ABSTRACT
The checkered history of objective reporting in China reflects a clashing and fusing of Chinese and Western cultures as well an intense dispute over the function of the media within different political factions and their place in the context of ideological trends. The principles of objective reporting, like the form of the modern Chinese press, were also introduced from the West. China's harsh sociopolitical climate, however, hindered the successful introduction of objective reporting in China. The logic that newspapers must stand firmly for class positions advocated by the Chinese Communist Party leadership resulted in severe attacks on objective reporting as being "supraclass" and led to the expulsion of thousands of reporters from their profession. The Historical Records style was the dominant mode of Chinese newspaper reporting. Modern Chinese newspapers were transplanted from the West. Before the 1890s Chinese papers were usually run by foreigners—first missionaries and subsequently businessmen.
