Liberalist In Action

Hu Shih is known as a thinker, educator and philosopher. But he is also frequently referred to as a practitioner of the press by people from this industry for his another identity, a non-professional journalist. However, he has engaged in editing, establishing and writing for over 20 newspapers and magazines, a quantity making him a figure with influence no less than any other professional journalists in China’s history of newspaper. Hu Shih was well connected with numerous politicians and celebrities such as Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao,Jiang Menglin, Ding Wenjiang, Pan Guangdan, Wang Yunsheng, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek.They shared a common interest in the importance of newspaper propaganda and provided fuel for Hu Shih’s ideas of journalism.Hu Shih has perfected his idea of journalism through practicing in journalism.Hu Shih’s ideas of journalism deserve further investigation as he had long been engaged in journalism and his widespread reformist idea had huge influence in China. His beliefs in the freedom and independence of the press, toleration and the quality of the journalists, his appeals for the truthfulness and timeliness of news and his advocating for literature and art supplement and liberal discussion are still influencing the current press.Hu Shih, as an extreme returnee, once called himself a cosmopolitan who was in pursuit of a fully westernized China. Annoyed by the rule of the Northern Warlords, he averted politics for a time and pledged on the New Youth magazine that "I will not talk about or be engaged in politics in the next 20 years." This attitude was disdained by Chen Duxiu who advocated revolution. He led the famous discussion of "problem and doctrine", in which liberalism and Marxism soon gained a national fame in China. The outbreak of the war of resistance against Japan drew him into politics again as a bear of the banner of independence. He and other influential thinkers, armed with thoughts and assisted by press propaganda, successfully set off rounds of heated discussion and help politicians in power to recognize the importance of the media.This paper begins with the induction of two of Hu Shih’s fundamental thoughts, namely, liberalism and Pragmatism. This part serves the second part as it helps the summary of Hu Shih’s journalism thoughts. Then, Hu Shih’s correspondence and diaries are analyzed in accordance with historical facts. This analysis is summarized with Hu Shih’s four ideas of journalism:freedom of journalism as the key, independence of journalism as the fundamental requirement, tolerance of difference as a channel, and timeliness and column design and quality of journalists as a guarantee. The latter three are supporting analysis of freedom of journalism which is the key of his idea. The third chapter makes a comparison of Hu Shih’s idea of journalism with two contemporary thinkers, Chen Duxiu and Ding Wenjiang and it is found that Hu’s idea of journalism is pro liberal, independence of speech, literature and arts, and talents.Chen was chosen for his peculiarity in journalism ideas with Hu Shih among peek intellects while Ding was chosen for his unique attention paid on economic foundation and his awareness of the importance of fund flow in the protection of free speech and running of a newspaper. Finally, this paper finds out three thoughts which had great impacts on Hu Shih’s ideas. These are:traditional Confucianism, the influence of Hui Culture and Family Culture, Huxley’s Agnosticism and Dewey’s experimentalism. The last chapter draws a conclusion before a tracking down of the change of Hu’s ideas of journalism from the perspective of journalism. Hu’s ideas are highly identical with the liberal journalism model under capital ism. Hu’s pursuits for media independence, freedom of press, political ideals of media and truthfulness of news are still commendable in nowadays; however, his attempt to change the political situation with media and his blind belief in experimentalism should not be followed by journalists.The definition of modern newspaper and magazine differ in terms of timeliness. However, in the Republic of China, due to certain circumstances, this difference was not so distinguish as the publishing frequency was close to timeliness. Therefore, Hu’s attitudes towards newspaper discussed in this thesis also includes his news attitudes regarding magazine. Since Hu’s attitudes towards newspaper are closely related to his other thoughts, his news believes are treated interactively with his cultural, political and educational believes in this thesis.