Wu Chenguang, executive editor-in-chief of Phoenix.com: How to become a top content master

(This article is reproduced from "Media Tea Party")

April 2022 – When I entered the Internet content industry for 10 years, I finally got the hardcover printed version of "20 Talks of Source Stream: Make You a Top Content Master".

The "20 Lectures" content comes from my eponymous tone course on Evernote. It took me 18 months to record, organize, and write, and once again deeply experienced the feeling of "breaking the wall of the wall map". Compared with the "Source Stream Theory: 44 Rules for Content Production and Distribution" published in the National People's Congress in August 2020, the "20 Stresses" are more concise, more practical and more grounded. How to achieve 100,000+, likes, blockbusters, big V... In the era of new media, the "20 Lectures" have given answers to the core expectations of content creators, including the angle of topic selection, the use of materials, the starting method of titles, the production of small videos, and the distribution logic of super platforms such as Weibo, WeChat, and Today's Headlines.

In this book of about 150,000 words, the content about the product is added in particular--in the source flow system, the product is the carrier and meeting point of the source and the flow. Like content creation, the key to success for a good product manager is a grasp of human nature.

The source stream theory system has also become more mature with the advent of the "20 lectures". Source refers to content creation, and streaming refers to content distribution. The way of communication is in the transformation of source and flow. Like a long river, from "ask where the canal is as clear as promised, for there is a source of living water" to "has always wasted the pushing force, this day in the middle of the flow freely", the eternal unchanged.

"44 Laws" + "20 Lectures" is also my third season after "Beyond the Portal" and "The Way of Self-Media". I named this work of more than 1,000 pages and more than 900,000 words "Beyond Trilogy." "Beyond the Portal" is about the PC, how to do news; "The Way of Self-Media" is about mobile, how to do information; "source stream theory" is about content, is the law of communication. In addition to business thinking, the "trilogy" is also a faithful record of my 25-year media journey. From newspapers to television to magazines, especially after I entered Sohu in 2012, under the impact and blessing of the mobile Internet, the media has undergone earth-shaking changes. I've had the privilege of experiencing this great wave and completing my own transformation in it – from source and stream, from editors and algorithms, from social, from central and equal, shared, interactive.

Source Stream Says 20 Talks: Make You a Top Content Master Catalog

"Long memories ten years ago, each other's jade face cloud hair. Honor the wine several times opposite, happy spring flowers autumn moon. ”

The two and a half years since the sister articles were formed were the most memorable time in these 10 years. An unprecedented epidemic has taken a huge turn in the fate of the world, this country, and every individual, including me. Life and death are parted, and it is impossible to look back. "King Gavin performed "Zhou Yi" and Jonny Er wrote "Spring and Autumn". Two years ago, when the "44 Articles" were drafted, Wuhan was locked down; today, the "20 Stresses" was introduced, and Shanghai was statically managed. This makes my understanding of the source and flow more memorable, it is not only a skill, a precept, but also a human heart and life.

"Beyond the Trilogy" and "20 Lectures on Origins: Making You a Top Content Master"

About the Author:

Wu Chenguang is currently the vice president and executive editor-in-chief of Phoenix.com. He has successively served as a reporter of China Labor Daily, a reporter of CCTV, a senior reporter and editor of Southern Weekend, an associate editor of China News Weekly and deputy editor-in-chief of new media, an editor-in-chief of Sohu.com, and the editor-in-chief of Yiyi Information.

Bachelor of Engineering, EMBA student at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, china's first batch of senior digital editors (Zhenggao title). He has published books such as "Beyond the Portal", "The Way of Self-Media", and "Source Stream Theory: 44 Rules for Content Production and Distribution" published by the Chinese University Press. Since 2020, as a special expert, he has taught emergency management and public opinion handling courses at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Wu Chenguang, vice president and executive editor-in-chief of Phoenix.com

Self-prologue: How steel cannot be made

The heat wave from shougang corporation's third steelmaking plant seems to never stop. I sat on the scrap heap at the exit of the factory building, looking at the sky dominated by black smoke, while singing Zhao Chuan's song "I am a little bird". But no birds flew overhead, probably because the smell of dust was too choking, and the sparrows were reluctant to visit the place. Only two large rats stared greedily at the leftovers beside me, ready to steal the opportunity to eat.

Many years later, a buzzword appeared on the Internet: rat family. It refers to those who cannot afford to rent a house and live in the basement. But I think its deeper meaning is that people live very humblely, like rats, unable to find the meaning of their own existence.

When I was 22 years old, I was a member of the rat family. Although I have a bachelor's degree in iron and steel metallurgy, I hate molten steel, I hate machinery, I hate noise, I hate dirty workshops, and I am dirty and chaotic every day.

It was July 1997, and I had been assigned to the third steelmaking plant of Shougang Corporation for a year. I first went down to the workshop as a worker, and then worked as a technician, because of a still passable word and a few oil poems published in the "Shougang Newspaper", I temporarily got rid of the steelmaking work that I disliked the least, and was transferred to the propaganda department of the factory as a propaganda officer, becoming the first person among the university students to enter the factory department. I worked very hard to write the internal journal "The Voice of the Three Refinements", and used the old but still available 486 computer typesetting and printing, respectfully sent to the factory leaders, trying to get more appreciation from them. Helpless to work hard than people to calculate, Premier Zhu gave an order to reform state-owned enterprises and divert laid-off workers, and I, who could not have been diverted, was replaced by an old comrade with seniority. I could only endure the ridicule, go back to the original workshop again, and continue to work as a technician.

Every day, I returned to the state of facing more than 1500 degrees of molten steel, coping with regular meetings, and taking at least two baths. There is no life plan, no future, and no girl who can comfort me. The only entertainment is singing "I Am a Little Bird" and going to the Shijingshan Gymnasium after work to practice Sanda, and the youth and hormones that have nowhere to be placed are emitted in knocking downs or being knocked down.

After a few more months, this empty life made me really unbearable. So I decided to leave this big business, leave the metallurgy major, and do what I like. I began to frantically look for a job, but in that era when food stamps had just been eliminated for a few years, mobile phones were still luxury goods, and Sohu.com was not born, a metallurgical student had to find a text-related position, and the difficulty could be imagined. I could only go to the talent market like a headless fly, and in order to enrich my resume, I even copied the article published in the "China Teenagers Daily" in the third grade of primary school and put it in. Then, countless times, they are blinded, rejected, and their resumes are thrown away.

Fortunately, the tide of socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics has surged. The birth of the concept of "talent market" is an important embodiment. It gives possibilities to "little mice" like me who want to fly freely.

Finally, I got a chance to take a written test for China Labor Daily. When I saw the test questions, my tears suddenly poured out, all of which were poetry silent writing and ancient literary common sense! My poetry boy skills finally came in handy. And the title of the essay is "If I Am Laid Off Tomorrow"...

On Christmas Day 1997, I received an acceptance letter from China Labor Daily career guide. On January 8, 1998, I got my press card. My father gave me 6,000 yuan and let me "redeem" my own file from Shougang. So, I began to write this novel with my own life, "How Steel Can't Be Made."

One

14 years later – May 8, 2012.

"Space Center" Wudaokou, Sohu Network Building. I was sorting through the day's work log, and it was dark outside the window.

The first article in the journal is a discussion about the headline of the news: is it "China's first drilling rig drilled in the South China Sea" or "China's first drilling platform in the South China Sea"? The duty editor of the Sohu News Center chose the former, and I think it is the latter. At that time, the situation in the South China Sea was tense, so it became the focus of global attention. When making a headline, you should put the most attractive content at the front.

This is my 5th day of working at Sohu.

At the beginning of 1998, I resigned from Shougang and entered the "Career Guide" of the sub-newspaper of China Labor Daily and began the journey of media people. Since then, he has served as a reporter for CCTV, a reporter for China News Weekly, and a reporter and editor for Southern Weekend. In 2008, he returned to Beijing from Guangzhou and became the deputy editor of China NewsWeek, and in 2009 founded China Newsweek New Media. After a brief transition in Blog World, he "touched the net" in May 2012 and served as the director of Sohu News Center.

Two

When I first arrived at Sohu, I have been thinking about a question: In addition to fast and massive, is there any other tag for portal news? Another question is: Why can Internet news practitioners only do "brick movers" and not architectural designers?

I asked these two questions to a lot of online media people, and their answers were "habits." But innovation should be the most basic quality of a content worker, whether it is a traditional media person or an online media person. "Need to change it," I thought. Another important background was that Liu Chun, the editor-in-chief of Sohu.com, was a media person with a strong sense of columns, and he was popular in many of the columns founded by Phoenix TV. The previous 14 years of experience focusing on content creation also made me decide to start with the original and planned that I was best at.

Therefore, in my work log, I can retrieve how to do planning, how to do original discussion - according to the principle of "subtraction of content, increment of information", the original more than ten columns have been optimized into "Click today", "The Way of Numbers", "News Parties" and so on. The grasp of the angle of entry has become the most important principle of Sohu news planning, originality and commentary.

From the time I entered Sohu until October 2013, when I was the editor-in-chief of Sohu.com, except for weekends, it was a habit I developed to conscientiously complete the daily work log. Today, the journal is still stored on the home page of my computer, and I will often open it and repeatedly warn myself that "there is no accumulation of small streams, there is no way to become a river and a sea." Word 5, coupled with a thousand screenshots and more than 2,000 cases they were meant to represent, filled more than 100 pages of word documents. Every day at 3 p.m., at the regular meeting of the Sohu News Center, I will analyze and comment on these cases.

This diary eventually became the "cornerstone" of the book "Beyond the Portal".

The year and a half of serving as the director of Sohu News Center was really a period of burning passion. Every day at 10:00 a.m., the heads of various departments will bring their own topics to a planning meeting. Before that, everyone was bumping into each other in private, and it was not an atmosphere of discussion. In the original office area, the Sohu Network Building, the conference rooms are not as abundant as in the new office building. I couldn't book a conference room, so I saw a needle in the studio or even in the hallway. Every afternoon, after the regular meeting on duty, I will convene a group meeting to determine the positioning and core competitiveness of a column every week. Behind a large number of cold words, there is the collision of countless ideas.

That's when I got into the habit of staying at a seven-day hotel, Monday through Thursday. It's not that I want to live, it's that I don't want to spend time (and no time) on commuting to work nearly three hours a day. Every day after work, I walk along the dusty Shuangqing Road to the Seven Days Shuangqing Road shop; every morning, I will also walk along the dusty Shuangqing Road to the office. A 27-minute one-way journey, from the spring of 2012 to the fall of 2013, a lot of thoughts and summaries also came from this unforgettable road.

Three

I slowly integrated into the Internet. There is a growing sense that chaotic logic and reliance on "headline party" for eyeballs are not the idiosyncrasies of the Internet. The Internet can also have logic, thought, and values, and there is no contradiction between high-quality news and high traffic. But beyond quality planning and originality, I need a war to further prove my theory. "The president of the United States has the greatest power in wartime," my leader Liu Chun said, "but you need to grasp the fighters and command the team." ”

On July 21, 2012, in Beijing, a sudden rainstorm struck. Sohu News began to try to use "tags" to complete the integration of the news area, including the arrangement logic of the first scene, the last details, the background after the background, and the post-comment, including the "brave" insertion of our own planning, originality, and comments into the highlight area. Previously, although it belonged to Sohu, the planning and news areas even reached the point of "old and dead without contact". The themes, synopsis, navigation bars, and head designs of major themes have also been given unprecedented attention.

A series of excellent content was also born at that time. "Beijing '7.21': People in 'swimming pools' car trap 'ponds'", giving editors a good example. In addition, in the vast sea of information, I found a clue to the "disaster relief dog". Colleagues in the interview department had a hard time digging up this righteous dog, and a special article of "Fangshan Golden Retriever Rescue Chronicle: Eating Dog Food and Dry Personnel" was included in the "News Parties" column.

After the disaster, I also began to reflect, just as the city needed to reflect on why its drainage system did not have "Ollie". In a well-established media company like Sohu, on the one hand, it is the constant pursuit of daily work details , which has become the "bright spot" that we have emphasized later; on the other hand, the pursuit of important reports - this is the "focus" we emphasize. If the highlight is a conventional war, then the focus is more like a nuclear war, which determines the ultimate influence of a media.

But at the time, Sohu News's summary of major emergencies was only one page. I wonder, what have we all accumulated over the previous ten years? "Just like the country's emergency response system, we should have a classified and hierarchical handling system for major breaking news." I said at the regular meeting.

Dozens of dedicated Sohu content editors began to devote themselves to the investigation and grading exploration of major emergencies. Natural disasters, safety production accidents, food safety issues, and mass incidents were first included in the four priorities. When smog hit in 2013, environmental pollution was listed as the fifth priority. Natural disasters are subdivided into earthquakes, typhoons, floods, tsunamis, etc. According to the number of deaths, the location of the incident, the scope of the impact and other parameters, each type of emergency is divided into special level, first level, second level, third level, each level has a different mode of operation. This came to be known as sohu news's "big war manual." Since then, the smog and MH370 of Malaysia Airlines have been lost, and they have all been operated in accordance with this rule. Several professional processing groups have also been set up within the Sohu News Center, and the code name I gave them is "Little Fox Group with the Spirit of a Wolf Pack."

In nature, wolves are the most terrifying. They are cunning, gritty, clearly divided, cooperative, able to track prey for hundreds of miles, even tigers and brown bears, see them to retreat. I hope that my team can rely on this spirit to defeat opponents who are much stronger than themselves in every round-up.

Four

The work diary grew thicker and thicker, and it was August 2013. A trial was brought to the global limelight, and a senior official who had been a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China stood in the dock. A year later, when another former member of the Standing Committee faced the same fate, I began to reflect: Which of the two fell, which one is more newsworthy?

On the surface, one person was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee (at the level of a state official), while the other was only a member of the Committee (at the level of vice-state), of course, the former held a high position. But on a deeper level, many of the things the latter advocates in Chongqing seem to the outside world to return China to the old path of the planned economy. Therefore, we have published several reviews in a row, such as "Chongqing Model: Opposing the Market Economy Can Only Be a Dead End", etc., to clarify Sohu's attitude towards this matter (see "Beyond the Portal" published in 2015, edited by Wu Chenguang, Chinese Min University Press).

The lack of values is another problem with portals. Because of the sheer volume of information, our "attitude" is often drowned in. But for a media outlet, values are the most important. Like a person's soul, after the absence is the walking dead.

The four days of reporting on the former member of the public trial coincided with the fact that all the management of the content department was out of the meeting, and I, who remained in the company, was ordered to direct the big battle in place of the editor-in-chief. This took me as the first time I realized the dual-screen strategy - PC + mobile, and for the first time, I deployed video resources. Previously, my attempts at Internet news were limited to graphics.

I will never forget the scene of the four days of the public trial. The morning class came, I was there; the middle class came, I was there; the night class came, and I was still there. Every action and expression of the defendant, every sentence he stated, has been deduced countless times in my mind - what should be done behind the interpretation. After the public trial of this case, I wrote about 3,000 words of business summary, which mentioned the bottom line and the pattern, and this group of reports also helped me to go to the next level.

Five

In October 2013, the 115-page diary, including my usual business summary of hundreds of thousands of words, was finally compiled into a volume, becoming the first "Collection and Editing Specification" (2014 edition) in the history of Sohu.com. From news selection to major emergency handling, there are 12 chapters. Everyone jokingly called it the "Blue Treasure Book" because the cover was designed to be dark blue. I gave one of these copies to Liu Chun, who had the grace of knowing me, who had left Sohu by this time and urged me to take over his position.

On October 25, Sohu released an email announcing that I was the editor-in-chief of Sohu.com, in charge of news, finance, military, history, culture and other channels, reporting to Ms. Wang Xin, who was the president at the time.

The passion-burning diaries have since taken on a variety of forms, such as the 2014 Annual Plan, the Head-Tail Strategy, and the Importance of the Final Page — more about the understanding, execution, and interpretation of new ideas. Because the content reform began.

In the history of Sohu, this is a very critical strategic transformation. It is also an important attempt at "media convergence". As early as three years ago, when I first entered Sohu, this model of "central kitchen production and distribution in different restaurants" has been proposed by Sohu, which has a multimedia platform. But I didn't expect that this most critical step would be performed by me.

As far as the press, finance, military and other fields in which I am in charge are concerned, before the reform, the departments were divided according to the communication channels, such as the PC news center and the mobile media department. This creates a problem: the content produced by PC editors is only published on the PC; the content produced on the mobile side is only published on the mobile side. This not only leads to a waste of resources - for example, the mobile side has its own planning department, the PC side also has; more importantly, the judgment and even values of major news events are not uniform, and even one port supports the A statement on the same news event, while the other port supports the B point of view.

The reform is to change this way of dividing departments by communication channels into content directions. Taking the direction of journalism (mainly including the two fields of current politics and society) as an example, the former PC News Center and the former Mobile News Center were merged into a new organization. This organization is further divided into a news production center and a news distribution center. As the "central kitchen", the news production center is responsible for "cooking" and transporting semi-finished products to the home page of Sohu PC, PC news, PC pop-up window home, as well as the home page of mobile phone Sohu.com and the home page of news client - we call it the "five major outposts". The editors of the five major outposts further processed according to the characteristics of their respective restaurants, and then presented them to netizens.

Nearly 10 years later, when I sorted out this text, I realized that this is one of the important applications of the source flow theory: the fusion of source shunt. The so-called "rongyuan" refers to the central kitchen production; the so-called diversion refers to the distribution of different restaurants. New performance methods such as content page operational efficiency and all-media live broadcasting have also been repeatedly emphasized in the reform. Therefore, the newly published "Sohu News Acquisition and Editing Specification" (2015 edition) has made a qualitative leap forward from the 2014 edition, and some outdated techniques have also been diluted, such as feature production - compared with PCs, mobile phone reading is stream reading, and does not need to be as complex as a special topic. This also reflects the constant renewal of the content form, and urges me to completely transform and keep pace with the times.

The Sohu News Editorial Specification (2015 edition) is about 80,000 words, with a total of 14 chapters, including more than 300 cases. Before printing, I re-enhanced some chapters on mobile Internet — including news client editing, final page editing, H5 page production, and other means of operation. Portals have faded, and mobile Internet represents the future of journalism.

Six

In my diary, there is also a letter written to everyone after the reform has achieved phased results, which took shape on September 1, 2014 .

...... March 22, 2014 – One afternoon in the late spring, in the conference room on the 18th floor of the Media Tower, Charles (Dr. Zhang Chaoyang, Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of Sohu — Editor's Note) proposed a new direction and goal for Sohu News. Half a year later, the leaves in front of the building have gone from green to green; after yesterday's autumn rain, they have turned a little yellow. As a pioneer of reform, I think everyone should gain something - or the promotion of salary, the advancement of positions, or the growth of patterns and abilities, or the strength and confidence to continue to move forward after breaking the cocoon into a butterfly.

At the company level, the biggest gain of the reform is to reduce redundant personnel, but also to streamline the process. When I joined Sohu 29 months ago, the seeds of "central kitchen production and multi-restaurant distribution" were already implanted in my heart. And with Charles's strategic deployment, we finally completed this leap - the establishment of the production process and distribution process, the realization of the "five outposts" and the "final page" concept, just like the repair of a highway to the future.

In the second season of the reform, the core problem is to solve the problem of what cars to run on the highway. No matter how high-quality channels are, if they lack high-quality content, they will become a ship without roots and rudder. As the "head", Sohu News, Sohu Finance, Sohu Military, and Sohu Culture must be where excellent reports are disseminated and where mainstream values are transmitted.

What is "mainstream"? From a macro point of view, the mainstream is the direction of the times - reform and opening up, is the market economy, is the rule of law society. From a micro point of view, the mainstream is to choose what kind of news to do reporting, which news point to choose to do in depth, can not be wang around him. It is our news and group reports, accumulated water into abyss, accumulation of soil into mountains, Sohu News's unique temperament is highlighted from it.

When Mandela died, if he gave up the freedom, equality, and fraternity that a great man brought to the world, and focused on his lace news, it was a side-door; when the whole people reveled in "fighting tigers", if they ignored the rule of law and procedural justice, and engaged in media flogging, they could not agree. When the big guys pick up the ice bucket and pour water on their heads, we have to keep a clear head - we are not against happy public welfare, but whether it is happy or painful, the ultimate goal is whether those rare disease patients are rescued, rather than chasing the stars and getting wet several times.

Sohu News sends out about 20,000 pieces of content every day, and our primary selection process selects 1,000 drafts every day, selects 200 articles, and compiles 30 articles. As Charles said, these 30 pieces of content should be an expression of Sohu's attitude to the world, or even a statement. I hope that when you express, you can think in multiple dimensions - speed, angle, height, depth, especially attitude and values, the so-called "small editor writing, large editor writing posture".

As media people at the forefront of the times, we always have to leave something for this society, leave something for the Internet, and leave something for ourselves. Responsibility is good, mission is good, but more is worthy of yourself, not to live up to youth. I hope that you will pursue quality journalism as a habit and the pursuit of excellence as an attitude towards life. Keep up the good work and let's forge ahead in the blue ocean of media!

Seven

Behind this passionate letter are countless hardships, tears and pains.

The "central kitchen" is simple to say, but it is actually a subversive change to the production model that has lasted for many years. This not only includes changes in thinking patterns and organizational structures, but also extends the conflicts of many people's interests. Because of this, someone wrote an anonymous letter to slander me. Although I gave a tough response, at that moment the tears could not help but burst out of my eyes. At that time, I was reading Mr. Sun Haohui's "The Great Qin Empire" every day, so I understood the difficulties of Shang Martingale: how much courage is needed for reform, and how much cost does reform take!

A month and a half before the reform, my father suffered a sudden cerebral hemorrhage, was in a coma for five months, and finally died on June 30, 2014. As the only son in the family, the hospital, the company, and the home have become my daily "three points and one line", and the high cost of the ICU ward has become a huge burden for the family.

But in those days, I never disappointed, and I never flinched. Because I had no way back at all. Every dusk, I would sit in my office, watching the sky darken outside the window, thinking quietly. There are always pigeons or magpies flying in the air, which reminds me of the days when Shougang sang "I am a little bird". No matter how difficult it is, after all, I am already in the position of editor-in-chief, compared with that year, one is that I have done what I like, and the other is that the realm is not known how many levels higher. Now that I've enjoyed the flowers and applause, what reason is there not to face the thorns and bumps?

I used to write down some key words on paper, looking for logic between them, and trying to summarize the "ory" and "tao" things. I gradually let my thinking return to its roots: why build five outposts? Why emphasize the final page? Why reform?

Suddenly, one evening, I looked up at the sky and laughed. Because at that moment, I finally understood a truth: everything we do is for the user. The so-called content is king, channel is king, technology is king, and product is king, but in fact, it is not. They are only "one", and these four "ones" add up to achieve the word "king". And the user is the "point" above the "king" - with the user, you can "lord" the world. Whether it is the five major outposts, the final page, or the reform, the ultimate goal is to make more users recognize Sohu News.

Years of "poor theory of qualities" have finally been gained. At this moment, I felt like I had transformed from a media person to an Internet person.

Eight

On January 5, 2015, the internal manual "Sohu News Editorial Specification" (2015 edition) was released. Its folio is the same as the iPad-mini, and the cover color is "local luxury gold". It was my idea: since I wanted to make an editing manual in the mobile Internet era, let's start with design.

When I wrote this booklet, I didn't expect it to cause such a big response in the industry. I just think that after working at Sohu for three years, I should leave something for the company. This is also the best explanation for yourself.

Many thanks to the "distorted blunt" WeChat public account and its owner, Qu Changrong, then deputy director of the Mobile Bureau of the Central Cyberspace Administration. An article titled "High Salaries for Business Websites Spelled Out Like This!" Articles that are comparable to "The Way of Sina" and "Sohu News Gathering and Editing Specifications" redefining Internet news have been screened in the circle of friends for several days. Subsequently, the 263-page booklet was frantically photocopied and photocopied. Because the strange goods can be inhabited, it can be obtained, and even become a kind of capital that can be shown off.

A communication scholar commented on the book's popularity: First, a large number of rich and informative cases; second, representing the latest editing methods of the mobile Internet; third, the spirit of the book writer - in this noisy and impetuous era, there are people who spend three days writing this book, who will spend three years to write this book?

"Moreover, the Internet news that once grew barbarically needed industry norms too much." He said.

At the end of the year when the sound of firecrackers was already sounding, I decided to revise the book. I am very fortunate that I have a good habit of keeping a diary, in that thick record, not only have daily work notes, there are weekly work weekly reports, but also turned to a number of thematic summaries of major news - such as the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the 2013 National "Two Sessions", the public trial of Bo Xilai, MH370 missing contact... I've put together these summaries as part of the book: The Inside Story of the News That Hasn't Been Made Public.

In addition to the "introduction", the next part contains 11 articles, totaling more than 60,000 words. Reading these articles, you can clearly feel how Sohu News handles every major report; including how our reporters flew to South Africa thousands of miles away to broadcast Mandela's funeral; including obsessively tracking the whereabouts of MH370 for a year; including how Sohu News' duty editor laid out on the "five major outposts". This is also a detail exchanged for sweat and lessons, and it is the best guide for news operations; this is more of an ideal and sentiment, which lingers for a lifetime.

I also rewrote the 12 chapters in the book. In particular, some of the sections involving mobile Internet, as well as the handling of major breaking news, are almost re-edited. I also asked the design department to draw illustrations in some places that are not easy to read, and presented more cases in the form of QR codes. Thanks to the means of expression of new media, a paper book can also be three-dimensional.

On March 18, 2015, the entire manuscript was completed. At this moment, the "smog dispute" in the circle of friends has just dissipated, the national "two sessions" have ended, and we are still waiting for the return of MH370. In the cold wind, the spring flowers have bloomed.

On Youth Day 2021, when I turned on my computer to rearrange the text, I saw the work diary again. Six years later, I am no longer the person I was then, and Sohu News is no longer the Sohu News of that time, and it will never go back to the beginning. But I can proudly say: although the years are faltering, the passion remains unchanged, and the return is still a teenager.

In April 2015, Beyond the Portal: Sohu New Media Operation Manual was published by Chinese Min University Press. I wrote on the waist cover of the book: the glory and dream of a new generation of Internet news people.

Nine

At the same time as the publication of "Beyond the Portal", I left Sohu, where I worked for three years, and turned to the mobile information client - a little information, as vice president and editor-in-chief.

Everything seems to be reincarnated. The office location of a little information at that time, the 7th floor of Block D of Tsinghua Tongfang Science and Technology Plaza, was exactly where the product team of Sohu News Client once worked. When I first entered the office, sohu's corporate culture slogan was plastered on the wall: "User first."

In the first week of work, I caught up with the Nepal earthquake. Working late that day, I still stayed in the seven-day hotel where I used to work at Sohu. Many of the chapters of Beyond Portal are written at this hotel. The smile at the front desk of the hotel is still sweet, but the dusty path at the door has become a wide asphalt road.

Because of the experience accumulated in the previous portal, the report of this major earthquake is still reasonable. But I found a problem, that is, the reading mode on a little bit of information is completely different from the news client of the portal: it is a thousand faces - that is, according to the user's interests, relying on algorithms to recommend content, which we call the "information flow" model; and the latter still does not get rid of the influence of the portal, a thousand people, mainly editor selection, recommendation. Non-major sudden content such as the Nepal earthquake is a "chicken rib", if you insist on recommending it to every user to read, the click-through rate must not be high.

Faced with reality, I began to think about how I could transform: from editorial thinking to algorithmic thinking, from a thousand people to a thousand faces.

A media outlet once asked me in an interview: What do you think is transformational success? I answered: The success of transformation is not from one position to another, from one company to another company, from one media to another media, but to be able to find a new self in new positions, new companies, and new types of media - including adapting to changes in pattern, strategy, thinking, and action, and making comprehensive breakthroughs.

For my personal career, the first transformation was to leave the university major, from "how steel is made" to "how steel is not made"; the second time was from print media to portals, fast, massive, interactive, which is the difference between portals and newspapers and television. The third transformation is essentially the transformation from the PC to the mobile Internet, from the editorial thinking to the user's thinking.

The transformation and breakthrough of a little information is a long and painful process, which I liken to China's transformation from a planned economy to a market economy. Previous media — from the oral transmission of primitive people 1 million years ago to modern newspapers, to radio in the 19th century, to television in the 20th century, to the emergence of portals in China in 1997, although the medium of communication has changed, but it is "one thousand people"—editors-in-chief and editors have the power to decide what kind of content is placed in what position, and readers can only passively accept it. This is like the planned economy that China once practiced, where the state judges what to supply and how much to supply.

However, the new generation of Apps represented by today's headlines and a little information puts users in the position of "Party A", judging personal interests, giving user portraits, and then matching the segmented content to the corresponding people through the user's location, model, personal information, and browsing habits within the App. Algorithms began to gradually have the same authority as the editor-in-chief in distributing content. This is like China's market economy today, where supply and demand are determined by the market.

Therefore, a little information transformation is more to understand the algorithm, understand the working mode of artificial intelligence, and share my content professional experience with the algorithm team to form a working mode of water and milk.

On the eve of the National Day in 2015, I had severe pneumonia. Brushing a little information in the 39-degree high fever, I just saw an article about Jin Yong's martial arts novel "Yitian Slaughtering Dragon". In the confusion, I felt that the source of the manuscript had become the Heavenly Sword, and the algorithm had become the Dragon Slayer Sword, and everyone was scrambling for it—if someone could master them at the same time, they could command the martial arts.

I suddenly woke up, jumped out of bed, and wrote on notepad: Water source, algorithm! This is the direction of "beyond the portal". Five years later, in 2020, when I confirmed the system of "source stream theory", I turned to the record of that year - "source" has been confirmed, and the algorithm is a kind of "flow".

The past is not like smoke.

Ten

So I started to face the first question: Where is the quality content?

When I joined a little information, the content of this aggregation app mainly comes from two aspects: one is copyright cooperation with institutional media, and news is obtained through purchase or traffic exchange, which is no different from traditional portals. The headline content of a little bit of information, such as major current politics and social reports, is still obtained in this way. For example, Xinhua News Agency and People's Daily, because they hold the first publishing authority of all major news, they are almost all client partners.

The second is machine scraping, which is similar to Baidu's way of obtaining content. Its advantage is that it can be searched on the whole network, but the drawbacks are also obvious, not to mention that the mud and sand are under the sand, the quality cannot be guaranteed, and copyright is also an urgent problem to be solved. In 2014, the copyright crisis encountered by today's headlines stemmed from this.

So, every platform— whether it's a bit of information or today's headlines— needs to build its own team of authors to get richer, better quality content without copyright disputes.

At that time, the content of the jianghu was already full of smoke. In August 2012, the WeChat public account was launched, and by 2015, it had entered a typical dividend period. According to incomplete statistics, on WeChat, China's largest self-media platform, there are currently more than 30 million registered public accounts, of which millions are active accounts, insisting on posting every day.

This is the self-media that is on the rise.

A little information competitor today's headlines, has also begun to operate the self-media platform "Headlines" in 2014. Its slogan is, "To be one of the world's largest Chinese creation platforms, there is no one". When Yiyi Information began to establish its own self-media system, the content contributed by "Toutiao" to today's headlines has exceeded 60%; Zhang Yiming, who was the CEO of Toutiao today, said many times in his speech, "To remove the two words Chinese" in his speech.

Therefore, for a little information, building your own content ecosystem is bound to be a hard battle. In August 2015, when I took over a little self-media, there were less than 5,000 self-media on this platform, only one full operation staff of one point of self-media, and the product personnel were all part-time. Because there was no budget and not enough influence, for a long time, we did not invite a high-quality account to come in.

Eleven

I began to do two things: one is to quickly establish a self-media development team, responsible for "soliciting customers"; the other is to urge the product team to quickly build a platform, so that self-media people can achieve the goal of "fast entry and easy writing". A little bit of water ecological layout has begun here.

At that time, the most popular sentence of the Little Information Content Department was "Is this number available", just like the Beijingers who met and asked "Have you eaten". At the weekly meeting, the editors-in-chief will benchmark the high-quality accounts with competitors, especially today's headlines, to see if they have settled in. Every time a major news or important topic appears, we will compare it with the opponent's account entry and posting according to the content it involves. Later, our "greeting" extended to the second sentence "Has this number been sent" and the third sentence "Is the speed of the text faster or slower than the opponent".

The entry of high-quality accounts has also become one of the most important assessment indicators (KPIs). We are often reprimanded by the company leaders for not settling in one or two numbers or not being able to find a few articles. Many of my colleagues in charge of outreach even leave because they can't complete the almost demanding tasks. But soon after, I began to gradually relax (a little stupid, but I did appreciate this persistence): what determines the victory or defeat of the water war is certainly related to the degree of our efforts, but the key point is only two words: fame and profit.

Like the bustling world, self-media – including institutional media – are stationed on a platform for nothing more than traffic and revenue. Traffic is the name, and revenue is profit. Because the traffic and cash-burning strength of large platforms such as BAT are much higher than those of small and medium-sized platforms, this can be seen from various plans, 1 billion, 2 billion, 5 billion, 10 billion, 30 billion... The subsidies of the platform have soared all the way, "thousands of people", "mango seeds", "big fish", "bear paws", etc., which make people dizzy. And WeChat, China's largest self-media platform, although there is no explicit subsidy, but the traffic of more than 700 million daily active users can easily create countless 100,000+ and the advertising share behind it.

Without the support of communication, it is impossible to achieve a good content production environment; on the contrary, without the production of high-quality and rich content, it is impossible to achieve a thousand-faced, market-oriented distribution model. This seemingly simple sentence actually has a history of blood and tears behind it. What we can do is to strive for the understanding, support and cooperation of relevant departments to the greatest extent possible under the condition of limited power, maximize efficiency, and step by step towards the goal of "water and milk integration".

The foundation of the "source stream theory" was actually gradually formed at that time.

Therefore, in the later stage of operation, I will no longer emphasize the absolute number of media settlements. Only by putting the eggs on the market can you buy back the chicken feed and continue to raise chickens. It's a loop. A more appropriate metaphor is a fish tank, if the self-media, institutional media as a fish, then the number of users and the number of articles read is water. The balance between fish and water is the basic point of ecological balance. What we need to look for is the highest efficiency point and the best balance between content acquisition and content distribution.

twelve

In the more than two years of focusing on the operation of self-media, I have also realized that the development process of institutional media and self-media is in line with the development and changes of China's economic system. You can think of the self-media as those individual restaurants that were born at the beginning of reform and opening up; and the institutional media is the state-owned old brand.

Compared with the information provided by institutional media, the advantages of self-media are very obvious. First, its position is different, most accounts write in the first person, rather than the perspective of third-party journalists in the past; second, a large number of professionals such as doctors, lawyers, athletes, etc. have joined the writing team, which can bloom and compete with a hundred schools, and the professionalism of the content is far more than that of those reporters who know nothing; third, because there is no need to pass the "three trials", a large number of grounded content and vivid expressions have been perfectly presented, and the attractiveness of users has increased by several levels.

But precisely because no one checks on it, a large number of harmful political information, vulgar content, headline party articles, false advertisements, and saliva posts continue to pour in like sewage, making the Internet more and more unsightly. It's like an individual restaurant that no one regulates, where inferior meals are frequently brought to the table for the sake of profit.

Before entering the Internet, I left at least 1.5 million words of reporting and 5 million words of editorial work in China's top media such as CCTV, Southern Weekend, and China News Weekly. At that time, in order to verify the authenticity of a detail, we needed to verify three unrelated sources; but today, "network transmission, network exposure" has become commonplace, and some self-media articles even appear behind the "this article is pure speculation, if it affects the parties, it is not responsible" annotations.

"While we are pioneering, we must weed." I said to the review team for a little bit of information. As a result, we have opened the "water source cleanup" plan, formulated more stringent audit standards, and cleaned up hundreds of thousands of self-media in the two years from 2016 to 2017, of which financial, stock, military, historical, health, and emotional accounts are the hardest hit areas. At the end of 2017, Yiyi Information released the annual "black list", exposing the self-media that was banned for publishing illegal information this year, which was highly praised by the competent authorities and netizens.

Many self-media authors do not understand such a practice, complaint calls are sometimes broken, and some even threaten customer service. But I've always insisted. Because this is the responsibility and attitude of media people, we are different from platforms that rely entirely on machine judgment and rely on human weaknesses to attract users.

It is also important that our users are limited and the amount of reading per person per day is limited. There is a limit to the amount of money that any platform – even if you have the money. If these traffic and revenue are distributed to spam content, it will inevitably occupy a large amount of space for high-quality content, so that good self-media cannot get fame and profit, and eventually lead to their departure. If bad money is allowed to expel good money, it is not only the sadness of self-media authors, but also the sadness of the platform and the entire Internet.

In mid-October 2016, I accompanied Liu Shuang, then chairman of Little Information, to attend the 16th China Online Media Forum held in Guiyang. His presentation at the main forum focused on "three pitfalls of being wary of algorithms." One of the pitfalls is the shallow or even vulgar reading brought about by the algorithm "click recommendation mode" of "catching the eye by the title".

He said that reading some clients often has such an experience: the title is wonderful, but clicking on it has no amount of information to speak of, and even patchwork and nonsense, it feels like eating a dead fly. The reason for this experience is that the algorithm's mode of operation is largely based on click-through rate. Because of the sensational title, a large number of users clicked on the article, although they immediately left after reading it, but their click behavior was left behind, and it was captured by the algorithm, and then recommended this high-click rate article to others. This creates a vicious circle that seriously affects the reading experience.

In order to avoid this problem, responsible AI companies must not only look at the number of clicks, but also determine the recommendation weight of articles based on many other indicators, such as dwell time, forward sharing, favorite comments, etc. Similarly, we should also pay attention to the quality of content sources as an important reference indicator for the quality of articles. In this way, the recommendation of vulgar and inferior content can be reduced.

In the following speech, I explained this point: this is an era of 140 words of information dissemination, and it is also an era of "headline party" flying around and sick sentences and typos. The use of the Internet has increased the efficiency of information transmission by countless times, but it has also greatly reduced the quality of information. The lack of review, one person to decide the self-media, especially.

People's understanding of beauty can be described as a ring of fat swallows, thin, each with its own advantages. But in any era, Dong Shi would not be recognized as a beauty. Therefore, we still need beautiful text today - condensed themes, rigorous logic, beautiful words, exquisite packaging... Only such an article can be called a real 100,000+.

At the end of my speech, I stressed that for the platform side, what we can do is to sort out and guide the water source more carefully. From the classification and rating of self-media accounts, and the different recommendation weights corresponding to different levels, to the refinement of article portraits - long and short, timely and non-timely, author, genre, attitude, mood, etc. It's like knowing every river that flows into the sea. Resolutely block the sewage pipe, or thoroughly purify and treat it; and for high-quality water sources, we must broaden the channels and increase the intensity of their introduction. Only in this way can the clarity of the sea be guaranteed.

thirteen

At the beginning of November 2016, I was invited to Shenzhen to participate in the "Dameisha Innovation Forum" and gave another speech on the theme of "Water Source Victory". In my opinion, the factors that determine the future life and death of media focus on two aspects: one is the ability to obtain content, and the other is the ability to distribute content.

Content acquisition requires rich and high quality. The so-called abundance is not simply massive, but can cover all fields and meet the needs of "thousands of people"; the so-called high quality refers to getting the best things in various fields, rather than mixing fish and sand.

Content distribution requires speed and precision. The so-called fast is to pass important content to users at the first time, which is especially important in the era of mobile Internet; the so-called precision is to truly "understand you" and "give you what you think", but to avoid overly pleasing users and letting them fall into information islands.

All in all, fast, accurate, excellent and wide are the core needs of users. Only with this philosophy in mind can a new generation of apps truly surpass portals.

The PPT of this speech is still retained by me. The first page is a summary: I divide the process of content dissemination into four parts, content production - content moderation - content distribution - user interaction. And these links constitute a closed loop. At the time, I thought it was already a very refined framework structure. But when the "source stream theory" system was first formed three years later, I couldn't help but sigh: The refinement of the Tao is actually endless.

After the speech, I came to the dameisha seashore. The sea is vast and meets the same vast night sky in the distance. Shenzhen has opened the door of China's reform and opening up, and opened the road of transformation from a planned economy to a market economy; my transformation has also embarked on a new stage here - from the previous portal thinking and editing thinking to water source thinking and user thinking.

fourteen

In December 2016, as the annual contribution of the Little Information Content Department, the "Self-media Way - One Point Operation Manual" was published in private. Like the Sohu News Editorial Code, this 120,000-word, 17-chapter booklet with hundreds of cases has shaken the industry. Even many colleagues borrowed books from editors with a little information because they could not find them and copied them.

But from my personal point of view, I always feel that the manual is not full enough: it is divided into the upper part and the lower part, the upper part is mainly about content production, the lower part is mainly about account operation and content distribution, and the problem is in the next part.

The reason is very simple: from 1997 when I entered the media industry to the end of 2016, the work of content production has been done for 19 years; and the operation of self-media accounts, the understanding of algorithm distribution, and the understanding of self-media products have been done for one and a half years. It's not that you're not smart, it's not that you're not diligent, it's that you have too little experience and lessons, in other words, you don't pay enough tuition.

The only thing I could do was to keep paying my tuition. Therefore, in 2017, I spent most of my energy on the operation of self-media and the learning of the concept of artificial intelligence, and learned to observe, analyze, and judge the strategy adjustment based on the data. I came to realize that lofty patterns are just as important as nuanced scrutiny. The former will ensure that you will find the track accurately and not go astray; without a solid foundation, the tall buildings will soon collapse, and there is no chance of building at all.

Compared with 2014 before the book "Beyond the Portal", 2017 for me, on the surface, is not so magnificent and dangerous. But under the seemingly calm life and work, there is actually an undercurrent, a lot of pressure, and even a crisis. In particular, whether we can win the "Internet News Information Service License" with the highest gold content in history, whether we can do a good job in publicizing and reporting the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and how to face the great changes in the media industry again, as long as we take a wrong step, we may abandon our previous achievements.

Chinese New Year's Eve, I was on night duty with my colleagues in the company as usual. This is my sixth Chinese New Year's Eve at the company, the first three years in Sohu, the last three years in a little information. I wrote a New Year's message to all my colleagues in the Content Operations Department, describing the past year and our future as "Born in distress, died in comfort":

Dear colleagues,

Since entering the Internet in 2012, my feeling is that the Internet is developing faster and faster, the competition is becoming more and more fierce, especially with the concentration of traffic entrances, it will be more and more difficult to survive. Therefore, we must resolutely abandon the mentality of a large company and return to the fundamentals of a startup.

A good startup needs a sense of distress the most. This kind of distress is not a complaint from the world, nor is it a sigh of waiting. We need to be like a sniper, always keeping a clear head, clear judgment, always alert to the muzzle of the opponent's gun pointing at our temples, and always ready to shoot our own bullets into the eyebrows of the enemy. It is precisely because of the worry, so it is necessary to quickly judge the outlet, quickly break through, and innovate; it is precisely because of the worry that the spirit of "bright sword" is more needed.

In this sense of distress, combined with the special positioning of a little information, we must strengthen the exploration of several aspects: one is to find a balance between content orientation, content security and commercial success; the second is to find a balance between manual editing and algorithm recommendation; the third is to find a balance between institutional media and self-media; and the fourth is to find a balance between mainstream views and folk expressions. In response to these explorations, we are making various attempts, including the publication of "The Way of Self-Media", the introduction of "Algorithm Industry Standards", including our new products in cooperation with state agencies such as the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.

Mencius: Born in sorrow, died in comfort. This philosophy, which has been proven countless times over the past two thousand years, has been confirmed again and again in today's Internet tide. Anyone who looks at jokes and leaves themselves out of the way is often the protagonist of the next tragedy. Driven by the mobile Internet, the times have marched forward, and it is impossible to have an iron rice bowl and such a comfortable post like 20 years ago, which shelters us to survive.

We must believe that every effort and vigilance we have will be rewarded. As it is said in the text of the Treatise on Life and Death: "Therefore the heavens will descend upon the Scythians, and they will first suffer their minds, strain their bones and bones, starve their bodies, empty their bodies, and act in a disorderly manner. ”

Today, the heavens have descended on a great task. I hope that in the new year, everyone will rise up in the midst of sorrow and move towards success!

In this complex and ever-changing environment, I also began to strive for inner peace. We need to be aware of our worries at all times, but we can't live in anxiety every day. Only when the heart is settled, can we be more calm in doing things, and it is easier to achieve success.

I read a lot of works on psychology and gradually understood some of Wang Yangming's views. This Great Confucian of the Ming Dynasty was one of the few people in Chinese history who "established morality, made words, and established deeds". His success stems from the study of the heart. Both mind science and Buddhism emphasize inner transparency, but the way for mind to seek stability is to "enter the world," that is, to "see things in facts," so it is positive and enterprising. It emphasizes the constant analysis of things, insight into the law of the operation of all things, in order to achieve the state of "this mind is bright", the so-called "body without goodness and no disgust, there are good and malicious movements." Knowing good and knowing evil is conscience, and removing evil for good is a special thing."

fifteen

China in 2017 also stands in a new direction of history. On October 18, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China was held, and "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" was written into the Party Constitution. As socialism with Chinese characteristics enters a new era, the main contradiction in this country's society has also been transformed into "the contradiction between the people's growing need for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development."

After the end of the 19th National Congress, Yiyi Information finally successfully obtained the "Internet News Information Service License" issued by the Central Cyberspace Administration. For this license, my team and I worked hard for two years. Previously, Yiyi Information had become the first pilot unit of the Special Management Unit of State-owned Assets, and as a result, it had introduced $112 million in financing. As editor-in-chief of the first "National Test Field," I am honored.

On October 31, 2017, when I received the license plate from a deputy director of the Central Cyberspace Administration, tears blurred my eyes. In the circle of friends that day, I wrote the following text:

The "Internet News Information Service License" with the highest gold content in history was spent in my house today. This is the first license obtained by a Chinese business app, the first issued after the implementation of the new Internet regulations in 2017, and the first issued after the victory of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. From the perspective of an editor-in-chief, the license has made the most beautiful of my 20-year career. 'Ordinary life in the north and south of the Jiangnan, return to Huafa Cangyan', our painstaking efforts for this are difficult to say. Here, I would like to sincerely thank the leaders of the Central Cyberspace Administration and the Beijing Cyberspace Administration, the comrades on the Cyberspace Front, and those friends who helped us in our most difficult moments. A little information must live up to expectations, do not forget the original intention, and forge ahead!

Later, in the business summary organized by the competent department and combined with the characteristics of the industry in which the individual is located to study and implement the spirit of the Nineteenth National Congress, I analyzed the characteristics of the "new Internet era" and the new problems that our generation of online media people have to face.

Question 1: The scale of tens of millions of self-media "free expression"

With the development of the Internet to this day, content production has undergone essential changes. Previously, professionals had the power to produce content, but today, everyone can be a reporter, a reviewer. According to authoritative statistics, there are currently more than 30 million self-media in China, and more than 10 million new media practitioners.

The rise of self-media, on the one hand, has brought more direct and more down-to-earth expressions, and also allowed many long-tail areas of content to be known by users, which has greatly enhanced the public's right to know; on the other hand, because there is no standardized review system, rumors and "headline party" articles are rampant, and there are also a lot of harmful political information, vulgar content, and information that slanders and personally attacks on enterprises and citizens.

The problem here is that from the time the self-media began to rise, we did not recognize its power. In those days, running a newspaper required strict scrutiny, especially a magazine number; now, a media with far more influence than the newspaper can register and publish articles at any time. This is the difficulty of management.

To crack this imbalance, one is to rely on the supervision of the government, and the other is to rely on the management of the platform. But the ultimate solution depends on the awakening of the sense of civic responsibility. In 1992, at the beginning of China's socialist market economy, a large number of fake goods poured in, a large number of food safety problems appeared, and even the pigs they fed themselves did not dare to eat, and the vegetables they planted did not dare to eat. But everyone gradually found out that the pigs you fed me ate, and as a result I was poisoned, and the vegetables I planted you ate, and as a result, you were poisoned, and society became a place where you harmed me and I pit you. Today's stage of Internet development is similar to the situation in the early days of the market economy, if everyone acts arbitrarily on the Internet, the result can only hurt each other. Therefore, the government should strengthen the management and guidance in this regard, especially the education of self-media people, so that everyone has this understanding, so that self-media can develop freely and orderly.

Problem two: The balance between algorithm distribution and editorial recommendation

Because it follows the logic of user first, the efficiency of algorithm distribution is much higher than that of edit distribution, which can be seen at a glance from the CTR (click-through rate). However, the problems of the "cocoon effect", "headline party" articles and vulgar content flood brought about by algorithmic distribution need to be completely solved. The content launched by editors is easier to meet the requirements of the orientation, but it is relatively inefficient, and it cannot meet the requirements of the thousands of users' interests, and the rich information is also an important part of the people's growing needs for a better life.

Therefore, how to use these two levers well requires deep thinking. If algorithms solve efficiency, then editors solve fairness. Abandoning either aspect can lead to problems. This is in line with the philosophy of a market economy: we pursue efficiency while emphasizing fairness. Moreover, the will of the editor represents the will of the state at some point. Journalism has a basic definition: information that should be known, desired, and unknown. If the algorithm is to satisfy the user's desire to know but unknown content, then the editor should satisfy the content that should be known but unknown. Only in this way, in a user's world, the information is complete.

More importantly, there is a causal relationship between question one and question two. It is precisely because the public is no longer satisfied with the one-sided didactic articles that a large number of self-media have emerged; and it is precisely because self-media has become a phenomenon-level product that algorithm distribution has been further upgraded. If you want to solve these two problems, you must find a good balance between institutional media, self-media, editorial intervention, algorithmic recommendation, and social distribution. This balance is like the ecological balance in the rivers and seas.

sixteen

On New Year's Day 2018, I drew a map of the ecology of water sources based on my thoughts over the past year, and spent nearly two months compiling these reflections into a 10,000-word essay, which was used as the last chapter of the book "The Way of Self-Media". After the article was written, I came again to the Anhe Bridge in the northwestern fifth ring road of Beijing, looked at the ice surface swept by the cold wind, imagined the river flowing east under the ice, and recalled the same scene when I came here after the "Sohu News Editorial Code" unexpectedly became popular three years ago.

I don't know why I have such deep feelings for the Ann Ho Bridge and the running water under the bridge. Perhaps, I have always compared the content to a water source; perhaps, because the name of An Ho Bridge represents a kind of inner stability; perhaps, because the song "An Ho Bridge" represents a dream and nostalgia for youth:

I know those summers

Just like youth, you can't go back to replace your dreams

I can only reluctantly know that the bragged bull will also laugh with the youth to make me trapped in the city

In memory of you

…………

I don't expect anything more

I know there are so many regrets in this world every day so goodbye hello

…………

seventeen

Another year has passed, and it has come to the turn of winter and spring in 2019. The new work "The Way of Self-Media" has been published by Chinese Min University Press, focusing on the operation of accounts and the recommendation logic of the "thousand faces" distribution algorithm. With this book, I further established the position of the industry, and the relevant departments quoted a little management model when compiling the "Self-media White Paper", and our experience has once again become the benchmark of the industry.

This year, a little bit of information I work for has changed dramatically. The original major shareholder Phoenix Network withdrew, and the new capital took over and became the majority shareholder, which led to a change of information management. Within a year of 2019, the CEO, CFO, CTO, senior vice president of technology, and others resigned, and I resigned as editor-in-chief in April 2019, retaining only the title of senior consultant.

The news of my resignation was on the hot search, and it was also rendered in the form of push by clients such as Baidu. The people who make the content themselves become the content that is consumed, which is not a good thing. This has led to many people asking, "Why resign?" My answer is only one sentence: in the face of politics or capital, everything about professional managers is a floating cloud.

But it made me realize more about what belongs to the platform and what belongs to me. "Dapeng rises with the same wind one day and rises up to ninety thousand miles", capable people will seize the wind outlet and use the platform, but the more outstanding performance is "if the wind stops and comes down, it can still be swept but the water is lost".

The absence of identity restrictions also allows me to look at the problem at a higher level. Information aggregation and algorithm distribution are only part of the content dissemination. In the not very busy months, I delved into the content creation and distribution logic of many large platforms, and at the same time systematically reviewed my previous thinking. I also vividly recall sitting on the scrap heap at the entrance of Shougang No. 3 Steel Mill singing "I am a little bird", and the rat that wanted to steal my lunch, in the blink of an eye, 23 years have passed.

It was in this kind of retrospection that the "source stream theory" came out.

eighteen

The day the "Introduction to the Origin Theory" section was completed was January 31, 2020, the seventh day of the first lunar month of the Year of Gengzi. The twilight outside the window is getting darker, the cold wind blows on a few hurried figures on Beijing's Chang'an Avenue, there are almost no cars, only a few firecrackers in the distance are still reminding the Chinese people that this should be a noisy and festive Spring Festival.

Just over a month ago, a new coronavirus called "COVID-19" spread across China along with the flow of people. It will attack people's lungs, causing severe inflammation, loss of ventilation function, and eventually death. The terrible thing about this new virus is that it is like a ghost - some people will have fever, dry cough, diarrhea after infection; but some people have no symptoms at all, but the virus tests positive and can infect others.

Since the lockdown of Wuhan on January 23, 2020, the number of confirmed cases representing illness and death has been climbing every day, and panic, disappointment, anger and confusion have enveloped everyone's heart. The fate of the country, the family, and the individual will be changed by this epidemic. "Communication", which seems to be a very professional term, has also become the focus of worldwide attention.

There are three core problems in infectious disease (epidemiological) research: one is the source of the disease, that is, how the virus is produced; the second is the transmission chain, such as bubonic plague is "rodent→ fleas → people"; the third is susceptible people, the super spread of the new coronavirus quickly broke the "old people, young children are not easy to infect" statement, all people are susceptible.

This is also the core problem of the exploration of the "source flow theory" system. Where it comes from is the source; where it goes, it's the stream. Behind the source and flow is people.

nineteen

As mentioned earlier, my exploration of content sources began when I entered the media industry in December 1997. From China Labor Daily and Career Guide to CCTV, Southern Weekend to China News Weekly – in the past 14 years of journalistic and editorial career, I have summed up 8 words from 1.5 million words of interviews and about 5 million words of editorial works: topic selection, interview, writing (editing for videos), packaging (main indicator question production). They make up the basic content sources. Everything spreads at the source.

The most memorable work in the past 14 years is the series of reports during the Sars epidemic from 2002 to 2004. From the first case in Guangdong in the winter of 2002 to the last patient discharged from the hospital in Hefei, Anhui Province, in the summer of 2004, the ghostly virus has been the subject of my tracking. My colleagues at Southern Weekend and I secretly visited an underground wildlife trading market in Guangdong, where a large number of civets were hidden, tracked down the transmission chain of the three major epidemic areas in Guangdong, Beijing and Shanxi, entered the Beijing Ditan Hospital to record the treatment site, tracked the cremation of the patient's body throughout the process, and witnessed the truth and lies about the mask. In April 2003, when I was interviewing the rural epidemic prevention situation in a village in Xingxian County, Shanxi Province, I almost fell off a cliff more than 100 meters high; in November of the same year, my colleague Lin Chufang and I jointly published the work "The First Anniversary of the Sars Outbreak: We Live and Persevere", which described the unfortunate life of patients due to serious sequelae - necrosis of the femoral head, which still makes people tear up when reading it to this day.

After nearly a decade of traceability by scientists, the source of sars virus was finally identified as the Chinese chrysanthemum bat, and the intermediate host was the civet cat active on the black market. But until the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, people still used eating wild game such as bats as a capital to show off, which is really sad and lamentable!

In the 17 years between the two outbreaks, the structure of content creators has changed dramatically. Self-media has quietly risen, and various "numbers" have overwhelmed the sky, and in some aspects, their influence has even surpassed that of institutional media. But in this epidemic, it is still those excellent traditional media reporters who rush to the front line, in addition to the "three big people" of People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency and CCTV, but also Caixin Weekly, Caijing, Sanlian Life Weekly, and People, as well as my old clubs, China News Weekly and Southern Weekend. When I saw a photo of Xia Chunping, the president of China News Weekly, wearing a mask and carrying luggage, hurriedly boarded the train to Wuhan, a long-lost impulse came to my mind. For real warriors, it doesn't matter their age, they don't care about their position, they don't care where they are, as long as they hear the horn of battle, they will return to the front line at the first time and use their flesh and blood to defend the years.

Therefore, behind the "topic selection, interview, writing, packaging" are the other eight words of the content source: truth, courage, responsibility, and faith. Whether it is institutional media or self-media, whether it is traditional media or new media, including the "integrated media" that the state has made great efforts to create, it is a concept and form, and only the media that tells the truth and is responsible is a good media. Without these connotations, no matter how clever the technical school and the perfect theoretical system, it is also a wood without a root and a ship without a rudder.

twenty

In traditional media such as Southern Weekend, journalists are responsible for content production and responsible editors are responsible for layout processing. Which manuscript can be on, which manuscript will be "shot", who is the headliner, who is the second, depends on the choice of the editor and editor-in-chief. When I joined Sohu in 2012 as the director of the news center, the PC editor also had the power to kill the manuscript. Content that is in the hands of journalists, not published or paged, is the source; when the editor agrees to publish, the content meets the reader, and it becomes a stream. This is the same as the spread of plague – the virus is the source, and when it spreads to humans through an intermediate host and forms a "human-to-human" transmission, it is a stream.

At the heart of the stream is the sorting logic, which is who is the first and who is the second. The editor determines the flow of information for the first and second articles, which we call "editing flow". Today, on news clients such as Caixin and The Paper, editorial ranking is still the main way. 2012 is the first year of the rise of the mobile Internet. With the popularity of smart phones and the leap from 3G to 4G, two epoch-making products were born - one is WeChat's "circle of friends" function online, which represents the social information flow, and the dynamics of the followers seen here; the other is today's headlines, which represent intelligent communication, that is, algorithm flow, and "what you care about is the headlines" is the recommendation logic behind it.

Since then, the editorial flow, social exchange, and algorithm flow have stood on three feet, the dissemination of information is accelerating, the efficiency of distribution is improving, and a large number of information demand has forced producers to create richer content, and the small stream of content has become a big river.

Online and offline progress is always accompanied. Also during this period, the birth of high-speed rail, the expansion of highways, the increase of routes, and the on-call "ride-hailing car" appeared in the city... People are moving faster and faster. Seventeen years ago, in order to report on the Sars epidemic, I rushed from Taiyuan, Shanxi, to Xingxian County, and walked more than 200 kilometers for 10 hours; today, the highway is direct, and it takes only about two hours. In normal times, this is convenience and efficiency, but in the face of the epidemic, this is a huge risk and challenge.

In order to quickly cut off the chain of transmission of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, isolation lines were quickly established. National-provincial-municipal-community, in and out of need to measure body temperature, show passes, grid management model has played a huge role, which is like cutting the Internet into a local area network; prohibiting large-scale gathering of people, equivalent to closing groups; minimizing travel, going out must wear masks, and minimizing the probability of peer-to-peer transmission. The logic of blocking the spread of viruses and blocking the spread of content is the same, and the theory of "source stream theory" actually explains all the laws of transmission.

twenty-one

In the process of China's national fight against the epidemic and the gradual emergence of achievements, the word count of "Source Streams" is gradually increasing. After communicating with Zhai Jianghong, a teacher at Chinese Min University Press, I decided to compile this system into a book again.

The theoretical system covered by the Source Stream theory is as follows:

Source: That is, content creation (production). The foreground is the work; the backstage is the author. The work can be divided into topic selection, interview, writing, packaging; and the author is the "number".

Streaming: That is, content propagation (distribution). According to the logic of the order, they are the editing stream, the social exchange, the algorithm flow, and finally talk about the problem of "three streams in one".

Content risk control: It is located between the source and the flow, which is equivalent to a sewage treatment plant, and is a means to grasp the content orientation and safety.

Media platform: Source and stream are converted on the carrier (that is, the media platform), and content creators and readers communicate on the carrier. The main carrier of the moment is based on the mobile Internet, App is a form of media, how to operate the App is its focus.

Application: Including the shaping of the core competitiveness of the media, the key points of media integration operations, the guidance and disposal of public opinion, as well as the data analysis and disposal suggestions in the epidemic.

There is also an outline of the outline: mainly about the formation of content ecology, and the 44 basic rules including content production and distribution.

I'm thankful that I've left something behind in my 22-year media career, including the accumulation and thinking I've done before. For example, the recitation and understanding of poetry has led to the article "Writing Saying: Sentence Show, Bone Show, God Show" in the book. I also read a lot of business notes - after 2002 to Southern Weekend, I began to save information in the form of email; after I arrived at Sohu in 2012, I insisted on writing a daily work log, which was uninterrupted for a year and a half; and in a little information, I left a large number of weekly reports and summaries of important work after completion. Some of these articles have been published on the "One Point Of Morning Light" public account, and others have been disclosed for the first time in this book collation. Roughly speaking, the summary text written over the years should be about 1.5 million words, no less than my original report.

Without accumulating steps, there is no way to go thousands of miles; without accumulating small streams, there is no way to become a river and a sea.

When sorting out these notes, the past that is not as smokey as smoke comes to the face again: the dusty path of Wudaokou and the seven-day hotel that must stay three nights a week; the laughter in the sky when the meaning of "user" is understood in the transformation of Sohu's media integration; the sadness and joy when the idea of "source and flow" is born on the seashore of Dameisha in Shenzhen; the tears when a little information is obtained; and the "last lesson" for colleagues when he resigns as the editor-in-chief of a little information...

Two decades of sharpening the sword, three "seven years of itch", and finally achieved the "source stream theory".

Writing on days of death, disappointment, and panic is overwhelming. In particular, seeing that the vision of 2020 is shattered by reality, it is even more necessary to say that it is still hugh. Fortunately, since becoming editor-in-chief, life has gone up and down, and many things have become the "new normal". When pain and sadness surround us, when we can't see the direction, all we can do is wait and persevere.

On February 4, 2020, the day the epidemic was very serious, I recorded a song: "Spring Wind Ten Miles". At that moment, that famous saying echoed in my ears: no winter is insurmountable; there is no spring that will not come!

twenty-two

The most memorable moment in the writing of the whole book was the death of the doctor in the early morning of February 7, 2020.

The 35-year-old, a doctor at Wuhan Central Hospital, was called the "whistleblower" for issuing a protective warning on December 30, 2019 that "there is a virus similar to Sars transmission." He was summoned by the local police for this reason, and the "Admonition Letter" given to him read: "Now according to the law, you have issued warnings and reprimands for your illegal acts of making false statements on the Internet, and your behavior has seriously disrupted social order." Because of the "rumors", the doctor made headlines in several mainstream media, including Hubei Television.

But the things he warned of eventually happened. On the day of his death, the number of people infected with the new coronavirus in the country had exceeded 40,000.

At that moment, in everyone's circle of friends, everyone was mourning this doctor who dared to tell the truth, which can no longer be described as "brushing the screen", but a network torrent that has never been seen in history. A media veteran wrote: We are angry that your warning is taken as a rumor, and we mourn that your death is not a rumor... What a terrible price to make your whistle loud and penetrate the East!

When I saw this news, I burst into tears. A thought suddenly became clearer: after 22 years in the industry, from an engineering graduate who didn't even know what the introduction was to become the editor-in-chief, from "Beyond the Portal", "The Way of Self-Media" to "Source Stream", what is our effort? What is the significance of studying the technical means listed in the "Source Stream Theory"?

On that unforgettable late night, I added article 44 of the core content of "Source Stream Theory", "The 44 Rules of Content Production and Distribution":

From the source to the flow, and then to the "source flow theory", why establish such a theoretical system? Content production, content distribution, content risk control, App operation skills, media integration, public opinion disposal... What is the value of these techniques? Truth, truth, and truth are the ultimate goal of communication. I must remember that sometimes a word of truth carries more weight than the whole world.

On the very day after the death of this outstanding Communist Party member, an investigation team appointed by the State Supervision commissioned arrived in Wuhan to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the relevant issues reported by the masses involving him. The National Health Commission and Wuhan City also publicly expressed their deep condolences for the doctor's death, posthumously awarding him the honorary title of "Advanced Individual in the Prevention and Control of the New Crown Pneumonia Epidemic in the National Health System".

A co-author of "The Origins" also asked me: Why did you write this book?

I replied: First, years of accumulation will eventually have results; in addition, it is also a record of such a special period of time -

This is a little responsibility that my generation can fulfill.

In the long river of history, people can actually be divided into three types:

One is what has changed its course, which we call "the leader."

The second is that it has a major impact on the course of history, such as Wu Liande - if this "chief medical officer" had not successfully stopped the pneumonic plague, China in 1910 would probably have fallen into the Jedi of "ten thousand households singing ghosts singing" like medieval Europe; it also includes Academician Zhong Nanshan, who dared to tell the truth in the two major epidemics and has become a reassuring pill for the Chinese people, whom we call "Guoshi".

More people are the third kind, little people like you and me. No one cares where we come from or where we end up. But at a certain point, a small person may stand up by chance and complete something that everyone cannot forget, such as Dr. Li Wenliang and others. Maybe they don't think "whistle-blowing" is a mission, but they do. It no longer matters whether such people are heroes or not, whether they can be passed on by tree monuments, their real value is to tell us that everyone may consciously or unconsciously write down words like mission and responsibility. And these most precious spirits of human nature will eventually merge into a torrent and roll to the east.

twenty-three

When I was a child, I always believed that every story would have a happy ending, such as the murderer being sentenced to death according to law, the prince and Cinderella entering the marriage hall, and a soldier who had experienced many battles eventually becoming a general. But when I went through the years of confusion, I realized that this is more of a wish. Helplessness, wandering, and even pain and tears are often the end of events. Even if we end up winning in a war, it will come at a huge cost. Spring has arrived, but many people have stayed in that winter forever.

On March 19, 2020, when the first draft of "Source Flow Theory" was completed, the Chinese mainland - 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government), including Wuhan, had zero new confirmed cases and zero suspected cases on the same day, which was the first time since the release of epidemic data. On this day, the results of the investigation into the Li Wenliang incident were also made public – a notice from the Investigation Group of the State Supervision Commission said that the public security organs were urged to revoke the "Letter of Reprimand" and hold the relevant personnel accountable, and promptly announce the results of the handling to the public. Subsequently, the Wuhan Municipal Public Security Bureau revoked the "Letter of Reprimand" and solemnly apologized to the hero. On 2 April, he was named a martyr.

At this moment, we do not have the feeling of "long book of poetry and ecstasy". Because on the same day, the new crown virus has swept through more than 150 countries and regions around the world, more than 210,000 people have been infected, and more than 10,000 people have died. Because the financial crisis caused by the epidemic has also swept the world, the US stock market has melted down for the fourth time, and oil prices have fallen sharply. Although the epidemic in China has been contained, the pain it has caused and the impact on China's economic and social mentality may only be just beginning. Imported cases abroad still threaten our country and people at all times.

In the early morning of March 19, I wrote this in my WeChat circle of friends:

These days, all kinds of strange things are happening... It is the drastic changes in the environment that inspire many sides of human nature, but we still believe that truth, kindness, and beauty are the mainstream, and when we can't do more for it, smile in the night when the wind is whistling.

twenty-four

On August 31, 2020, "Source Stream: 44 Rules for Content Production and Distribution" was published by Chinese Min University Press. This is my third book, along with Beyond Portal and The Way of Self-Media, and called the "Beyond Trilogy".

If "Beyond the Portal" is a work of the PC era, and "The Way of Self-Media" is a work of the mobile era, then "Source Stream" is a technique and a Tao, transcending all media and interpreting the essential law of communication. I believe that this book and the "source theory" system will redefine the content, define the transmission, and be like the cloud in Li Bai's poem.

I myself have made the biggest leap forward in my life in the process of forming the "Source Stream", both in business and in thought. It is not difficult to spread the source of others, but it is not easy to become the source yourself, and it is not easy to keep surging - this requires constantly exploring, digging, and breaking through layers of barriers before it can be gushing out.

After the publication of The Origins, I was invited to give lectures. The People's Network MOOC channel set up the "Wu Chenguang Famous Teacher Studio" to systematically output the "source flow theory" system; from September 2020, as a specially invited expert, I began to teach emergency response and Internet thinking at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. I was also invited by Mr. He Pengfang, Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of Shougang Corporation, to return to the place where I first grew up for business exchanges.

Shougang Corporation has already undergone tremendous changes. Because the 2008 Beijing Olympics, including all the steel industries in the third steelmaking plant where I worked, have been relocated, leaving behind a garden-style factory area, in which the office area of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Organizing Committee is located. The neat walls shielded the rats, and from time to time flocks of sparrows, magpies and pigeons flew through the sky, and I even saw circling eagles in the blue sky.

When introducing myself to my colleagues in Shougang Bao, I used the following opening paragraph: The life of a 44-year-old can be described by two novels, one is "How Steel is Made" and the other is "How Steel Can't Be Made"... (This article is based on the preface to the "Beyond Trilogy")

Supplement: In May 2021, the author of this article joined Phoenix.com as vice president and executive editor-in-chief.

Source: China Youth Network