Alongside its more popular rival Djawa Tengah, it was highly influential among the Chinese Indonesian population of Semarang during this time.
In its early years the paper billed itself as the mouthpiece of the Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan, a diasporic Chinese education movement.
In 1903 one of the paper's journalists, Oh Boen Kwie, was arrested and fled his sentence of a month of chain-gang labour for fraud; he was also accused of printing a slanderous article in the pages of Warna Warta.
[3] The charges relating to that article were then filed against the editor, Njoo Goan Sioe; apparently it mentioned that a local official had been arrested for fraud.
Apparently the article accused Tio of throwing a laving feast during the period of mourning after the death of the Guangxu Emperor the previous November.
Kho Tjoen Wan, a close ally of the communist Semaoen, was called to court in 1920 for writing critically about proposals for a native militia in the Indies.
[17][18] Tjondrokoesoemo, an upper class Javanese journalist, briefly became editor at Warna Warta in 1921 after clashing with his bosses at Djawa Tengah over matters of editorial independence.
[23] While in preventative detention he was handed a statement by a local prosecutor which he was invited to sign, stating that he would not publish such forbidden pieces in the future.
[24] The tone of Lauw's criticism of the government was deemed to be too harsh and he was reminded in court that he had promised in a past press censorship case to behave himself.
[29] In March 1933, Warna Warta renamed itself Djit Po; Ong Lee Soei remained as director[30] and Tan Hoa Bouw became editor.