For an explanation of the following, see this.
In the New York Times in early January 1900, China appeared several times, in a number of roles. There was China, the state, much fought over by the imperial powers of the world, ancient, decayed, helpless to resist, and ripe for exploitation. There was China, the nation, a subject of fascination and dismay, whose people lived lives of squalor amid the elegant splendor of thousands of years of history. There was the actual China, in some ways the least interesting of all from the Times’ perspective, where real things happened to real people.
The Chinese state emerged as a helpless pawn which the western powers moved back and forth to suit. China itself became a stage in which plays not of its writing were acted out. Thus on January 13, 1900, an article appeared talking of war between Russia and Japan over Russian influence in northern China and Korea. Japan, the Times confidently asserted, have “recently given an order in England for 100,000 suits of warm Winter clothing for Japanese soldiers in preparation for a campaign” to prevent “Russian ascendancy in Northern China.” China’s wishes were simply irrelevant and beyond consideration or mention.[1]
And yet China was of great interest as a nation. The same paper that ignored China altogether in its consideration of international actors had published a week earlier a laudatory review of a book about Chinese society, Village Life in China. “That wonderful people…this great race” was how the Times referred to the Chinese, with their “numerous admirable qualities.” China as a nation was portrayed not only as worthy of study but simply too big and complex to be comprehensible. There are several interesting tensions in the article. China’s complexity and history was held in explicit counterpoise to its current degraded condition. China, the article made clear, may have had a deeper history (deeper implicitly than America’s) but its people lived in poverty. Chinese society had “many disabilities” which “retard [its] advancement in modern civilization.” The book suggested that only “Christianity in its best form is the only agency which will cure the defects which exist,” though the review article, interestingly, is quick to disavow (at least partially) that conclusion by saying that “the reader must not imagine that this volume is a missionary report.” [2]
The only article with specific people was the shortest. “Missionary Murdered in China,” announced a Times story of January 5th. “The Rev. Mr. Brooks of the Church Missionary Society…was captured…and murdered Dec. 3 by members of a seditious society called ‘Boxers,’ who have been active lately, destroying many villages and killing native Christians. The Governor of the province had dispatched a force of cavalry to the scene of the disturbances, but the soldiers arrived too late to save Mr. Brooks’s life.” [3]
The article was spare, with no details about the killing except the date. It assumed that the reader would have no idea who the Boxers were, introducing them in quick detail and positioning them as anti-Christian. The Chinese government was portrayed as friendly, if ineffectual, and there was little in the way of positioning the situation, with no real emphasis even on the obvious storyline of a “seditious” group moving from attacking “native” Christians to a western one. Someone had been murdered in a far-off place: important enough to mention in the paper, but not important enough for much elaboration or emphasis.
14 comments
January 13, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Prof B
I like this idea of “live-blogging” historical events. One bleg — could you start each of the posts with the same subject (Boxers: This or that, or Boxers 1, 2,…n, or what-have-you) so that they can be readily picked out of the post list?
January 13, 2009 at 1:48 pm
ekogan
“That wonderful people…this great race” was how the Times referred to the Chinese
Liberal media bias! Liberal media bias!
Are you going to use any other sources for your project beside the NYT? Were journalistic ethics in force in the NYT at the time? What sort of political/ideological bias did it exhibit?
If you tried to do this kind of project on contemporary wars based on Fox News vs MSNBC, you’d probably come out with different impressions, so this kind of information might be useful to know.
And just because I can’t resist:
KANE
Yes. “Dear Wheeler. You provide the prose poems. I’ll provide the
war.”
for some reason I thought the quote was “you provide the pictures, I”ll provide the war”
January 13, 2009 at 1:51 pm
ekogan
Clicking on the Boxers tag yields the following top three headlines:
I saw a woman walking my two favorite breeds of dogs.
Boxers: Missionary Murdered in China
NEW Items – Matching Couples Robes for Valentines
Draw your own conclusions
January 13, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Vance
Where ekogan is inclined to consider systematic bias, I was more struck by the possibility of random noise — let’s not overinterpret the subtleties of how much space was given to what piece, on a different day by a (possibly) different editor, implementing an editorial policy that likely was articulated.
(And the “pictures” line is apocryphal, Hearst to Remington.)
January 13, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Vance
Grr, “that likely was NOT articulated.”
January 13, 2009 at 2:12 pm
silbey
Are you going to use any other sources for your project beside the NYT? Were journalistic ethics in force in the NYT at the time? What sort of political/ideological bias did it exhibit?
No, which journalistic ethics?, and I don’t know, but I would imagine so.
The larger project (ie the book) will, of course, use as large a range of sources as I can physically cram into my brain. For the weblog, I am sticking with one newspaper and progressing through chronologically. Will this lead to biases, omissions, distortions, etc? Of course; that’s part of the point.
Where ekogan is inclined to consider systematic bias, I was more struck by the possibility of random noise — let’s not overinterpret the subtleties of how much space was given to what piece, on a different day by a (possibly) different editor, implementing an editorial policy that likely was articulated.
Sure. I’m laying out my impressions based on the Times’ coverage so far. A lot of those impressions may shift or change or be different tomorrow, next week, or next month. I think that’s part of the interest of the process.
January 13, 2009 at 3:08 pm
TF Smith
Silbey –
Interesting round-up of things China-esque in the Times of the times…just as a point of comparison, how much international news from other parts of the world, especially those equally on the fringes of the West, where the news was mostly “quiet”?
In other words, not South Africa, the Philippines, or Cuba, or London, Paris, and Berlin…
I’m thinking the Balkans, the Ottoman Empire, maybe the southern cone of South America…the “coups and earthquakes” type items/places that would not have risen to the top of the news editor’s list, essentially.
Fascinating material.
January 13, 2009 at 3:17 pm
grackle
A nice start. I’m impressed that one could probably substitute the Ottomans for the Chinese at this time (i.e. pre-Armenian disaster). The only other change necessary would be to substitute the English for the Japanese contra the Russians.
January 13, 2009 at 6:34 pm
silbey
Fascinating material
Thanks!
just as a point of comparison, how much international news from other parts of the world, especially those equally on the fringes of the West, where the news was mostly “quiet”?
It’s an interesting question. I think I might follow in eric’s footsteps and do a quick ‘n dirty word count of various words (like Philippines) to see what the relative balance is. In terms of ‘irrelevant’ areas, I would guess that you’re right, that there are spikes but nothing consistent.
A nice start
Thanks!
January 13, 2009 at 8:21 pm
John Emerson
“Village Life in China” is still reprinted from time to time and is well worth reading, as is the same author’s “Proverbs and Common Sayings from the Chinese”.
January 13, 2009 at 8:30 pm
ben wolfson
SWEET SCIENTISTS SLAUGHTER SINOLOGIST
Missionary murdered on mainland!
January 14, 2009 at 6:38 am
silbey
“Village Life in China” is still reprinted from time to time and is well worth reading, as is the same author’s “Proverbs and Common Sayings from the Chinese”.
Still available from Amazon, in fact.
I’m impressed that one could probably substitute the Ottomans for the Chinese at this time
In fact, in a 1903 article, when a missionary was murdered in the Ottoman empire and the Russian government started pressuring the Ottomans over it, the Times said that the murdered Russian was “as potentially as valuable as a German missionary murdered in China.”
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E03E6D71339E333A2575AC1A96E9C946297D6CF
Missionary murdered on mainland!
Headless body in topless bar!
January 14, 2009 at 12:55 pm
TF Smith
Ah, the old “Endangered German” (TM) gambit…
March 23, 2009 at 6:57 am
Mike Blake
Jane E Elliott, Some Did It For Civilisation, Some Did It For Their Country: A Revised View of the Boxer war, Chinese U Press, 2002, has some interesting material. Chapters include ‘Great Newspapers Report the Boxer Uprising: The Times and the World’, ‘The Responses of the British Illustrated press: the Daily Mail, the Illustrated London News and the Review of Reviews’. She also looks at how the Chinese depicted the conflict in ‘Pictures of War in Ninteenth Century China’.