To further grow the business and establish itself as a “public forum in China” Shen Bao regularly reprinted essays from Xunhuan ribao in Hong Kong and the Jingbao announcements from the government.
Furthermore, Shen Bao frequently published the essays of great reformist publicist Liang Qichao who has been “hailed as the father of modern Chinese journalism”.
While the Chinese compradors used their knowledge of and connections with the local community to raise circulation and attract advertisements, they kept the price of the paper lower than that of its competitor.
Worse still, the opium dens embracing this practice were mostly located in the French Concession, connecting the issue to the presence of foreigners in Shanghai.
Shen Bao also reflected the changing attitudes towards women as a new audience group - how the newspaper “described them in advertisements, editorials ad news reports”.
[citation needed] The newspaper "innovated in printing technology, the use of the telegraph, the employment of a military correspondent (sent to cover the Sino-French War in Vietnam in 1884), and the use of the vernacular (baihua)";[7] it quickly established a reputation as one of the best in China, coming under Chinese ownership in 1909,[8] and by the early 20th century was printing 30,000 copies a day, 9,000 circulated in Shanghai and the rest elsewhere in China.
In 1905 it began to change its orientation, quoting Liang Qichao's constitutionalist slogans on New Year's Day; in 1907 it was sold to Xi Zipei (1867–1929),[13] its former comprador, who "owned Shanghai's best-capitalized publishing operation, Zhongguo tushu gongsi (Chinese Library Company)"[14] and was under the influence of Zhang Jian, and it became a moderately liberal newspaper that strongly supported the constitutional movement.
In addition to reporting important political news stories, it had many special columns and supplements such as ziyou tan (free discussion), automobile, education and life.
"In the 1930s, Shi was a strong supporter of the Human Rights Defence Alliance established by Madam Soong Qing Ling, the second wife of revolutionary leader Dr Sun Yat-sen, with Cai Yuanpei and Lu Xun.
Due to the surveillance from Chiang Kai-Shek on the press, Shen Bao and other newspapers were frequently censored using postal bans for one day when they criticized government policy too strongly.
On November 13, Shih Liang-ts'ai, its owner and editor-in-chief, was mysteriously assassinated on the Shanghai-Hangchow Highway";[18] responsibility for his murder has been attributed to the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics, Chiang Kai-shek's much-feared secret police.
[19][20] In 1938, with the city under Japanese control, Norwood Allman (1893–1987), an American lawyer who had been U.S. Consul in Shanghai in the early 1920s, was asked by the paper's Chinese owners to take over as editor; Time wrote in 1940: "A fluent Chinese linguist, Allman reads every story that goes into Shun Pao, writes editorials, corrects editorials written by staff members.
"[21] The paper was on bad terms with the Japanese, and in 1940 a Chinese assistant editor was killed and his head left on the street as a warning to journalists.
[24] Ernest Major's brother Frederick founded a literary magazine Yinghuan suoji (瀛寰瑣記; "Random Sketches of the World"), published by the Shen Bao since November 1872.