Details and Truth: Liu Ren on Interviews and Writing

This article is a note from Liu Ren's 2008 lecture on character story collection. The author of the note is unknown.

How I was interviewed: Be sure to ask for details

I'm going to interview Yang Yuanqing, and my first question will be asking him, what were your English words before, and how many are they now? It would be nice to use this as the beginning of the article. How big is your house in New York, is it bigger than in Beijing? Ask him in this way to ask for specific things, which are what the reader wants to know most. There are many similar details in the article, on which the reader can elaborate his comments and express his position, which is the task of the reporter. If your article only conveys his opinion, Yang Yuanqing will only be beneficial to himself, and those logics are simply false. It is not a fact at all, or a logic that is not based on facts, these are all logics that he has added, and such logic is worthless.

A friend of mine, very smart, he plays chess very well. One day, he lectured me on Go, and he talked for half a day, and his head was the Tao. Later he told me that I couldn't actually play Go. He said, "If you want to come to my realm, it doesn't matter what chess you talk about." It is that his logic has reached that point, and it is no problem to talk about anything for three days and three nights. This principle is the same as Yang Yuanqing's talk about how to integrate, it is useless. If you tell some facts, the reader will naturally draw some conclusions.

I have interviewed Yang Yuanqing several times, and I have asked him all the trouble. The questions are very specific, for example, I asked him, the day you and Liu Chuanzhi separated, which restaurant did you talk about? What time did you go? Did you arrive first or did he arrive first? What do you say? How to open the mouth? Who sends whom when they finally leave? I have to ask these things clearly. It doesn't make sense for me to ask why it's integrated, and why he's to say why it's integrated, and to guess why it's integrated. By who arrives first, you can see who pays more attention to it, who is more worried and uneasy. How was it like to go inside? How was you feeling when you came out? He may not say it, or he may not say it clearly, but you must ask. It would be best if I could ask. That's a good question.

Be sure to ask for details. We know that a person, such as a farmer, who comes to lie to you that he is engaged in investment, can know by shaking hands that it is fake. The details of the big people are all useful details, and the details of key moments are all useful details. I still clearly remember that when Lenovo dispersed, at the Jade Palace Hotel, I only did one thing at that time, as for Liu Chuanzhi, I didn't look at all, only looked at two people, one was Yang Yuanqing, and the other was Guo Wei, looking at the expressions of both of them. Yang Yuanqing was full of spirits, and like a little brother, he shook the trench coat, draped it on his body, was full of pride, and his toes were high,000, many reporters chased him with cameras to shoot, all the way to the elevator entrance, Yang saw that I was embarrassed to see him next to him, and his face changed a little. At that time, he was a bit "done", so he deliberately put on that kind of style, like a singer, striding into the elevator, in fact, he should say two words to the reporter at the elevator entrance. I saw that his face changed a little and walked away, and when people were happy, they couldn't add to his confusion. Guo Wei pretended to laugh at that time.

Yang Yuanqing has better performance than Guo Wei. In fact, people should do a thing of growth. To make a PC is to make a higher profit than to sell a PC. In 1998, PCs could sell more than 200,000 a year, and by 2000, they could sell millions a year, and PC sales doubled. Therefore, big success is luck, and small success can be calculated. Therefore, Yang Yuanqing was carried away after that, what "technical association, service association..." The four integrated associations all failed. So the associations we see in the media now are not true, they are all the associations of Liu Chuanzhi's logic, and they are the associations of Yang Yuanqing's logic, so they are very unreal.

When a reporter asks questions, ask the other person annoying. What you are providing is not a fact, which is the only criterion for judging whether a journalist is good or bad. This paper is full of misguided things, and what you are providing should be facts, not logic.

How to Write: "Don't Take Your Articles Too Seriously"

If this article is to be changed, I will first shorten it to 2,000 words, which is something that "Chinese Entrepreneur" does not want to do, but I can say that this is "the emperor's new clothes". A lot of magazines now feel that the longer and deeper, the deeper, not the case. I think it's one of the shocks the internet has had on magazines. If this article is two thousand words, it will be read more people and more facts.

A friend of mine, a Ph.D. in theology of the Academy of Social Sciences, is a very knowledgeable professor who can't write articles. I told him one day that you don't write articles because you take your own articles too seriously. When he wrote the article, he was eager to bathe for three days, not to eat meat for ten months, and he must start with words that are not shocking and endless, and he must write words that are earth-shattering and ghostly. I said just say what you're going to write. Later, he and Li Zehou had a conversation, and the publishing house sorted out a book, which was a recording and arranged, and it sold very well. Good articles are like that.

If you want to be a good journalist, be honest and be a journalist. If you want to be both an official and a good journalist, that's not possible. Being a journalist is very hard, to be honest, when I write a big article, a week is like a "retreat", I don't want to do anything, I write dizzy, I don't want to talk to people, and every day I think about where to put this sentence and how to put that sentence. I couldn't write anymore, so I read it from the beginning, "Shun" over and over again. Writing an article can only reach 80% of the place where it is written, and it can never be written to the best.

Writing about a person's article is a close-up + close-up + close-up. There must be details, and without details, they are all blind. When you know a few details, you know what kind of person he is through those details. For example, if you watch "Color Ring", when you see Wang Jiazhi get the ring and let that person go, you know that she is a person who loves vanity. When the man gave her such a big ring, all the national righteousness was forgotten. When you don't know the details, when you listen to him talk about logic, you can never see what kind of person he is. When Yang Yuanqing gave a speech on the stage, could the one who talked about how Lenovo went out reflect his personality? You can only know his character in the details. How can you write his soul out of what you know when you don't know his character?

Someone who has never been in contact with him, how can you know him at first glance? Let me give you an example, I went to interview the head of Hisense, he had a cold that day, he took a piece of paper and blew his nose in front of me, I think he is a very simple person. Another detail, I also had a little cold that day, and I blew my nose, and he asked, Hey, I didn't infect you. I think he's a very generous person. So what this person told me was quite reliable. So I tell you, you have to be able to look at the details. A good reporter should be a good observer, such as the leader drinking water there, the water is cold, you don't know how to pour it, your observation ability is too poor. Your ability to detail should be very strong and strong. I went on to talk about Hisense, when he talked about his son and his family, his tears were full of tears, and I felt that I should not, indicating that his family had a big problem. Later I asked to know that his family was very unfortunate. As long as he enters that state, sometimes he can't "hug" it. For example, Liu Chuanzhi, he told me that the few people he brought out of the research institute, except for one person, everyone else was useless.

If a journalist has no conscience, he is more imperceptible than what a liar says. You'll unconsciously do a lot of things for the bad guys. So if you want to be a good journalist, be a journalist with a conscience, read more.

"Journalists should do what a journalist can do, not what a thinker can do"

When you interview a big guy and sometimes take him too seriously, you want to ask a big question. For example, Yang Yuanqing will think, what does it matter if I can use thousands of English words and integration? You feel like he's going to look down on you, so much, and you're responsible for your readers, not for him. If this article starts with the title "Yang Yuanqing's vocabulary rises from a few hundred to a few thousand", the number of clicks will rise at once, because the fact you provide is a fact. For example, I recently wrote about Donews' editorial policy:

1. Editors do not unify their thinking, deliberately cultivate and cultivate different cultural backgrounds, interests and positions, in order to hedge various edits and expressions, so that the news is closer to truth and balance.

CNN has a rule that how many blacks, Spaniards, and Chinese people are among his editors and journalists should be proportional, because their choices are different because of their different cultural backgrounds. The most important thing in journalism is balance. How many Muslims there are, so that his news does not attack Muslims too much.

2. Leave the choice to the reader.

Leave the choice and judgment to the reader, and you provide the facts.

3. Sympathize with the weak and be wary of rights.

All rights are sin.

4. Separate opinions and facts.

Opinions are opinions, facts are facts, and opinions and facts are to be separated in the same article. At a major newspaper in the United States, his press and commentary departments did not enter and exit through a door, fearing mutual influence. This is very important.

5. Insist on being short, direct and accurate. Use more details, use more original materials.

The short is to delete all the nonsense.

Directly do not go around, what to say is to talk about what to do, do not need to give, compare, or prosper. Use more details and publish more historical materials. For example, if you can find the original material of lenovo negotiations, it will be very good. It would be better if you could find a revised draft.

6. Avoid mentioning yourself and delete axioms and common sense.

Axioms and common sense, this is not what news is meant to provide.

Reduce adjectives because the adjectives are inaccurate.

Reduce inversion, use more short sentences, and reduce typos.

The only difference between a magazine and a newspaper is that the magazine has more stories. You don't even have the ability to write good news, can you write stories? Being a good journalist is not easy. You have to be able to provide the original material, and many journalists sit back and say, journalists should do what a journalist can do, not what a thinker can do.

Author: Liu Ren