In the golden age of investigative journalists, there were countless Li Weiao

If the film "More Than Ending" is taken as the personal history of "reporter Han Dong", it is valid. But if you take it as a historical record of journalism in the early 21st century, it is almost completely distorted.

Glacier think tank researcher 丨 Lian Qingchuan

A little disappointed.

Seriously, in any case, I have to express my gratitude and respect to the crew and investors of "More than Endless". Although I don't represent this profession, as a journalist and editor who has been in the industry for many years, the industry is on the verge of collapse, and this theme obviously does not have the possibility of a box office hit, and the shooting of this film is basically out of feelings and love, based on this, the tribute is taken for granted.

As a profession that has been stormy, experienced countless glory, but also encountered unimaginable hardships, there are countless foreign movies about news legends, and has become a frequent visitor to the Oscars, and in our case, there is almost never a work that seriously describes the people of this industry, which is indeed difficult to talk about.

I'm not saying how great and honorable this profession is. But there was a brief time when it added hope and revered glory to the profession.

▲ Stills from the movie "More Than Endless" (Picture/Douban)

In domestic film and television dramas, the profession of a journalist has always become a faint background for ridicule and ridicule, such as the role of Meng Yu in "Crazy". People may seem familiar with the identity of a journalist, but at the same time they don't know why.

Therefore, "More Than Endless" is the first film to cut into this field head-on, and uses its work content as the main plot, which may also be regarded as a breakthrough.

It's just that, as a professional journalist, seeing such a movie, I really feel a little complicated and disappointed. Because still, it only floats above the clouds of this profession, unable to see its essence or touch its spirit.

In a way, I'm very hesitant to criticize it, not only because I've heard that many of my friends have been involved in the film, but because it's really trying to find the power of journalism. I was afraid that my criticism would make people feel dissatisfied and critical of newsreels.

But I think at least I can tell me something about the real situation of journalism.

01

If the film is taken as the personal history of "reporter Han Dong", it is valid. But if you take it as a historical record of journalism in the early 21st century, it is almost completely distorted.

Simply from Han Dong's personal experience. As a person with only a junior high school education, he became a reporter for the Beijing Times through his experience as an intern.

I am a serious "Southern Department" who has spent time in Southern Metropolis Daily, Southern Weekend and 21st Century Newspaper. Of the three media outlets, those years were filled with so-called "pheasant journalists": journalists who were not from a professional background. When I joined the Southern Daily Group in the late 1990s, although it cannot be said that there were few people from professional classes, our eating level was no better than those pheasant reporters.

▲ "Southern Weekly" 1999 New Year's message (Photo/Douban)

In the early days of Southern Weekend and the early days of Southern Metropolis Daily, journalists with sufficient frontline experience were much more important than those of us who came from so-called professional backgrounds but knew nothing. Therefore, it is often those of us who have just graduated from college to learn to interview and write behind the backs of journalists who are not well-educated and have a rough style.

And in the entire group, the best journalists of that year were almost all these real journalists who rushed out of the rural newspapers. It was not until the 2010s that the advantages of the professional and intellectual backgrounds of journalists from Peking University, Fudan University, and Nanda University gradually became apparent.

Although junior high school education is not universal, it is by no means unique. These so-called "pheasant reporters" often come to local newspapers after a long period of immersion, and after the trial of the newspaper, they have real kung fu in their hands, and often become the backbone of the newspaper after two or three reports.

In real journalism, there has never been discrimination in academic qualifications. Journalism is a practical industry, no matter how prominent the school background, one or two reports can see the truth, and it is useless to talk about any background. Whether you can publish a manuscript is the last word.

From the practical point of view of the operation of the topic selection, many things in this story will not happen.

Especially for investigative journalists, the actual operation of any topic selection must go through a strict process. Topic selection - pre-editorial meeting topic selection discussion - arrangement of journalists - appointment of editors and layout - interview - writing - editing - review - review - issuance, this is a set of ironclad process.

No journalist can do it without discussion at the pre-editorial meeting; There is no manuscript that can be written without close tracking by the editor, and there is no manuscript that can be on the front page without discussion by the editorial board; There is no manuscript that can be retracted without discussion by the editorial board.

Why is the process so stringent? This is the basic reason why investigative journalism is so valid.

Our reporters don't go undercover often, but they do do. For example, Guo Guosong, Southern Weekend's favorite undercover reporter, once went undercover to interview a pyramid scheme organization and was almost killed (slightly exaggerated).

However, our profession requires that in most cases we must reveal our identities and conduct interviews. Without revealing our identity, we can't get real sources, and anonymous sources are a fatal problem for us and are subject to great skepticism from editors.

This is a question of basic journalistic ethics. So it's a tough challenge for us. Because revealing one's identity often means that we cannot obtain the real information given by the interviewees, especially those who do the evil.

Therefore, in order to obtain an effective interview and information, we need to interview a large number of sources in the surrounding and peripheral areas, and finally use these verified and real-name sources to confront those negative opponents to obtain the "confession" of the interviewee.

People like to watch the stories of undercover reporters, but I'm really sorry, this is the way some central media reporters prefer to operate, and for us investigative journalists of the print media, it is an unconventional operation.

We also hardly fight alone, and rarely enter the incident area alone like Han Dong. For the entire Southern Department, almost all of our most important resources come from local fraternal media.

Many of the famous reporters of Southern Weekly, Yu Liu Wenzhi and Sichuan, Guo Guosongzhi and Henan, Sun Paozhi and Guizhou, Yin Hongwei and Yunnan, are all living together.

Without the help of brothers in media, we would not have been able to do so many exclusive reports and exclusive information. I wasn't there during the golden days of the Southern Metropolis Daily and the Beijing News, but I guess that's not the case.

▲Beijing News, inaugural issue on November 11, 2003 (Photo/Internet)

Finally, for a media, there has always been a golden period, and there are no highlight moments. News eternity is happening, and the day after an investigative report comes out, the pre-editorial meeting for a new issue begins. There will be follow-up reports, there will be continuous reports, but there will also be more new reports, new leads and new stories.

We celebrate a great story by a journalist with a big drunkenness, but we don't have time to dwell on those happy atmospheres, because earthquakes, air disasters, mining disasters, emergencies, floods, explosions, corruption, all happen every day.

Every successful story is a sad story, and nothing makes us happy and self-moving. After Ju Hong returned from Karamay, she cried for many days; After Yu Liuwen returned from Kunming, he worried every day that Sun Xiaoguo would send someone to assassinate him; And Guo Guosong angrily argues with the pyramid scheme members on the phone every time, and Cao Xihong has to face endless bribes and bribes from wealthy businessmen.

All successful stories are stories of disaster, and only getting drunk with your brothers is the best way to escape the memories. Where did the emotion come from?

An intern journalist like Han Dong is a reporter; And interns like Li Sheng will leave immediately. The news of that era was full of ideals, anxieties and pains, and the only thing missing was sentimentality and self-righteousness.

02

I talk so much about the operational practices and situations of journalism in traditional newspapers because what I want to tell you is a reason why investigative reporting is valid.

"More Than Endless" is actually an investigative story imagined in the new media environment, which assumes the heroism of an individual full of journalistic ideals, relying on the power of an individual, to save a national disaster and discrimination.

But traditional investigative journalism can't do that. What we need is a system.

When a reporter is walking on the road, there is an editor and an editorial office behind his back;

When he came to the place, there were already local brothers who were with him, because they could not report, so they left all the resources, clues and strength to their counterparts from afar;

An editor and a page dare to face pressure from a company, a county, a city, or even a province, because there are newspaper leaders who carry all the pressure from above;

And a newspaper dares to send reporters in all directions to find clues of crimes and malfeasance because the overall political environment in Guangdong Province allows them to walk on the forefront of the most razory edge of reform.

There is not a single editor of our newspaper who has not written a review, and our teacher Jiang has been dismissed several times, and I don't know how many times the review has been written. And our President Li and Editor-in-Chief Fan have suffered criticism and public rebuke from above for an unknown number of times.

"We as journalists can't change anything." Huang Jiang, the editor played by Zhang Songwen in the movie, said so. Truly. But a system, a complete system that underpins investigative reporting, has changed something.

When we were in the newspaper office, we also fantasized about the good times of individual heroism. But when the era of self-media arrived, we found that all this was just a more illusory castle in the air. We can only drown in the so-called facts that are not painful, watching the facts of the news reverse and reverse.

▲ Stills from the movie "More Than Endless" (Picture/Douban)

The reason for the reversal is not because the facts themselves have any possibility of being reversed, but because without a rigorous process of news gathering, editing, and confirmation, the facts float in the air like balloons. The reason for repeated reversals is that the facts are covered up, and what is exiled is the public mood that is kept in the dark, and the lie that the parties driven by interests are constantly changing.

The reason for the post-truth era is not because there is no truth, but that the truth stays there and no one to pursue and explore, and there is no system that can support these people who seek the truth.

Of course, I know that it is a much more frivolous thing to attribute this to the self-media era, because the elephant in the room is too large, and we all know the root cause of the system's collapse: journalistic professionalism is already a scarce commodity in this era.

The hot search news in the past two days is Li Weiao angrily fighting Zhang Jike. Teacher Qiang of South Korea, who used to work as an executive at China Business Daily, lamented in his circle of friends that I thought investigative journalists were extinct, and there was still a living one.

Around 2019, Liu Wanyong, a well-known investigative journalist, submitted his resignation to China Youth Daily. The industry's assessment at the time was that the last investigative journalist left traditional media. Indeed, Liu Wanyong persisted until that time and was already a rare animal.

Graph/Network

Zhang Jike, if those accusations are true, it is very bad, shameless, and subduous, but this is just an evil individual, originally from a tabloid with gossip to fight him, there is no need for investigative reporters to take action.

Li Weiao is a true investigative journalist and dragon slayer. It's a pity, the dragon slayer, went to kill the pig. It's not impossible, I always feel wasteful. Take the dragon slaying knife to cut pork, it is estimated that the dragon slaying knife will cry.

But that's what the times are. It's a blessing that the dragon slayer hero hasn't become a middle-aged greasy PR director, what more can you ask for?