Shao Piaoping - Contribution To Journalism - Jingbao

Jingbao

Jingbao was set up in October 1918 with two main objectives: 1. to provide an independent platform for the public to express their opinions and 2. to act against the malpractices of contemporary journalism, such as reporting faulty and biased news. When "Jing Bao" was first launched, he wrote the famous slogan "Tie Jian La Shou" (鐡肩辣手） which literally means "iron shoulders and critical hands", meaning that it is the newspaper's responsibility to criticize whatever unjust in the society. He hoped to remind himself and his co-workers to retain the essence of journalism, namely a critical manner and objectively.

At the early stage, Jingbao mainly reported news concerning social issues, the economy, finance, diplomacy, education, art and literature. In addition, it acted as a means to deliver notice from the government. In its later stage political and military news, sino-foreign relationships and culture were also the focus of Jing Bao. With its revolutionary way of reporting and its diverse coverage, Jingbao became a popular newspaper at that time in Beijing.

In order to enrich the contents of the paper, supplementary papers including Little Jingbao (小京報) and Jingbao supplementary paper (京報副刊) were added. Famous writers such as Lu Xun (魯迅) and Sun Fu Yuan (孫伏園)also wrote for the supplementary papers.

Jingbao supplementary paper includes different topics ranging from social science, economy, literature, science to religion. It emphasizes the freedom of speech and encourages people to voice out their opinions. One of its major functions was to allow young writers to express their opinions. This laid the foundation to the establishment of The Journalism Study Society of Beijing University(北京大學新聞研討會).