Headquartered in one of Shanghai's foreign concessions,[1] the newspaper was established by a consortium of the textile merchant A. W. Danforth, journalist F. F. Ferris, and entrepreneur Zhang Shuhe.

[1] The first editor-in-chief was Cai Erkang [zh], who had previously headed the North China Daily News's Chinese-language edition Hubao.

[2] To prepare for publication, the founders of the Xinwen Bao appealed to their colleagues to submit news from throughout Qing China using private couriers.

The first edition was issued on 17 February 1893 – the Lunar New Year, chosen because both the Hubao and its fellow major newspaper, the Shen Bao, were on hiatus.

[4] In 1927, when the Kuomintang (KMT) was then using abduction to force the purchase of government bonds, the Xinwen Bao published a list of people who had been affected.

Following the Shanghai Campaign, the Chinese Communist Party assumed control of the city and closed publications affiliated with the KMT.