Early years (1949-1982)

Jawa Pos was founded by The Chung Shen, or Suseno Tedjo, on July 1, 1949, under the name Djava-Post. At the time, The Chung Shen was a movie ads employee in a cinema in Surabaya. Because every day he had to advertise the movies in newspapers, he was interested in creating his own newspaper. After the success of the Djava-Post, The Chung Shen then created two other newspapers, the Chinese-language Hwa Chiao Sien Wen and Dutch-language de Vrije Pers.

30 years later, The Chung Shen's newspaper business was not worked as well. In the late 1970s, the Jawa Pos turnover was decline sharply. In 1982, the circulation was just 6,800. His two other paper had already been folded. When he was 80 years old, The Chung Shen decided to sell Jawa Pos. He was no longer able to take care of the company, and his three children lived in London.

Takeover and rising (1982-present)

In 1982, Eric F.H. Samola, who at the time was a director of PT Grafiti Pers (the publisher of Tempo) took over Jawa Pos. With the new management, Eric appointed Dahlan Iskan, who had been head of bureau of Tempo in Surabaya, to lead the paper. After the acquisition, the circulation of Jawa Pos increased and by the 1990s, circulation reached 350,000 copies. During that time, Jawa Pos was one of the largest-selling newspapers in Indonesia.

In 1987, Jawa Pos formed the Jawa Pos News Network (JPNN), one of the largest newspaper chains in Indonesia, which has more than 80 newspapers, tabloids, and magazines, as well as 40 printing network throughout the country. In 1997, Jawa Pos moved to a new 21-storey building, Graha Pena, which become one of the skyscrapers in Surabaya. In 2002, the Graha Pena building in Jakarta was built, and now there is a Graha Pena building in almost all regions in Indonesia.

Starting August 23, 2020 edition, the Sunday edition of Jawa Pos changed its format from seven-column broadsheet to tabloid.^[5]