From Poor Literati to Famous Journalists——Perspectives of Professional Journalists in the Late Qing Dynasty

In the late Qing Dynasty which was full of political comments in newspapering,compared with the dazzling political reporters,professional journalists were a group who were greatly discriminated.However,from poor literati to famous men in the press,from the under-class intellectuals who worried about their daily life to the cities' middle-class professionals,the changeable lives of the literati of late Qing Dynasty revealed the whole process that the status of traditional esquire declined and was pushed to cultural market.Meanwhile,late Qing Dynasty,which was a period full of drastically variation and acute conflict of new and old cultures,endowed the new professional literati with inconsistent spirits.The patriotic nature made journalists exceed personal sensibility and converge into time tide.To potentiate the country and enrich demos,enlightening the people and saving the nation from extinction became the primary idealistic goal guiding the activities of professional journalists in late Qing Dynasty.They have played an important role in the modernization of Chinese early newspapering.