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September 15, 2014

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Home » Supplement » Anniversary

Paper’s arrival served need in burgeoning region

By Peter Zhang | September 15, 2014, Monday | Print Edition

ON September 18, 1999, the first trial issue of Shanghai Daily came off the press to coincide with the opening of the Fortune Global Forum in the city. About two weeks later, it was officially launched on October 1, reinstating the metropolis’ long tradition of publishing English-language newspapers.

Shanghai published its first English-language newspaper in 1850, 11 years earlier than its first Chinese newspaper.

And in the following 100 years, more than a dozen English-language newspapers appeared for different periods of time.

However, such newspapers disappeared for nearly 40 years starting in the early 1950s. It was not until 1992 that several of my colleagues and I helped print a weekly English-language newspaper in the city.

For a couple of years, it came out twice a week.

But such a newspaper could not meet the needs of an ever-growing expatriate community in the city or help Shanghai to achieve its ambition of regaining its past glory as an economic and trade center in the East. (Later, the newspaper stopped publishing for a few years.)

So by the end of 1998, the city decided to publish a daily English-language newspaper and a small preparatory team was then formed. We were given nine months to found the newspaper nearly from scratch.

We had to deal with issues such as recruiting and training editorial and management staff, applying for a license (a rather daunting task), drafting the editorial policies, designing the pages, setting up offices and installing an up-to-date editorial computer system.

Those nine months were some of the most hectic days in my memory before I became editor-in-chief of the newspaper for the following 14 years.

When Shanghai Daily first came out, we positioned the newspaper as a regional English-language newspaper serving mainly expatriates and overseas visitors in Shanghai and its surrounding areas in the Yangtze River Delta.

We focused our coverage on two areas: business and the Shanghai-style (or haipai) culture. Of course, we also carried news about the latest events and developments in the Shanghai area to keep our readers well informed.

In the early years, we constantly expanded the newspaper to meet the needs of our readers. We grew from eight pages (broadsheet) a day, five days a week to 12 pages a day and six days a week.

In 2005, we transformed the newspaper into a compact format and published 48 pages a day. Then we became the first English-language newspaper on the Chinese mainland to publish a Sunday edition.

While trying our best to continuously improve the print version of the newspaper, we always kept pace with the development of all kinds of new technology and the arrival of the digital era.

We were the first newspaper in China to use the Internet to distribute our newspaper around the world; the first newspaper in Asia to appear on Kindle and one of the first newspapers in the world to publish mobile editions based on all prevalent operating systems.

We can say that we have never stopped and will never stop our attempt to explore all possible ways to further improve the quality and accessibility of the newspaper for our readers.

So, 15 years after its inauguration, I can today tell our readers that Shanghai Daily’s still got you covered.

Now the newspaper is in the hands of a new management team consisting of journalists mostly in their 30s and early 40s. I believe that the young management will work together with all our staff not only to carry on the newspaper’s fine tradition, but also to bring new ideas to the operation of the newspaper and raise its quality to new levels.

Although I retired from my position as editor-in-chief of the newspaper about a year ago, I would still like to take advantage of this opportunity to thank our staff, including our former staff, for their devotion and endeavors and thank our readers for your unwavering support and cooperation.

Shanghai Daily is one of four English-language newspapers that I have helped to create on the Chinese mainland in my more than 30-year career in the newspaper industry. I’m proud of all of them, especially the baby.

Happy birthday, Shanghai Daily!

Anniversary


 

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