Journalism and the Campaign to Shape Public Opinion

Not for distribution or citation

Prepared for: Symposium on Urban Cultural Institutions in Early Twentieth Century China

Ohio State University, April 13, 2002

Scholar-journalists of the May Fourth Era:

Forging a New Sensibility and a New Professional Identity

Timothy Weston

Department of History

University of Colorado at Boulder

One of the fields of knowledge that intellectuals focused on during the May Fourth period was journalism, or xinwenxue.　　 In this paper I discuss intellectuals’ efforts at that time to foster a fresh identity and role for journalists.　 These were to be based on the transmission of new norms and standards for journalism that were consistent with the New Culture ethos.　 Those endeavoring to transform the journalistic field also concentrated on the cultivation of professional attitudes, networks and practices.　 Scholars have long been aware that May Fourth-era intellectuals sought to expand the influence of their ideas by means of the so-called new literature and by publishing widely in journals and newspapers.　 My findings suggest that May Fourth intellectuals not only staked out positions on controversial political, social and cultural issues in the popular press, but that they also sought to transform the practice of journalism itself, so that newspapers and journals and those who produced them participated in a common profession oriented, fundamentally, in a politically progressive direction　

To be sure, Chinese intellectuals had thought about journalism’s social role and appreciated the linkage between politics and journalism well before the May Fourth Movement.　 The careers of Liang Qichao and Yan Fu, to name just two of the most influential turn-of-the-century scholar-journalists, were in fact largely based on the assumption―which of course proved correct―that newspapers and magazines can serve as an effective medium through which to communicate political ideas.　 Early twentieth-century publications such as Subao, Shibao, and Xinmin congbao were either explicitly political organs or else regularly printed unmistakably political material.　 The 1911 Revolution cannot be understood apart from the role played by the late-Qing press.　 Late-Qing scholar-journalists used the press in order to achieve political ends.　 Though my research is preliminary, I believe that in general it is accurate to claim that they did not devote significant time to journalism as a subject of critical study in its own right.　 Liang Qichao and other figures did write on the topic, but not as systematically as men such as Xu Baohuang (1894-1930) and Shao Piaoping (1886-1926), the May Fourth-era pioneers of the modern Chinese academic discipline of journalism on whom I focus here.　

The Beijing University Journalism Study Society

Cai Yuanpei recruited Xu Baohuang to Beijing University to serve as his personal secretary soon after he took over as chancellor in 1917.　 At the time Xu was a twenty-three-year-old recent graduate of the University of Michigan, where he had majored in economics and journalism.　 In 1918, with Cai Yuanpei’s enthusiastic backing, Xu founded the Beijing University Journalism Study Society (Xinwenxue yanjiuhui), an extracurricular organization that offered the first formal training in journalism in Chinese history. [1]　 Cai also hired Shao Piaoping, a Zhejiang native in his early 30s who had spent time in Japan during the Yuan Shikai period, to share teaching duties with Xu.　 For the past several years Shao had been serving as the Beijing correspondent for Shenbao (Shanghai journal), Shanghai’s oldest newspaper and the one with the largest circulation.　 The position of special correspondent in the capital was the highest that a journalist could achieve; only a handful of other journalists were as esteemed by intellectuals at this time.　

But not everyone at the university believed that scholars should engage in journalistic writing.　 There was a residual feeling among many men of letters in the 1910s that journalistic writing was beneath the dignity of a true scholar.　 The conviction that men of learning should be concerned first and foremost with the Classics and scholarly endeavors, understanding and appreciation of which distinguished them from others in society, continued to influence thinking on these matters.　 For example, many professors opposed Cai Yuanpei’s appointment of Chen Duxiu to serve as dean of humanities at Beida in 1917 because they believed that journalists lacked credentials for academic work.　 To such people scholarship was one thing and writing about current events in vernacular language for periodicals and newspapers another, lesser, thing altogether.　 In defending the appointment Cai Yuanpei accepted Chen Duxiu’s critics’ standard of judgement by arguing that Chen was in fact a highly accomplished exegetical scholar and that no less an authority than Zhang Taiyan held him in high esteem.[2]　

The Journalism Study Society thus marked a significant shift in the conception of the proper role of the intellectual.　 At its opening meeting in October 1918, Xu Baohuang asserted that newspapers had a responsibility not just to cover the news but also to represent and nurture public opinion, develop knowledge, promote morality, and advance industry.　 Xu left no doubt that he viewed journalism as a powerful force for moral and political change, and said that when they joined together newspapers could influence even governments that had no respect for public opinion.　 He reminded his audience of Liang Qichao’s claim that newspapers played a critical role in bringing about the 1911 Revolution―in Liang’s words, a “revolution of ink, not a revolution of blood.”[3]　 In later weeks Xu Baohuang delivered a series of lectures on the art of being a reporter.　 These covered topics such as how to identify news, how to conduct interviews, the role of news agencies, and the importance of editorials.　 The lectures appeared in Beida’s school newspaper, and the following year they were re-published in textbook form by the Commercial Press.

After the Journalism Study Society was founded, Shao Piaoping was hired to share teaching duties with Xu Baohuang.　 Thereafter, in addition to Xu’s thrice-weekly evening lectures, students also attended a Sunday afternoon session led by Shao.　 Shao was a man of passionate convictions who believed deeply in the need for social justice and political renewal.　 In October 1918 he had established Jing bao (Peking Press) to combat the influence of newspapers that were controlled by and represented the interests of particular political parties.　 In the first issue of that newspaper he wrote that the country was in disarray and that the citizenry was powerless.　 To help overcome that powerlessness, he declared it his intention to teach people about politics so that they would join together to demand moral leadership and an end to imperialist and warlord domination.　 Shao was a talented and tenacious reporter; his energy and heroic personality made him the spiritual soul of the Journalism Study Society, which in the months leading up to the May Fourth demonstration attracted a significant number of idealistic and politically engaged students―including Mao Zedong.

Indeed, interest in the subject and practice of journalism was widespread at Beida at this time.　 Guomin zazhi (Citizen Magazine) published an article by Xu Baohuang in which he stressed the importance of newspaper editorial pages, and in the first issue of Xinchao (New Tide) Luo Jialun criticized Chinese newspapers for their shallowness and for contributing to the erosion of morality by publishing stories about lascivious subjects and advertisements for dubious medical products.[4] 　　In addition, many students were moonlighting as journalists.　 For example, Chen Gongbo, who was elected to serve on the executive committee of the Journalism Study Society in February, 1919, served as a correspondent for newspapers in his native province of Guangdong, while Cheng Shewo, a Hunanese native who entered Beida in 1918, worked as an editor for Yishi bao.[5]　 Shao Piaoping also published many student articles in Jing bao, and following the reorganization of Beijing’s Chen bao (Morning Post) in December 1918, and its addition of a literary supplement in February 1919, Beida’s students and professors also began to publish articles in that newspaper with frequency.[6]

The Earliest Chinese-authored Journalism Textbooks

Xu Baohuang and Shao Piaoping each published textbooks based on the lectures they delivered at Beijing University; Xu’s Xinwenxue (Basics of Journalism), published in 1919, was the first book focused on the discipline of journalism published by a Chinese person; Shao’s Shiji yingyong xinwenxue (Practical Applied Journalism) appeared in 1923.[7]　 Each textbook, like the lectures on which they were based, in turn, reflected the studies of the role and practice of newspaper journalism in Western countries that the two men undertook while in the United States and Japan, respectively.　 Both textbooks reinforce a key idea that Xu and Shao sought to convey to their students: namely, that journalism can be an honorable profession and that it is critically important.　 In addressing this subject, both men made clear that they agreed with contemporary critics of the journalistic profession.　 Wrote Shao Piaoping:

Most people who serve as reporters know nothing about journalism and have received no training or instruction.　 They do not intend to make [journalism] their long-term careers, but instead view the work as something they have no choice but to do as they search for another line of work.　 They gather news surreptitiously and do not even announce themselves as newspaper reporters.　 All of this results in their getting no respect from politicians or society and in their own belief that the work they are performing is of no importance.[8]

In addition to these points, Shao and Xu observed that Chinese newspaper men commonly printed gossip as though it was hard news, rarely conducted interviews, reported whatever political or business patrons want them to report―in other words, were for sale―and rarely knew how to write clearly.　 They also noted that China’s newspapers were full of scandalous and lewd stories and deceitful advertising, and showed little regard for the difference between editorial commentary and news reporting.　 Little wonder, then, that the field was held in such low esteem, and that intellectuals did not aspire to careers in journalism!

The points of all this criticism was to persuade idealistic young intellectuals that they could contribute to the improvement of Chinese society by electing to pursue careers in journalism.　 If they were to apply their knowledge, moral values, and skill as writers, China’s newspapers could be transformed into respectable and highly influential sources of information and opinion.　 Shao and Xu both sought to convince their audience that people who saw themselves as scholars, with all the elitist baggage that that social status involved, were exactly the kind of people who could help Chinese newspapers live up to their potential.　 Shao stated explicitly that in terms of its social status, journalism shared a place with other newly emergent professions such as medicine and law.[9]　 However, as he and Xu Baohuang presented it, newspaper work was a particularly noble calling, one that called for the services of the best and brightest.　 To be a good journalist, both men suggested, required precisely the characteristics that made a good scholar: strong moral character, the courage to stand up for what is right, wide learning, skill with the written form of the Chinese language, and the ability to speak and read foreign languages.　 Xu Baohuang referred to journalism as a “sacred profession” (shensheng shiye), made a point of stating that newspapers in Europe and the United States sought to hire college graduates, and implored Chinese college graduates to enter the profession.[10]

The textbooks also conveyed directly political messages consistent with the spirit of the New Culture Movement.　 For example, in discussing the duty of newspapers to represent public opinion, Xu Baohuang stated that Western governments generally gave great weight to public opinion, and therefore paid attention to the positions taken by leading newspapers.　 The Chinese government, he lamented, did not value public opinion and was only too willing to shut down newspapers that published material it considered troublesome.　 No doubt Shao would have agreed with Xu, who wrote that if all the newspapers in the country spoke out at the same time, then even if the government interfered, it would not succeed in suppressing public opinion.

Shao Piaoping’s work also contained politically barbed commentary and, like Xu Baohuang’s, his explanations of journalistic practices were full of political ramifications.　 For instance, Shao’s politics are on view in the section of his textbook devoted to the subject of “social news” (shehui xinwen).　 Shao, who was a member of the fledgling Chinese Communist Party at the time he published his textbook, argued that Chinese newspapers placed undue emphasis on politics, diplomatic relations and finance and failed to recognize that social news was often more important or broad in its implications than news about more limited, traditional subject matter.　 In countries with a mature press, Shao claimed, newspapers had special bureaus dedicated to social news and recognized the close connections between events in the political and social spheres.

For this reason, reporters in other countries welcomed assignments that required them to conduct social research, something that Shao believed Chinese intellectuals, with their stubborn prejudices, could not appreciate.　 It is important, he said, to realize that all reporters play an important role, regardless of whether they write about politics and famous people or about the plight of people living in poor, out of the way villages.　 A reporter’s success was not to be judged according to the type of people and level of society about which he wrote, in other words, but instead according to the effectiveness with which he wrote about his subject matter, whatever it might be.　 Related to this, Shao emphasized that reporters need to be able to talk to any and everyone, from the wealthiest and most powerful to the poorest and most oppressed, since one needs to understand the perspectives and experiences of all sorts of people in order to fully grasp society.　 This required reporters to behave politely toward even the most down and out people and to recognize that such people had something of value to share with them.[11]

　　　　　 To add specificity to this discussion, Shao Piaoping included a fascinating list of the social zones that he considered it essential for newspapers to cover.　 Some examples can provide a sense of the range of subjects that Shao considered newsworthy precisely because, by understanding them, it was possible to gain deeper knowledge of society as a whole.　 Shao identified the current plight of Beijing’s Bannermen, who had sunk into poverty, as an important topic, as he did the illicit trade in opium, the conditions that rickshaw pullers labored under, labor tensions, the state of the city’s prisons, the types of people who visited libraries and trends in reading tastes, the state of homeless shelters and orphanages, the conditions that prostitutes faced, life in the slums, the activities of religious devotees (here Shao seemed to share the general disdain for popular religion that marked the May Fourth generation), and so forth.　 Shao also asserted that it was important for newspapers to employ females, and that for some kinds of reporting―namely, stories that involved family or women’s issues―women were better suited for the work than men.　 Shao’s concern with social news was obviously closely tied to his progressive political beliefs; he believed it important for newspapers to call such topics to the public’s attention and hoped that doing so would speed up the search for solutions to the human suffering that he saw all around him.　

　　　　　 In laying out categories of analysis with regard to social news reporting, Shao Piaoping was of course doing what authors of textbooks often do, and what Xu Baohuang also did in his work: dividing an academic discipline into its constituent parts and principles and discussing those in a point by point manner.　 The objective and conceit of textbooks as a literary genre is to survey entire fields of knowledge and to convey a detached and scientific viewpoint on that field―one whose authority, because it is typically not subjected to questioning from within the text itself, is generally accepted by readers.　 Textbooks are often presented as speaking in the voice of the profession itself, or as summing up the current state of knowledge, and in this way can come across as unassailable to the beginning students who comprise their target audience.

　　　　　 In the case of Xu Baohuang and Shao Piaoping’s textbooks, this power was all the more pronounced because Xu and Shao were working in virgin territory.　 Their textbooks were the first to appear in China and thus, in a very real sense, they had the field of academic journalism to themselves at the time of its birth.　 While it is difficult to know how students interpreted Xu’s Basics of Journalism or Shao’s Practical Applied Journalism, it is clear that in instructing their students about how to be good journalists Xu and Shao both took it upon themselves to explain what kinds of problems and phenomena warranted attention.　 As Shao Piaoping’s list of the zones where social news could be found suggests, this could involve the radical reorienting of a person’s sense of what mattered in the world and where one should look for insight into society’s make-up and evolution.　 As self-proclaimed representatives of a newly professionalized journalism who made clear in their textbooks that they had spent time abroad studying their subject, Xu and Shao were both able to command authority.　 What they were teaching was a science and thus the categories into which they divided the world were objective ones, and these they presented in a manner that made it likely that they would become naturalized in their students’ minds.

However, the authors did more than draw a new map of the social universe.　 They also told their readers how to approach their subjects, that is, how to prepare for interviews, what kinds of questions to ask, what kinds of people to talk to, how to dress, how to read facial expressions, how to draw meaning from seemingly incidental details, and so on.　 As Xu Baohuang wrote, collecting materials was not something to be done haphazardly; there was a science to the process.[12]　 By becoming familiar with that science, a reporter could learn how to extract meaning from things that ordinary people, lacking the proper approach, would miss, and he could also learn how to present his material so that readers would understand the implications of what they were reading.　 Xu Baohuang devotes a considerable amount of time to the seemingly arid topic of how to write effective headlines.　 When all is said and done, it is evident that Xu’s lesson about headlines is about both logic―how to divide a story into its levels of significance through the art of outlining, that is, the use of primary titles and subtitles―and about psychology―how to grab the reader’s attention and make them want to read the story.[13]　 Both science and art are involved here, as well as value judgements and political choices.　 While it is unlikely that Xu or Shao would have disagreed with this, each of them writes as though he is confident that he shares a common political and moral point of view with his readers, and for that reason these issues do not receive critical discussion.　　　　

Toward Professionalization

　　　　　 In October 1919 fifty-five students graduated from the Beijing University Journalism Study Society.[14]　 The ceremony to mark the occasion combined political progressive messages with others that showed a concern with professionalization.　 In his remarks Xu Baohuang emphasized that, unlike other professions, journalism was a wide-open field; at present, according to his calculations, China had some five hundred newspapers for one thousand plus counties.　 If, as he expected, every country soon had its own newspaper, that would double the number of jobs in the field.　　 What better way to land a good career and help the country at the same time?　 Next, Chen Gongbo, a veteran journalist from Guangdong and a member of the study society’s graduating class, delivered remarks that reinforced Xu Baohuang’s.　 Chen concentrated on the importance of a reporter’s being moral and stressed that whereas before the 1911 Revolution newspaper reporters were held in high esteem, afterwards they had fallen prey to a number of corrupting practices and thus had fallen into disrepute as a group.[15]　 Chen effectively communicated a distinct sense of “us versus them”―that is, the idea that some people are moral enough and well enough trained to be members in good standing of the journalism profession while others are not.

As the peak of the May Fourth Movement came and went some New Culture leaders became critical of faddishness and intellectual laziness within the movement itself.　 For example, student leaders at Beida greeted the proliferation of student journals with reservation.　 In October 1920 a group of students founded Piping (Criticism), a journal circulated by Shanghai’s Minguo ribao (Republican Times).　 Clearly reacting to what they perceived as the shallowness of much New Culture writing, the journal’s founders asserted that unless criticism was based in research it could not qualify as real criticism, and that too few so-called critics were willing to reflect honestly on their own weaknesses.　 In an article entitled “The Defects and Bankruptcy of the So-called ‘New Culture Movement,’” Miu Jinyuan lashed out at classmates who insisted on publishing articles even though they had nothing new to say.[16]　 In December 1920 another group of Beida students founded Pinglun zhi pinglun (Commentary on Commentary), in which they exhibited as little patience for trendiness and dilettantism as those who wrote for Piping.　 The Pinglun zhi pinglun group, too, seemed intent on distinguishing itself from the mainstream of the New Culture Movement in order to elevate their own importance and influence.[17]　

A new field of power had come into play, which meant that not everyone who dressed himself up as a journalist could be accorded a place at the table.　 In the competition for audience share certain people and voices had to be excluded, or at least labeled inferior.　 While a degree or certificate in journalism was not yet considered necessary in order to become a good journalist, a kind of guild mentality was beginning to take shape nevertheless.　 This is seen in the two lengthy articles on the relative strengths and weaknesses of Beijing’s newspapers that Chen Guyuan and Zhou Changxian published in Commentary on Commentary.　 Not surprisingly, Chen and Zhou had few positive things to say about most newspapers, finding them vapid in the extreme, politically uninspired, full of unsubstantiated rumors, and all too willing to publish gossip about prostitutes and advertisements for medical products of dubious value.　 As tools for educating and lifting up the common people, the two Beida students declared, most newspapers in the capital―and, by extension, all of China―were utterly worthless.[18]　 The obvious point of this kind of attack was to suggest that both journal and newspaper work should be left to those who are qualified to do it―New Culture intellectuals.　

Although the Beijing University Journalism Study Society became defunct just after the May Fourth demonstrations, student interest in and involvement with journalism did not slow down.　 By early 1922 so many Beida students―well over 200―were working for newspapers that they established a Beida xinwen jizhe tongzhihui (Beida Reporters’ Society) to look out for their collective interests.[19]　 At the opening meeting of that group Xu Baohuang spoke of two classes of people in society: the class that possessed guns and the one that did not.　 The only weapon the class that did not possess guns had at its disposal, according to Xu, was journalism.　 Alone, no journalist could take on the class with guns, but if journalists united together in recognition of their common professional interests, they could put up a fight.　 Xu commended the new Beida Reporters’ Society and expressed the hope that all of China’s journalists would soon follow suit, thereby creating a strong profession and a powerful voice for political reform.[20]　 Li Dazhao also offered comments that day.　 In the past, said Li, China’s press had so many failings because those who worked in the field had no understanding of society’s workings.　 Li felt optimistic that so many Beida students were currently working as journalists, for as university students they were acquiring broad educations that would enable them to make a difference in the world, especially if they entered the journalism profession.　 Like Xu Baohuang, Li cheered the founding of the Beida Reporters’ Society.　 He believed it would foster a sense of common identity among its members and serve as a vehicle for the exchange of knowledge, both about the practice of journalism and about society as a whole.[21]　 As will be noted, the emergence of a new consciousness about journalism and new professional identity networks for reporters coincided with New Culture politics and the desire of intellectuals to expand their influence in society.　　 The May Fourth era did not give birth to journalism as a cultural institution, but it seems clearly to have been a time when that cultural institution took on new trappings and an increasingly professionalized aura.　　

(My apologies―some of the endnotes do not contain full citations).