that it's Sam's spirit to listen to the inaudible winds, not to shout. Whether it's good or not, just looking at this passage, it's clear he's a mental heir beyond Sam's second-generation manager.

As I went to see him, I prepared these questions in advance.

"Speaking of a baseball game, don't you think that you are a losing pitching pitcher with a winning streak already? Is the end of the ball sharp, the speed of the ball is good and the body is good, but if your role is a losing pitcher?"

"I feel old-fashioned to be a way to save the spring you speak. On-off-line linkage, use of content, haven't you talked about a lot of other media? Would you be able to counter this huge flow that is already changing the world?" ? "

"There may be other causes of the crisis that Sam is in charge of, but don't you think it's because of his lack of abilities? Didn't you ever want to pass the publisher's position to someone else?"

To this question, he answered casually, really casually. In the meantime, I felt that the accumulated pits were not simple. It was when he asked this question that he suddenly changed his face color, which was a generous expression like an old-fashioned Doin.

"Did you feel sad when you moved over here to Dongsung-dong's Sam office building in 2017?"

It was a question that I felt like selling a red office building to that wonderful university and feeling sorry for moving to a small and small house in comparison to that. I felt like I was ruined by my lack of family business, so I was very sick. I expected this answer. For some reason, he started thinking about this question.


"There are people who say that, and I ask people like this. Is <Sam> a building? It is not a building. It is a spirit, there is a fountain in our minds. I don't think you know me well. There's no regret for anything like this. I can't say I'm completely free from that, but there's no envy about it. It doesn't really matter. "

In this passage, I was embarrassed. When he said 'I don't know you well', he even stuttered for a moment saying, "Oh yeah ... yeah ... yes." As I was struggling with his unexpected reaction, I suddenly felt like I was a snob. He continued.

"When I moved here from Dongsung-dong, what really hurt me was the separation from my aunts who had served us there for over 30 years. (Samtor was the only company in the domestic publishing company to operate a cafeteria. There were only a few dozen people, but I had a cafeteria, but when I moved to Hyehwa-dong, I removed the cafeteria.) One of them, after my mother, worked for two generations in our company. It hurt my heart, and I wasn't sad to sell a building and move to a rented house. I think this is a fountain. I'm just worried about how long I can drag that fountain and how I can drag it. "

3. If, in the past 50 years, our society has maintained the value of a community that everyone can agree to, despite a great deal of conflict and contention, much of the ball belongs to Sam. The magazine's direction, 'Culture for the Happiness of Ordinary People', is not without claims that it has been overly buried in the values ​​of small citizens and has obscured structural evils. It is true that many people see Sam's intended silence on the major political agendas of our society with a suspicious glance.

However, it is appreciated that Samtor is famous and well-written, but he is not good at writing, but is giving a big seat to those who are warm and warm, and that he has played the role of a friend of difficult and difficult people for 50 years. Deserved It is because of this evaluation that Samtor became a symbol and a camp beyond a magazine. At the center is the representative of Sung-Koo Kim.

CEO Kim Seong-gu is now the biggest crisis in his life. In his words, he is looking at the bottom of his life. The family business, Samter, is about to fall, but will there be a bigger crisis and difficulty for him? When faced with difficulties, a person's personal appearance is revealed. When will a person drowning and drowning in water get picked up? I was curious as to what kind of expressions and attitudes faced the crisis by those who have kept and represented a value of our society. That's why I asked him for an interview.

In an interview, there are times when the other person answers so honestly that the person who asked the question is embarrassed. Kim Seong-gu is such a person. When I was studying in the United States, I wanted to study philosophy, but I gave up because English was difficult, and because of my lack of coverage and writing skills compared to my motives, I quit the newspaper. (If you look at what he wrote, I'm not sure if this part is honest or modest). He quit the newspaper and tried to move to a broadcaster, but gave up on a word from his senior, "You stutter."

I tried to ask why his fourth son, Kim, took over the family business, but he didn't ask because he was going to speak so honestly. Sometimes I wonder, but I don't want to hear it. If asked, he must have answered. Although he said off-the-record as a premise, he also uncovered parts of a family affair that he had not asked.

Just as there is a reason for a person to lie or deceive, there is a good reason for telling him about himself. Why is he so honest?

There are two ways people can defend themselves. The first method is armed with armor. Lies and hypocrisy are mobilized if necessary. Shamelessness is basic.


The second way is to show that you will not harm others. It means that he does not have a dagger to attack the other person, and that he is unarmed. In order to do that, he opens all of himself and shows the inside as it is. I thought that Kim's honesty was a kind of instinct to defend himself.

He once said this in Samtor's editorial policy. First, let's not hurt others by attacking them. Second, self-esteem is just as important as my self-esteem. Respect the pride of others.

I remembered his father, Kim Jae-sun, in this passage. Maybe not wanting to be attacked by others is a kind of trauma caused by the father. During his civilian government, his father regretted his disgrace from the political world, leaving behind the words Tosa-Gupang. Although dedicated to the election of President Kim Young-sam, an old friend, Kim Jae-sun was abandoned by YS. We couldn't stand the media saturation as to whether there was a problem with property formation. Kim Jae-soon never forgot the looks and shocks. If you were dead, you wouldn't even go to the YS when you passed away.

It was Kim Jae-soon, the former president of the National Assembly, who had the impression that he had just jumped out of the forest, so he wondered if the education of his children would have been strict. I left everything to the judgment of my children. Although he entrusted his son to management, Kim Jae-soon regularly went to Samsung, Dongsung-dong even before he passed away. Even though his father said he was not involved in business, Kim Seong-gu said he had fought a lot in some areas.

It was like the fatality of a son who had a successful father, as he emphasized that the father was not intimate by himself or that the father had little involvement in his life. Even without denying his father's influence in his life, he seemed to not stop trying to get out of his father's shadow. We tried to focus on the topic of humans Kim Seong-gu and individual Kim Seong-gu, but our conversation sometimes left Kim Seong-gu and returned to Kim Jae-soon as if he was attracted by the powerful centripetal force <Kim Jae-soon>. It was difficult to discuss the life of Kim Seong-gu, except for his father, Kim Jae-soon.

4. I tried not to pass the interview for as long as 40 minutes. The idea was not to hold onto a busy person for a long time. But the interview, which started at 10 am, ended in a hurry after 100 minutes. There were many questions, but he also had a lot to say. I've been interviewing a lot of these and other media recently, but it was about Sam, not Sung-Koo Kim. He seemed to need someone to listen to. That may be the best comfort to give him, but he seemed to have a lot to say anyway. It wasn't an excuse to say that, but he seemed to want to reveal his position and thoughts in any way. It may be because it is at the bottom of the most difficult period of life.


But who would ask him? You won't be able to tell the staff. After all, he is the one who holds the absolute power in the organization called Sam. However, in other organizations he is involved with, he is the one who should listen to the complaint. He has been a journalist and publisher for 33 years. You have no idea how your words will be cut, bent, split, or changed back and forth. Nevertheless, he probably responded to the request for an interview because he had a lot to say.

It is inevitable that there will be frustration and trials as a gold spoon. Failure and frustration can be more painful because it is a gold spoon. I failed college entrance exams, and reporter life was far from successful. Studying abroad was remembered as a time when he tried hard to do his best, but that was not enough to boast of a success story. Even after entering the spring, it was actually a series of struggles. Betrayed by a trusted employee, the company was agitated and had to send out more than half of the family members who had been troubled by the management crisis. We cannot be proud to have handed over Samtor's office, a legacy of our ancestors and a specialty of our society's memories. For the moment, the biggest responsibility of the company's difficulty in reviewing the closure is also the major shareholder and CEO.

It wasn't a joke to say to someone who said that the floor had been left, so now it's only a matter of springing up, but no one knows if it's the floor he saw, so it's only a bouncing now.

He could dramatically win the game at the end of the ninth and become a winning pitcher-but sincerely hope-but not. People in our society, the gold spoon, didn't look so beautiful when they won, but they became more messy when they lost. When selling the office building and retreating, Kim Seong-gu's appearance did not look shabby or dirty. While pursuing the sale, they declared that they would not sell Samtor's office to people who only want to make money. He said that it was not a matter of getting more or less money.

He seemed to be well aware that success and failure are not a final result but a process. Success is not necessarily a good evaluation, and failure is not a bad evaluation. The life of CEO Kim Seong-gu was struggling with evil, and it is highly possible in the future, but he has been looking for meaning in each process and making happiness, and he will probably do so in the future. When I met him, I thought at first glance whether this was a conservative truth, but it seemed unnecessary to attach a ideological label to him.

An acquaintance who has known Kim Seong-gu since childhood said: Soil cutlery has a virtue unique to gold cutlery that is difficult to understand. The acquaintance seems to be right, but the final evaluation is still early. It remains to be seen that he will have more time for harsh trials, and that his appearance will not change after the time has passed.