This article was written by the author in July 2020. Today, the editor-in-chief of Chang drove to Hexi at the age of 92, and the author sent this article to the circle of friends to mourn the old editor-in-chief he respected in his heart. October 27, 2022
The old in my eyes
Li Wenhai
Lao Chang is more than 20 years older than me, and when he was the editor-in-chief, I was the head of the editor-in-chief's office. In my mind, he is a very admirable leader and teacher, and it is said that he should be called the chief editor of Chang with great respect, but in those days, he was not interested in shouting his post, everyone affectionately called him Lao Chang, and we young people also shouted Lao Chang, shouting and shouting, shouting Lao Chang retired, and shouting we also retired.
(i)
When I graduated in 1977 and was assigned to the newspaper office, Lao Chang was not in the newspaper office, but the old comrades often talked about him, and he really did not know his name. Lao Chang was called Chang Rongguang, who was already the deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper before the Cultural Revolution, and was later transferred to the propaganda department of the prefectural party committee, and then became a deputy minister. Among the old comrades' discussions, there were two points that impressed him the most: First, he was of good character, and second, he was particularly able to write; the articles he wrote had been published in "Hongqi" magazine, and they were not short investigation reports. People in that era knew the weight of "Hongqi", which, together with People's Daily and Jiefangjun Bao, was known as the famous "two newspapers and one periodical."
Unexpectedly, only two years later, the well-respected Lao Chang came to the newspaper office as the chief editor, the number one. Lao Chang has a point of view that running a newspaper well is the first place in a newspaper, and the key to running a good newspaper lies in talents, so cultivating a capable editorial team is the top priority.
The newspaper should set up a reporter department with relatively large young people to attend, and Lao Chang should personally grasp it. The reporters went to the county separately and worked at the grassroots level, and there was nothing else to do except return to Handan once a month for a meeting. At the grassroots level, reporters grasped the news of "top flowers with dew" on the one hand, and "passed" visits to customs on the other hand. According to Lao Chang's words, it was the mule that came out for a walk. In principle, it will last for one year and be held for three consecutive periods.
I was the first to sign up, because I think the news thing is too practical, the flyover style, just talk and practice. Without the experience of one knife and one shot, on paper, we often fall into the rut of being a master of the eye and a low hand. My daughter was less than two years old at the time, and my wife had to go to work again, and she was very supportive. I covered Cixian and Quzhou, and later added Wei County, and the comrades of the county reporting team rode bicycles, went from village to village, came and went in the wind and rain, chased news events, and waved a pen in the dim light of the guest house at night. It's interesting to think about it today. At that time, there were a few words circulating in the press: "A good woman should not marry a reporter, keep the empty room all year round, and once the interview returns, take off her dirty clothes." "It's a true portrayal.
My substantive contact with Lao Chang began as a journalist. As long as there are no special circumstances, Lao Chang always personally attends the monthly calendar meeting of the press department, listens to everyone's reports and talks about some ideas, he has no shelves, is good at listening, and can communicate frankly. This is very beneficial to me, and sometimes it feels like it is open. Questions should be carried in the mind, the news should choose the angle, and the interview should be willing to endure hardship. His ability to recognize and analyze problems has influenced me a lot. Strange to say, one year of journalism did not work enough, and two years in a row. Three years of full-time journalism not only made me pass the interview pass, but also fell deeply in love with journalism, I can't say that I am emaciated for Yihua, but I have never left the newspaper office all my life.
When he was a reporter, Lao Chang organized a series of reports entitled "Talking about the Present and the Past in the Year of Great Drought," which was an integral part of the propaganda to greet the 60 th anniversary of the founding of the party. Each reporter goes to a different county to write an in-depth report. There are restrictions on the number of words and delivery time, and the manuscript is directly submitted to the old manuscript. I wrote about Qu Zhou. I was really a little proud at the time and didn't take it very seriously. When he handed the manuscript to Lao Chang, he looked at it, his brows furrowed, and said solemnly: Start again, this manuscript can't be used, there is no depth! I really didn't expect this result, I think that the beautiful text is just a flower fist embroidered leg in Lao Chang's opinion, and the eyes of the editor-in-chief are really poisonous! The second time I went to Quzhou, I rode a bicycle with Comrade Ma Guide of the Propaganda Department of Quzhou County and started the interview again, when we walked to 10 of the 17 communes in Quzhou County and filled two notebooks. While interviewing and thinking, my mind is always turning: In the past, there was no harvest in the drought, fleeing the famine for food, and even starving all over the wilderness? Nowadays, the crops in the big dry fields are green, and people are laughing, why is this? What does it illustrate? Is this good for New China, the Communist Party, and the joint production contract responsibility system? Some people say that big bags cannot resist major natural disasters, but can the facts answer this question? This time I really worked hard, riding a bicycle to ride the hemorrhoids, the pain was so painful that I couldn't walk, and the manuscript was also written by crawling on the bed.
The manuscript was sent to Lao Chang, and this time he didn't say anything, he erased the theme of the original title with a red pen and changed it to: The same is the same drought. Apparently this title is a step above the original. After the manuscript was published, the response was good. Later, the newspaper conducted an internal evaluation of the articles to welcome the 60th anniversary of the founding of the party, and my manuscript was on the list.
(ii)
After I arrived at the editor-in-chief's office, I had more contact with Lao Chang. At that time, people thought that I was the head of the editor-in-chief's office, but in fact I was the deputy director, but I presided over the editor-in-chief office and was a member of the editorial board of the newspaper. The editorial board is the highest authority of the newspaper.
Lao Chang is very decent and a person with strong organizational principles, and has never engaged in the set of sealing officials and making wishes. Even when they reported that the Organization Department of the Prefectural Committee wanted me to be the deputy editor-in-chief, Lao Chang was tight-lipped and did not disclose half a word, until someone from above came to inspect it, and he said: You may have to shoulder a heavier burden. It's really old!
During my work in the editor-in-chief's office, I could feel that Lao Chang paid great attention to cultivating me, a hairy guy who was less than thirty years old, and did not understand too many things. Now that I think about it, the cultivation of Lao Chang is mainly reflected in two aspects. One is to develop a phased reporting plan, and the other is to write comments.
Every time there is a new spirit and work deployment at the top, the editorial office must carry out a reporting plan, what are the general requirements? How to conduct a page, what should be focused on, how to organize the report, and which department to implement? How to do the second edition, how to do the third edition, how to cooperate with the literary and artistic edition, what problems should be paid attention to, and so on, this plan is always let me draft, he checks it, revises, and then sets it in the editorial office. In the process, I learned a lot from not understanding to understanding. This is actually the embodiment of the editor-in-chief's idea of running a newspaper, how to grasp the overall situation, grasp the correct guidance of public opinion, and grasp the embodiment of propaganda art.
The other is to write speech. There have always been three steps in the press, called first news, then communication, and the last level is speech. At that time, instead of taking two days off five days a week, it was a day and a half a week, and the rest began on Saturday afternoon. One Saturday morning, Lao Chang pushed the door in and said to me: Is there something tomorrow afternoon, I won't come to the newspaper office at two o'clock?
I had just arrived at the office on Sunday afternoon when Lao Chang came. It turned out that he asked me to write a review with him for the next day's newspaper. He said that Women's Day is coming, let's play a role in half a day to write a commentary. Unexpectedly, since that time, it has become a rule to go to the newspaper office every Sunday afternoon to write a review, one article at a time, for several months.
At the beginning, the old man dictated, I remembered. As I memorized, I read it over and over again, and he thought about how to write the next sentence. Lao Chang usually doesn't talk much, but his thinking is quick, and he speaks very logically, and writing it down and sorting it out a little is a good article. I really admire it! Later, Lao Chang asked me to write first, write a paragraph and read it to him, and then write a paragraph after revision. Lao Chang smoked, smoked very fiercely, and even more one after another when writing. I also smoke, and the house is always full of smoke. In the end, I drafted the whole remarks first, and then looked at the old words and sentences.
Thanks to Lao Chang's teaching, it really worked, and at that time, the local committee office often held a telephone conference in the evening, and each time asked that a meeting message be sent in the Handan Daily the next day and a comment should be distributed. This task fell on my head, and the time was very tight, basically writing a page of factory arrangement, and after the sample came out, it was sent to the secretary general of the local committee for examination and approval, and it was typeset immediately after signing. After several times, the local committee was very satisfied. Lao Xing said that in the future, news and comments will not be used for review, and Li Wenhai will just make a decision. What a trust!
(iii)
Something that embarrassed me finally happened.
At that time, the newspaper implemented a editor-in-chief responsibility system, each page has a chief editor, and the only edition has a deputy editor in addition to the chief editor. The editor-in-chief is a deputy editor-in-chief, and the deputy editor-in-chief is me, the director of the editor-in-chief's office. During that time, the editor-in-chief did not go to work at home, and I, the deputy editor-in-chief, naturally came up. The task of the editor-in-chief of the first edition is mainly to review and approve the manuscript, come up with a good title, come up with preliminary opinions on which one is on the headline and which is on the second article, and explain the reasons at the meeting before leaving work in the afternoon for the editor-in-chief to adjudicate. In fact, pulling and pulling around, the effort is to weigh the publicity value and newsworthiness of the manuscript.
The meeting was presided over by the editor-in-chief, and the heads of the main departments of the editorial department, the comrades in charge of the drawing plates, and the comrades on the night shift all participated, and the lineup was not small. On that day, it was still a report first, and the front was basically quite smooth, but when I read the title of a meeting, Lao Chang spoke, he said that this title is not good, it needs to be changed, I casually said both, he shook his head. In order not to affect the other versions of the report, he asked me to go to the table next to me to seriously consider it. It makes me so faceless.
What to consider? A short meeting news, isn't it asking counties to seize the moisture after the rain to plant good corn, and the title can still mark a flower? When I returned to the main table to report, I was again denied by the old man, and everyone looked at each other, and my face was red. At this time, Lao Chang took the manuscript over, read it carefully, and then said: Every year is to grab and plant corn, what is the difference between this year and previous years? Isn't it clear in the manuscript that the corn planted this year is not rations, but for export. Mark this feature, isn't it unique? Lao Chang's words were like an initiation, which made me pause, and quickly marked a title that Lao Chang and everyone recognized.
Since then, I have paid special attention to the production of titles, found two books that made titles, read them carefully, and also took notes. For a while, I also experimented with a stupid method, the People's Daily came, I covered the headline, only read the content, and then I pondered the headline, after thinking about it, I looked at the headline of the People's Daily, and compared the two to find out where the problem was. The headline is the eye of an article and the eye of a newspaper. To put the finishing touch, that's a college question.
Lao Chang told me that making good headlines is not an overnight effort, but it must be done hard every day. He said that the most important thing in news headlines is accuracy, the hat is not tight or loose on the head, and try to use real questions instead of imaginary questions; Then it is necessary to be vivid and concrete, not to keep the old monk's hat flat, and to mark the most exciting, most important, and most newsworthy things; In addition, it is necessary to have talent and pondering. He talked about the headline of a Taiwanese newspaper when Zhang Xueliang and Miss Zhao Si got married. That title is a classic, and the theme is: Young Marshal Zhao Si, officially married. Red pink confidant, white head alliance. The upper subtitle is: Cold and Warm Years, Contemporary Frost Love. The next subtitle is: Night rain and autumn lights, pear blossoms and begonia accompany the old. The east wind of the small building, the past is unbearable to look back.
Later, after I took charge of the editorial work, I often remembered the words of Lao Chang, attached great importance to the production of titles, and set strict requirements for my colleagues. At pre-editorial meetings, one title after another is often passed. I remember that there was a manuscript on the second page about the production of top hats in Wei County, which was very prosperous, the products were flying across the sea, how many countries and regions they were sold, and how much foreign exchange they earned. The manuscript is not long, and the title is not short. I pondered for a while, crossed out the long title, and wrote: Wei County top hat goes to the world. Everyone said in unison: Good! Handan has engaged in enterprise bidding and contracting, factory directors have taken up posts through competition, and a number of outstanding young cadres have emerged. I produced this headline for a manuscript that reflected this: head by head, on seniority and seniority; Compete for the leader, and the dragon competes for the top. The subtopic is: Handan has emerged a group of outstanding talents in bidding and contracting.
Once I asked Lao Chang for his opinion on the newspaper, and he said at the first sentence, I look at the headline is okay. I said in my heart, isn't this all forced out by you?
(iv)
Lao Chang took me to the countryside only once, but it was particularly impressive and unforgettable.
I was already working in the editor-in-chief's office. The prefectural party committee has carried out a campaign to "straighten out the guiding ideology for professional work" and has required the top leaders of units directly under the prefectural government to go to the countryside to conduct investigation and study for no less than 10 days. Lao Chang is very happy, he is especially willing to go to the grassroots level, but he is too busy to go, this time it is according to people's wishes.
He took me and Zhang Hui, a newly assigned college student, and drove straight to Cishan 2nd Street in Wu'an. Cishan No. 2 Street is an advanced model of Handan's rural areas, with a large population and good village-run enterprises.
Through a series of focus group interviews, Lao Chang chose two issues to report, one is the transformation of Cishan 2nd Street in planting. At that time, the general situation was that the planned economy was transitioning to a market economy, and grain was changing to focusing on vegetable and fruit cultivation. Second, the marriage concept and mate selection standards of young people on the second street of Cixian County are different from other places, emphasizing the other party's family situation and paying more attention to their own character and talents. Lao Chang arranged, the first question let me be responsible, and the second question Zhang Hui was responsible. The so-called responsible is to write, and the two issues must be interviewed and discussed together. When Lao Chang is interviewed, he often breaks the casserole and asks, both like a friend's nag and like a scholar's inquiry.
Lao Changte values the form of expression from small to large. He said: Big media have the advantages of big media, and grassroots media have the advantages of grassroots media. The advantage of grassroots media lies in their proximity to the masses and familiarity with the situation in the fields. A little water can see the sun, and small things can reflect big themes. It's man-made, and tabloid reporters shouldn't look down on themselves. Lao Chang set the title to be written, one is called "Mountain Country Spring News", and the other is called "Youth Information". There must be news from the beginning, starting from the scene, and the number of words cannot exceed 1,200 words.
Lao Chang and I lived in a room in the village office, where we were revising the manuscript in the dead of night, I was on the table, he was lying on the bed, he really chanted a word, twisted the spirit of several stems, listened to me read sentence by sentence, put forward opinions from time to time, and then read it again. He said that this spring not only means that the spring of nature is coming, but also that the spring of a brand-new commodity production in the countryside is also coming. Reading this manuscript should make people feel joyful and excited. A small manuscript, changed back and forth, to be honest, I was a little annoyed, and after a busy day, I did feel a little tired. But I don't talk about rest, and I don't dare to sleep.
The manuscript was read and read, and I couldn't hear Lao Chang's reflection, and then Lao Chang's snoring sounded in the room, ah, Lao Chang fell asleep! I tiptoed to the bed, trying to put the covers off and sleep. At this moment, Lao Chang's snoring suddenly stopped, and he muttered, it's time to read the next paragraph! It took me by surprise...
"Shanxiang Spring News" and "Youth Information" appeared in the newspaper one after another, but Lao Chang resolutely refused to sign his name, one signed by this newspaper reporter Li Wenhai, and the other signed by this newspaper reporter Zhang Hui. Both articles won the Hebei Provincial Good News Award.
How many years have passed, and the scene of this visit to the countryside will flash in front of me from time to time, and Lao Chang's fine tradition and spirit of excellence and meticulousness have always encouraged me and become my driving force for moving forward.
(v)
Old Chang is old, more than 90 years old, and I have been away from my post for many years. If the weather is good, he still comes out every day to bask in the sun at the entrance of the community. He was happy in his old age, and his juniors were very filial. Usually, whenever I see him, I stand there and talk to him, and he is also very happy and willing to reminisce about the past. After all, people are old, and now without saying a few words, he urged me to say, get busy! He probably thought I was still at work.
In the Internet era, the media has undergone great changes, and it seems not an exaggeration to say that the vicissitudes of the sea have changed, but the spirit of the old newspaper man embodied in Lao Chang has not become outdated, and it will always be our pride and pride.
10 Jul 2020