The Study On Modern Wuhan Journalist Groups (1927—1949)

Along with the development of Chinese journalism as well as the abundance of professional journalists, the news organizations began to appear in the early1920s in China. Especially in the late1920s, under the influence of the national revolution, news organizations were established in many areas, among them is Wuhan journalists group. The development of News organizations played an important role in the professionalization of Chinese journalism, which promotes the developing process of Chinese modern history accordingly. This article is to discuss the developing course of Wuhan journalists group mainly from two aspects:the news professionalization and the news group behaviors.As for the aspect of news professionalization, this paper argues that it is unceasingly developing in the professionalization of both the journalism and its journalists in modern China. It develops not only in the concept but also in the social behaviors. In this period, journalists set up their own professional groups and the qualification standards for admittance. At the same time, the groups also attempt to regulate the development of journalism and to improve the journalists’qualification as well as professional skills, so as to pursue the press freedom. The implementation of these measures and actions has played a very good role in the professional process of whether the journalism or journalists.However, the news professionalization pushed by news groups in modem China has not reached the mature stage. Though the Journalists groups took a series of measures, because of a variety of reasons, these measures failed to obtain the ideal effect, both political and social environment or journalists itself, limited the news professional process until1949, even today.As for the news group behaviors, Wuhan journalists groups produced a remarkable change during its developing process. In the period of news federation, due to the impact of the political environment, the news federation almost became the extended zones for political forces. It was regarded as the political "tool" to fight for political power. The behaviors were labeled politically, which has the obvious political trend. Although it is professional news group, but it’s deficient to safeguard the interests of this group. To a great extent, it lost the social function.During the pre-war period, the external environment had improved a lot, although Nanjing national government tried to regulate and control the social groups, Journalists associations still had a high degree of autonomy. They did not only regard themselves as professional news groups working hard to maintain professional interests, but also regard themselves as social groups actively seeking for political emotional expressions to advocate and participate in the public activities, which had a great influence in society. After the war, due to the great political change and its internal differentiation, the news associations slacked off in their work and even gave up. Although the news association still existed at that time, it was more in name than in reality, in1949it disappeared finally.Wuhan journalists groups are greatly influenced by the external environment in modern China. They even couldn’t get rid of political entanglements from beginning to end. but as a professional news organization, it still produced positive effect to the advancement of the news professionalization and helped to safeguard the news professional interests. Its influence on the development of modern journalism history should not be ignored.