.1903 Years: On Super Report

Present researches on the history of Chinese journalism are around a new turning point. It is necessary to study and borrow western theories in history studies so as to enrich and improve our traditional approach to the history of Chinese journalism. In this respect, this thesis takes the Subao case as its object of discussion, and pertains to map out as much as possible the original picture of the event through the two dimensions of event in history and history in event within the framework of macro-history from a subversive brand-new perspective of procedure law and in a narrative tone and pattern, and to arrive at knowledge judgments and eventually value judgments on the basis of fact judgments.It was 1903 when the case taken place in Shanghai in a time of revolutions. The originally plain Subao come into a brand-new period when Zhang Shizhao became its chief writer. Forerunners such as Zhang Shizhao, Zhang Binglin, Zou Rong and Cai Yuanpei made full use of Subao as the platform to express advanced speech, drum for revolutions in a trenchant and vigorous way, and call on the overthrow of the Qing dynasty government. These acts put Subao in front of the time, and it began to quite renowned in public opinion.At this very moment, Subao was seen by the government as an eyescore and a thorn in the flesh. However, the government could not exercise any power .However, the arrest was approved by the concession with a condition, i.e. the trial of the suspects was to be conducted within the concession, and the government could only lodge a proceeding as the plaintiff. This condition added to the whole case a symbolic meaning—in legal history, the agency in charge of trial of the case was termed as "joint trial agency". In a sense, this was only a basic level court in the then China. It was in this special court where the omnipotent government and several men of letters undergone a special proceeding, in which the parties charged and defended as equal parties, presided by foreign jurors designated by the concession authority; and the government-designated judges had no actual trial power but acted as companying assessors. The defenses and compromises in the trial period was just like a grand judicial banquet, which together with the many factors in constant play outside the court trial such as politics, economics, public opinion, made the case extremely influential both at home and abroad.The trial was suspended at the pretrial period. And the following pretrial was full of defenses from the very beginning. However, the government made all possible efforts to force the concession authority to hand over the suspects, and send them under guard to Nanjing for retrial. For this purpose, the government conducted a series of diplomatic activities in Shanghai and Beijing. A second trial did not started until December 1903. The parties conducted fierce defenses around the points of law such as freedom of speech, freedom of thinking, and burden of proof. Consequently, Zhang Binglin and Zou Rong were sentenced to permanent imprisonment, which was objected by dibilanter.Therefore, the government had to seek diplomatic means for a second time. And the case was concluded in March 1904 (ten months all together): Zou Rong sentenced to two years of imprisonment and Zhang Binglin three years, both with labor punishment.The thesis reexamines history from the point of procedure law, particularly from the dimension of judicial system; scans the case itself; draws in perspective the legal aspect of the development of the event. It pertains to be a breakthrough in interdisciplinary research, and a tentative application of a new theory of history studies in the traditional way of doing researches on the history of journalism, i.e. the three propositions of "all history is contemporary, all history is the history of thoughts, and all history is the history of literature".