Nationalism means the national self-awareness and emotional belonging based on the concept of sovereignty. It aims at safeguarding the rights and interests of the nation and realizing the ideas or ideologies required by the development of the nation and the nation-state. In practice, nationalism often evolves into a social movement to establish and develop a modern nation-state. In the context of nationalism, as the “people”, the masses have moved from the “backstage” of history to the “stage” of history, and as the “nurturing place” of the people, the media has been placed in the central position of national salvation and national construction. In the context of nationalism believing in people’s sovereignty, the journalists of Xiang Bao put forward the media attribute view of “newspaper as the history of the people”, the media function view of “opening people’s wisdom” and the news ethics view of “noble spirit”, which promoted the modern transformation of Hunan’s news thought. The news thought constructed by Xiang Bao not only accepted the modern values such as “civil rights”, but also had the moral passion of Confucianism, which has a deep impact on the transformation of modern Hunan culture.