Shen Bao
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| Type | Commercial Newspaper |
|---|---|
| Owner(s) | Ernest Major |
| Founded | April 30, 1872 |
| Language | Chinese |
| Ceased publication | May 27, 1949 |
| Headquarters | Shanghai |
Shen Bao, formerly transliterated as Shun Pao or Shen-pao (Chinese: 申報; pinyin: Shēn Bào), known in English as Shanghai News, was a newspaper published from April 30, 1872 to May 27, 1949 in Shanghai, China. The name is short for Shenjiang Xinbao, Shenjiang being a short form of Chunshen Jiang, the old name for the Huangpu River.
The influence of the newspaper in early 20th century Shanghai was such that Shen Bao zhi, literally "Shen-pao paper", became a generic term for newspaper or newsprint.
Founded by Ernest Major (1841–1908), a British businessman, in 1872, Shen Bao was one of the first modern Chinese newspapers. (When Major returned to England in 1889, the newspaper was reorganized as Major Company Limited.)
Major differentiated himself from other foreign newspaper publishers in two areas. First, from the outset, he made it clear that the new newspaper would be for Chinese readers, and thus that it would emphasize news and issues of interest to Chinese, not foreigners. Secondly, he put Chinese compradors in charge of running the business and let Chinese editors pick news items and write editorials. These two methods proved very effective. While the Chinese compradors used their knowledge of and connections with the local community to raise circulation and attract advertisements, they kept the price of the paper lower than that of its competitor. Simultaneously, Chinese editors did a better job of making Shen Bao appeal to Chinese readers' taste. Within one year, Shen Bao had put Shanghai Xinbao out of business and become the only Chinese newspaper in Shanghai until the appearance of Xin Bao in 1876 and Hu Bao in 1882.
Shen Bao played a pivotal role in the formation of public opinion in the late 19th century. An example is its campaign in its first years against the new practice of employing young women as waitress in opium dens, which "blurred the demarcation line between acceptable and unacceptable practices by putting waitresses in the ambiguous position of implicitly providing sex services in the opium dens. Worse still, the opium dens embracing this practice were mostly located in the French Concession, connecting the issue to the presence of foreigners in Shanghai." As a result of the uproar, the practice was banned (although in practice not eradicated). The newspaper "innovated in printing technology, the use of the telegraph, the employment of a military correspondent (sent to cover the Sino-French War in Vietnam in 1884), and the use of the vernacular (baihua)"; it quickly established a reputation as one of the best in China, coming under Chinese ownership in 1909, and by the early 20th century was printing 30,000 copies a day, 9,000 circulated in Shanghai and the rest elsewhere in China. "By the early 1920s its circulation was 50,000; by the end of the decade 100,000; and by the mid 1930s, 150,000." The paper's offices were in the International Settlement, "about a block away from the Central Police Station." In its early period, it had eight pages, with news, essays, and advertisements as well as imperial decrees and memorials. "Because the editorial policies followed the principle of 'reporting whatever possible and letting the readers determine the truth,' many interesting but unfounded rumors were often included as news." After 1905, it increased its size to 20 pages.
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