Shijiazhuang newspapers in the Republic of China： inaccurate news is common, and they like to exaggerate and seek novelty.
The press in Shijiazhuang was greatly influenced by the Beijing-Tianjin press. In the early 1930s, there were nine foreign newspapers stationed in Shijiazhuang, and the sales of foreign newspapers in Shijiazhuang were also increasing. According to the statistics of Ta Kung Pao reporters in Shijiazhuang, "Tianjin Ta Kung Pao has the largest sales volume, with a daily sales volume of more than 200 copies; More than ten copies of the newspaper; More than 30 copies of Oriental Daily; Shanghai declared more than 30 copies; More than ten news reports; Seventy copies of Beijing (Tianjin) Yishi newspaper; Fifty copies of the vernacular newspaper; Forty small daily newspapers; The rest of North China Daily, World Daily, Qunqiang Daily, Beijing Daily, Morning News, Morning News, Shih Pao and Pinbao have sold more than 50 copies. Since then, it has become more prosperous. " Faced with the pressure from other places, local newspapers in Shijiazhuang compete with foreign newspapers in publishing content, distribution channels and sales prices. At the same time, there is competition among several local newspapers. Whoever wins the first place in layout and printing quality will cause dissatisfaction and tension among other newspapers.
Li Huimin reporter An Wenlian
The Beijing-Tianjin press has a great influence on Shijiazhuang newspapers.
Several local newspapers in Shijiazhuang can’t compete with the newspapers in big cities in terms of overall content, especially domestic and foreign news reports and comments.
Before the "July 7th Incident", the sources of important international and domestic news and commentary of all local newspapers came from the Central News Agency. After the fall of Shijiazhuang, most of the important international and domestic news and commentary articles that newspapers can use came from the telegrams of the Japanese "Allied Society"; After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the important international and domestic news and commentary contents of newspapers mainly copied the news recorded by the Kuomintang Central News Agency by radio.
At that time, Shijiazhuang already had the conditions to send news by telegraph to foreign journalists. The charge for Chinese telegrams was two cents and five cents per word, while that for foreign news telegrams was five cents per word. However, the utilization rate of local newspapers was not high, and most of the users were accredited journalists from foreign newspapers. Later, each newspaper had its own receiver, which could receive and translate telegrams at any time. In 1946, Shimen Daily often published all kinds of news at home and abroad in the name of "the report of the first radio room of this newspaper". Local news is generally contributed by special correspondents of local newspapers abroad, while a large amount of news in some tabloids relies on editing and editing of big newspaper news, with Shanghai News, Guangzhou News and Nanjing News as the news headers, serving as important news sources.
Every newspaper has "visitors"
In the competition of newspaper content, Shijiazhuang newspapers can only be reflected in local news, making a big fuss about local authorities’ notices, social trends, commercial ups and downs, cases of robbery and robbery, anecdotes of entertainers and civil conflict lawsuits.
Newspapers generally have "reporters", and most of them get information materials from chambers of commerce, police stations, trade associations and other departments or organs. During the Republic of China, Mr. Di Zhong, who worked as a reporter and editor in several newspapers in Shijiazhuang, said in his memoirs that the main organs and units he interviewed in that year were the social science department, the education department, the administrative department of the municipal police station, the court, the publicity department of the 11th Commission, the municipal chamber of commerce, banks, banks and Daxing cotton mill.
In the 1930s, Business Daily systematically reported the contents of all previous meetings of Shimen Chamber of Commerce and trade associations, and tracked and reported all kinds of notices and cases detected by the police station in detail. At that time, the number of employees in newspapers was generally small, and often one person held several jobs, working as a reporter, editing and even proofreading. After the Kuomintang took over the Shimen Daily, "there are only one or two reporters, and seven or eight articles have to be handed in every day". Therefore, it is extremely common to reprint the contents of other newspapers or simply edit and process some ready-made articles provided by local authorities.
Due to the shortage of reporters who go out to interview, the shortage of press releases, and the lack of professional quality and social responsibility of journalists, some hearsay news is compiled and distributed to newspapers without any investigation and verification, which leads to the low quality of most newspaper manuscripts and the phenomenon of inaccurate news often occurs. For example, when the People’s Liberation Army annihilated Hu Zongnan and his men and recovered Yan ‘an, the press release issued by Shijiazhuang newspaper still said that "Yan ‘an was impregnable and the communists suffered heavy casualties". On the eve of the liberation of Shijiazhuang, the third army of Chiang Kai-shek’s direct forces was completely annihilated in the battle of Qingfengdian in Baoding, and all the commanders and deputy commanders were captured alive. However, the press release still ignored the facts and reported that the national army had won a total victory and the third army had successfully returned to Shijiazhuang.
Pursuing the effect, reporting the adventure and novelty
Anecdotes and anecdotes are a means for newspapers to attract readers. During the Republic of China, Shijiazhuang newspapers "described in detail the incidents of murder, fire, grand theft, grand fraud, etc. reported from police stations, courts or social contacts, so as to make people feel sensational, thus attracting readers and expanding newspaper distribution."
In order to increase the attractiveness of newspapers, some newspapers even paid the price of distortion. At that time, people in the press unilaterally believed that the more thrilling and bizarre it was, the more newsworthy it was. Therefore, during the Republic of China, unconventional social news topics were common in Shijiazhuang newspapers, some of which were simply to cater to them.
The general public class people’s curiosity reading preferences, and some also published some "articles touting celebrities or prostitutes." In 1933, in order to attract the public’s attention, Shimen Daily held the first evaluation of famous prostitutes in Shimen, and selected 12 famous prostitutes in Shimen, including President of Huaguo, Vice President of Huaguo, based on flowers, Baoxing, Venus, Silver Star, Red Star, Yellow Star, Blue Star, White Star, Purple Star and Yaxing. In the news published in the newspaper, many reports are about cases of theft, hooliganism, drug abuse, gambling and assassination in urban society.
In the Business Daily in 1930s, you can often see reports of social disputes and lawsuits such as Why Hit a Woman in the Face Again, Son Fraudulent Mother, A Girl’s Weird Behaviour Senses Tourists, How can a Crazy Woman Make a scene in Wu Gong Temple, and Coal-black Staging of Men’s and Women’s Martial Arts Drama. In order to pursue the news attraction, newspapers are inevitably mixed with mud and sand, which seriously pollutes the social and cultural air. Therefore, during the Republic of China, all kinds of newspapers in Shijiazhuang generally had the characteristics of "except exaggeration and distortion, they are dazzling".
When running a newspaper in vernacular Chinese, use the comma to the end.
In the early 1930s, Shimen Daily was published in four editions, the first edition was news, the second edition was a serial of novels, the third edition was a supplement and the fourth edition was social news. Zheng Yan Bao also has four editions, but the layout is slightly different. The second edition is a supplement and the third edition is a special supplement.
In the late 1930s, Shimen New Newspaper was published in folio every day. Later, due to a slight shortage of paper sources, it was changed to folio every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and folio every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The first edition is news, the second edition is local news, the third edition is local news, and the fourth edition is a supplement. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the first edition of Shimen Daily is news and editorials at home and abroad, the second edition is social news of this city, the third edition is a supplement, and the fourth edition is an advertisement. Awakening People Daily, founded in 1945, is also a tabloid with four editions and four editions, without its own characteristics.
In 1928, the National Government stipulated the unified use of punctuation marks. Since then, Shijiazhuang newspapers and periodicals have been founded, and all of them are in ordinary vernacular, so it is not difficult to read broken sentences. However, the general use of punctuation in newspapers is often a tease to the end, with commas in the whole paragraph, or a sentence to the end, or a full stop in the whole paragraph. From the aspect of layout design, the first edition of the newspaper has 14 columns, each column is 120 lines with 10 words in each row. Most newspapers have always been mechanical and lack artistry, and the text is arranged vertically from right to left. At that time, newspapers were all printed with movable type, and there was no paper type. When the type was continuously worn, the handwriting was often blurred and the printing quality was relatively poor. In the 1930s, some small newspapers often used different font sizes because of their incomplete font sizes. For example, titles of different sizes often appear in Business Daily, which seriously affects the aesthetic effect of the layout. After the 1940s, especially in some big newspapers, there have been obvious changes in newspaper type, edition number, opening, layout arrangement, edition design, title making and so on.