Lei Guiping is a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Shanxi University of Media and Communication, with a master's degree in education. He teaches courses such as "News Review" and "Writing and Expression". His main research interests are Shanxi regional cultural communication and article writing, and he has published more than 30 academic papers in journals at all levels. He has presided over or participated in more than 10 scientific research and research projects at or above the provincial level. He has won 2 Shanxi Provincial Teaching Achievement Awards. He has participated in the compilation of more than 10 textbooks, including 1 national planning textbook. Published 1 monograph.
Red Net Moment, April 25 (Reporter Zhang Yu) The results of the selection of the winning works of the Red Net "Green Pepper Plan" in March 2024 were released today. Chen Qi from Jinggangshan University, Chen Yiling from Hunan Normal University, Lai Shiwei from China Institute of Labor Relations, Zhao Ruyi from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Liang Yufei from Hexi University, Huang Zhiwei from Southwest University of Science and Technology, and Jia Shendi from Shenyang Normal University stood out as the winners of the "Green Pepper Plan" in March.
Lei Guiping, a judge of the "Green Pepper Plan" of the Red Network in March and a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of Shanxi University of Media and Communication, accepted an exclusive interview with the Red Pepper Comment column on the teaching and writing of news commentary.
Red Pepper Review: In recent years, students from Shanxi University of Media and Communication have been more active in participating in the "Green Pepper Project" of the Red Network, and their works have won awards from time to time. What guidance have you made behind this, and what are the explorations, practices and achievements of your institute in the teaching innovation of news commentary?
Lei Guiping: I have not been teaching news commentary for a long time, but fortunately, I have encountered such a good media platform as Red Chili Pepper Commentary, especially the two major competitions of "Green Pepper Project" and "Comment Star", which not only gave students the goal and motivation to learn commentary, but also gave me the grasp and impetus to improve the teaching of commentary.
News commentary is a very practical course, but also a kind of spiritual activity, students need to master not only declarative knowledge, but also master procedural and strategic knowledge, have the ability of metacognition, be able to reflect and regulate self-learning, and understand those silent knowledge that is difficult to directly teach in words in practice, in order to truly improve the ability to comment.
Based on this, I changed the previous "theory + practice" model to the "practice + theory" model, connected with the red network submission, and highlighted the practice of commenting. Establish a review and research group in the class, and become a learning community of "learning from each other, pondering and grinding", and under the guidance of the teacher, it will be divided into thematic and advanced training, so as to open up the inside and outside of the classroom and strengthen the interaction between school media. After students become the main body of learning, they learn to find problems in practice and bring them into the classroom, and the teacher teaches theories in combination with problem solving, and provides specific evaluation and guidance for students' assignments, which significantly enhances students' initiative in learning and improves the efficiency of classroom teaching. The understanding of reasoning in the evaluation and the evaluation of the middle school have deepened the students' understanding of the news, their deep understanding of the society, and their ability to express their thoughts rationally. Starting from beginners, two classes can publish more than 30 articles in one semester, which is a great encouragement for teachers and students.
In the context of the development of media competition, the journalism major of our school attaches great importance to examining the professional positioning, condenses and forms unique characteristics of journalism and communication education, not only does not lose the cultural heritage of traditional journalists, but also focuses on cultivating news commentary and in-depth reporting talents in the new media era, and strives to improve the popularity of the major and the college. In order to achieve this goal, through the 'competition to promote teaching, competition to promote evaluation', strengthen the in-depth cooperation of the school media, build a variety of comment practice platforms for students, the college official account set up a column of "Wenze New Commentary", and incorporated news commentary into the school department to build an excellent news talent training system, and the Marxist news concept runs through the practice of news commentary, so that students can truly shoulder the responsibility and responsibility of news people. Gradually establish a team of commentators of the school, and strive to create a new business card of the School of Journalism and Communication.
Red Hot Chili Pepper Review: You are a professor with a background in Chinese language and literature, and now you also teach "News Review". What do you think is the value of the subject knowledge of Chinese language and literature in writing criticism?
Lei Guiping: I graduated from Shanxi Normal University in the late 80s with a major in Chinese language and literature, and my teaching, research and administrative work for many years have mostly focused on the expansion and application of Chinese language and literature. In recent years, he has focused on the teaching of news commentary and writing, which is a new field that is still inseparable from his professional background and long-term work and study accumulation.
The value of the subject knowledge of Chinese language and literature to the writing of criticism is that the rich life experience and diverse emotional expressions contained in literary works, as well as the profound cultural connotation and humanistic spirit, can enlighten people's minds and guide people to form a correct world view and values. Literary reading is not only an important way for students to edify their minds and improve their humanistic accomplishment, but also an effective way to enrich their knowledge, expand their horizons and deepen their thinking, which helps students better understand the background and social significance of news events, analyze problems more comprehensively and grasp the essence of problems more accurately in news commentary.
Second, Chinese language and literature literacy directly affects students' critical writing. At present, news reviews are still mainly literary reviews, and the final product still needs to be implemented in review writing, which puts forward high requirements for students' language expression skills. A good foundation in Chinese language and literature enables students to rationally plan the layout of the article, accurately describe events, appropriately use various expressions to convey positions and opinions, and enhance the logic and persuasiveness of news commentary. The expression of ideas is inseparable from the art of language, and words are written and deeds, that is, the skillful use of language expression skills is more conducive to the spread of ideas.
In my teaching of news commentary, I have always emphasized that students should read books consistently, including literary reading, and students have benefited from this. I remember a student published a comment on the red network ""Reindeer Mother" Liu Xia Passed Away, but the Reindeer Culture Will Not Disintegrate", she happily told me that it was under the supervision of the teacher that she read Chi Zijian's "The Right Bank of the Erguna River", which made her particularly sensitive to the news of the death of "Reindeer Mother" Liu Xia, and was infected by the novel in the commentary, and deeply thought about the protection and inheritance of the Evenki reindeer culture in the commentary, so it was successfully published. Another student published "Makeup for the Cliff Statues": A "Cultural Journey" of Rural Cultural Relics", the inspiration for the title came from the reading memory of Yu Qiuyu's "Cultural Journey". News criticism is not literary writing, but it is inseparable from the foreshadowing of solid literary skills.
Red Chili Pepper commented: "The world is full of knowledge, and the practice of human feelings is the article." It is also a theorem for news commentary. "At last year's Stars of Review, you made a point of emphasizing this to your students. Why is this point particularly emphasized? "Insight into the world" is necessary for commentary writing, and what is the value of "human affection" and news commentary?
Lei Guiping: These two sentences were originally the couplets on the door of Qin Keqing's upper room in the fifth episode of "A Dream of Red Mansions", and Baoyu was extremely resistant after reading it, but in another context, it is true. Its original meaning is to perceive and understand everything in the world is a kind of learning, familiar with the world can write excellent articles, this principle is also applicable in the field of news commentary, is the "extra-poetic effort" of writing good reviews. To write a good news commentary, you not only need to have a deep insight and understanding of social affairs and human affairs, but also need to be familiar with the world and human feelings. The reason why students are particularly emphasized on this point is that in the practice of commentary, what students lack is a specific understanding of social affairs and their insight into and practice of the world, which affects the in-depth analysis and interpretation of news events, and their thinking cannot be expanded, and their analysis is relatively thin. Moreover, if you can't see the truth and essence behind the incident, you can easily lose your objective rationality and express your views with extreme cognition or emotion. Although it is a bit demanding to ask students to do this, it is necessary to work in this direction to write news commentary that is accurate, in-depth, powerful, and warm. Covering a wide range of knowledge fields, he has an in-depth understanding of politics, economy, culture, society and other aspects, and has an in-depth discussion of human nature, emotions and values.
Specifically, when it comes to "human affection", it emphasizes the importance of the understanding of the world's human feelings to the article, and the same is true for news commentary. The value of the hook is that the practice of human feelings is more understanding and considerate of human feelings, which makes news comments more empathetic. This empathy helps to bring the reviewer closer to the audience, making it more receptive to the point of view of the review. The second is that the cultivation of human feelings is an insight into the hearts of the people of the world, which helps commentators to grasp social psychology. Through the understanding of human nature, commentators can keenly capture the tide of emotions and social psychology behind hot topics or public attention, which helps to better guide social public opinion and promote social harmony and stability. In addition, it is beneficial for commenters to accurately grasp the emotional needs and acceptance habits of the audience, so as to choose more appropriate language and expressions, which helps to enhance the readability, recognition and dissemination of comments, and makes opinions more easily accepted and recognized. The emphasis on "human affection" in news comments is not to let students learn to be sophisticated and tactful, but to cultivate the ability to gain empathy and add a warmth to the comments.
Red Hot Chili Peppers Review: News commentary should never be an empty talk of words and sentences, but should speak "on the reality of life and society". How do you understand this sentence, or what experiences and insights do you have in practice?
Lei Guiping: This sentence is very well said, and it is even more pertinent for news commentary. This is the first step that students should establish when they first learn to comment: get out of the mindset of writing in the examination room as soon as possible, get out of empty arguments or blindly pursue beautiful sentences, and analyze and comment on news events or social phenomena. The characteristics of news commentary, such as news, publicity, and rationality, determine that it is not an abstract reasoning, let alone a text for the sake of writing, but shoulders the mission of guiding public opinion, supervising society, and speaking for the public. In Mr. Ma Shaohua's view, "the author of news commentary is a person who approaches the truth with his thoughts from a long distance." Li Sihui, a well-known media commentator, believes that "only by going deep into life and the grassroots level, and sticking more soil on the soles of your feet, can you write 'rustic', valuable, warm and in-depth comments." This is all to emphasize the importance of writing a review "in line with the reality of life and society". In particular, with the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence, the application of AI writing is becoming more and more extensive, and the irreplaceability of news commentary is precisely because it emphasizes the need to "step on the reality of life and society", which AI is not doing well at present.
Of course, opposing the empty rhetoric of words and sentences is not an objection to the style that news commentary should have. On the premise of being based on reality and insisting that content and thought are king, the pursuit of expression skills and vivid writing is the need for aesthetic commentary, as well as the need for dissemination. "Stepping on the reality of life and society" is easier said than done, and the most important thing is to help students really go behind the news and voice their thoughts from the depths of reality.
In fact, broadly speaking, the writing of other articles must also "step on the reality of life and society". "Articles are written for the sake of the time, and songs and poems are written for the sake of things" (Bai Juyi) is the mission of a literati; it is the duty of a scholar to write papers on the land of the motherland; and "shouldering morality with iron shoulders and writing articles with skillful hands" is an oath made by journalists to "step on the reality of life and society."
Red Hot Pepper Review: How to evaluate the "Green Pepper Project" on the red network?
Lei Guiping: The "Green Pepper Project" and the "Star of Commentary" on the red network have attracted more and more attention and participation from the academic community, and have become a classic example of interaction between the academic community and the cooperation and integration of school media. With the two major competitions as the carrier and traction, the Red Network has achieved the goal of "gathering an army of ideas with an invisible network banner"; students have found a place for the use of ideas and an arena for talents; and colleges and universities have found new ideas for commenting on talent training and teaching reform. The selection of the topics of the review works of the "Green Pepper Project" closely follows current affairs, hot comments, fast updates, covers a wide range, and has a large number of manuscripts, presenting a feast of multiple points of view, and becoming a favorite ideological media for young students.
At the same time, the "Green Pepper Project" is aimed at college students, becoming a classroom for ideological and political education, and a cradle for nurturing young critics. When you open the webpage, you can see the endless review works of some authors, and you can feel their enthusiasm for news commentary and the rapid growth of the pace. A number of new writers are emerging, and the number of people participating in the review is growing day by day. I believe that the "Green Pepper Plan" of the red network will get better and better, and I believe that the news and commentary world opened up by the red network will continue to innovate and become more exciting.
May the red net be redder and the green pepper will be evergreen!
Red Net "Green Pepper Project" March 2024 Briefing