ABSTRACT
The murder of Lianying (?–1920), one of the winners of the 1917 courtesan election, in 1920 is the subject for scrutiny in this chapter. In the early Republican times, when Chinese newspapers had yet to hire professional, full-time correspondents to report local news, rumors and gossip played a key role as a supplier of news in town. I thus address a peculiar journalistic practice in China—namely, the confluence between the rumor and the news. Furthermore, the enormous attention that the case received enables me to examine the complex interaction between the newspaper and other means of communication and representation. My research points out that the newspaper began to play a pivotal role as a source of information and inspiration for other communicational and entertainment genres in urban culture at this historical juncture. Such a network of communication in turn contributed to the expansion of journalistic public sphere(s) to reach a wide audience.
