-Cheng Yizhong answer southern people weekly.
People Weekly: A year ago, what role did you set for the Chinese version of Sports Illustrated in China Sports Media and China Media? Has the Chinese version of Sports Illustrated developed as you wish in the past year? Under what circumstances do you think this magazine is successful?
Cheng Yizhong: A year and a half ago, when I was about to take over the Chinese version of Sports Illustrated, I felt a lot of pressure. I know this is a difficult magazine project, and many magazine projects are easier to make money than sports magazines. But after taking over, I didn't dare to think about difficulties, just thinking about the direction of success-to tell the truth, I was particularly afraid of failure and urgently needed a new victory to comfort myself.
The first anniversary goal I set for the Chinese edition of Sports Illustrated is to seek the best solution for investment concept, system design and team building, set a new standard for China sports news magazine, set a new benchmark for China sports news magazine, rank among the first camp of China journals, gain high recognition from readers in magazine content and design quality, win a good reputation in marketing promotion and brand building, and explore a revenue mode matching huge investment. I am very satisfied with the development of the Chinese version of Sports Illustrated in the past year, because I have seen the dawn.
As for what is success, I always have extremely high standards. Any project wants to be the first, because the second is meaningless. In this sense, I have never enjoyed the happiness of success. Speaking of being the first sports news magazine, this is only the minimum goal of the Chinese version of Sports Illustrated. The Chinese version of Sports Illustrated must at least enter the first camp of China periodicals and become the top 10; China magazine; I firmly believe that the Chinese version of Sports Illustrated must be an authoritative sports news provider, an advocate of quality lifestyle and a sports opinion leader in China.
People Weekly: Is the Chinese version of Sports Illustrated too small for you? Does the size of the service platform affect your sense of accomplishment? How to convince yourself to "return to zero"
Cheng Yizhong: I've thought about it, but I think something is better than nothing. At that time, this choice was a relatively small decline for me. Besides, I also need to support my family.
No matter big or small, I want everything to be perfect, and my sense of accomplishment is usually established in this way. Under the current circumstances, the size of the service platform may affect my contribution to society, but it does not affect my sense of accomplishment. I think it has been a great achievement not to use the media to weave lies constructively and fool the public creatively, so I think I am lucky now, not at the center of media power, but on the edge, so I don't have to struggle painfully anymore. This is my personal blessing, and I don't think highly of myself now. I think it is also a noble and meaningful thing to live for myself and my family.
I am a person whose mentality can be adjusted and restored in time. Intense emotions come and go quickly, and I don't have overnight distress and troubles. I only have extreme pain and despair, because it does not constitute substantial harm, so the rest are delicious happiness and hope, so I say extreme pessimism is philosophical.
I advocate zero, not because I have encountered setbacks now. I don't take my personal experience too seriously. I don't feel sorry for the world. I used to have this idea when others looked beautiful, "Gorgeous is extremely plain". I don't bear the burden of failure or success. Know who you are at any time and have a heart to return to nature.
People Weekly: How do you describe the emotional positions of Southern Metropolis Daily, Beijing News and Sports Illustrated in your mind?
Cheng Yizhong: Southern Metropolis Daily and Beijing News are my past seas, and the Chinese version of Sports Illustrated is my present mulberry field. Whether the sea is mulberry field or not, I have cultivated and harvested it. Together, they guide my future. What do you think of Southern Metropolis Daily and Beijing News? Love is too deep, how can it be embarrassing? Unforgettable, heartbreaking and vigorous. Now Southern Metropolis Daily and Beijing News are still my lighthouses, shining on my voyage. I don't want to poeticize my past.
People Weekly: What is the most attractive feature of your career? What's your ideal next stop?
Cheng Yizhong: This profession is closely related to the rights and well-being of the public, and it is possible for practitioners to survive and gain the value of life. This is what attracts me most. Besides, I don't seem to have any other specialties. My ideal next stop? Why do you keep asking me this question? I don't know. I think this is fate. I have never planned my future, and I can't hold my destiny. There is too much uncertainty and drama in life. Everyone's life is actually a movie without a script. You can't plan while you are alive. It is also like an irregular net. The starting point of this net is life and the end point is death. From the beginning to the end, there are countless paths, and every turning point is a detour. Let's walk around and get busy. But the starting point and the ending point remain the same. Life is made up of one contingency after another, and the sum of contingency is inevitability; So contingency contains inevitability, and inevitability contains contingency. My next stop is still decided by accident.
People Weekly: What's the difference between life in Beijing and life in Guangzhou? Is Beijing a foreign land or a destination?
Cheng Yizhong: Apart from emperors, idealists, revolutionaries and politicians, people who have lived in Guangzhou for many years really have no reason to like life in Beijing. Now I understand why the emperor likes to go to Jiangnan, why he wants to build the Summer Palace and Yuanmingyuan, and why he wants to dig such a big Haizi. But I don't hate Beijing as some friends do. I think Guangzhou is my mother and Beijing is my father. It is understandable that you are attached to your mother and rebel against your father. What is interesting in Guangzhou is people, civil society and the spirit of contract. You can be less hurt by power to a certain extent and live your own life to a certain extent. In Beijing, the most hateful thing is that power is everywhere, people can't conduct fair trade and can't establish equality and mutual trust. My biggest gain from coming to Beijing is that I have a more comprehensive understanding of China.
I'm only in my forties, and I feel that my life has just begun. It is a bit premature to talk about the destination now, but what is certain is that Beijing is not my destination. The ancients said that the place of peace of mind is the hometown. In this sense, the place of origin, household registration and exile is not necessarily the hometown. Where to settle my mind is really a problem for me.
People Weekly: Many colleagues around me say that they respect your sharpness in the past and your forbearance and compromise now. Are you more forbearing and compromising? Have these two always been your methodology?
Cheng Yizhong: I think it's natural for me to be sharp in the past and forbear and compromise now. I didn't mean to. I am extremely sensitive to the hardships of life, empathize with the injustice imposed on everyone, and hate evil, so I have a sharp edge. If there is no injustice and injustice in the world, how can I be sharp enough? The injustice in the world is my whetstone. The so-called forbearance and compromise are nothing more than two situations. One is sharp-edged, and the other is that you are behind the times and you have lost the opportunity to shine your sword.
People Weekly: Are you satisfied with your present situation? How to weigh the gains and losses of the past two or three years?
Cheng Yizhong: I am satisfied. I often say to my family and friends, don't complain, be content, there are still many unfair things in the world and many people who suffer. In the face of such a world, what reason do we have to complain and complain about? If we have to weigh it, I think the gains in these two or three years outweigh the losses. After that incident, personal gains and losses are no longer a problem for me. Anyway, I think my gains far outweigh my losses. What I want to explain here is that my view of reality has little to do with personal circumstances and will not change with the changes of personal circumstances. In the past, when others thought it was beautiful, my view of reality was roughly the same.
People Weekly: What kind of life do you despise now and are determined not to live?
Cheng Yizhong: The life I despise most is the life that needs to sell my soul. For example, if you don't agree with a certain value, you have to live by it; For example, betraying human common sense and universal values for life, fighting for one's conscience, or simply abandoning one's conscience for life; Clearly know that a sentence is a lie, but for the sake of life, you just say it is the truth. The most unbearable thing is that this is just to live more successfully, and he will have a life without it.
Fortunately, I can now choose my own lifestyle without humiliation. Although it costs a lot, I think it is worth it.
People Weekly: Have you ever been bored? You should not be unconditionally optimistic.
Cheng Yizhong: If you want to talk about boredom, it already exists, not now. I don't want to put up with it any longer. I have long wanted to resign. As the editor-in-chief of a newspaper and a reporter, I have been oppressed and insulted too much. It's just that what happened later made me escape in a way that didn't look like self-exile, but like a hasty escape.
How can I be an optimistic person? I am a very philosophical person, because I am extremely pessimistic.
People Weekly: Where did your feelings, spirit and strength come from? Is there always a clear order between the individual and the home country in your mind?
Cheng Yizhong: Pursuing greatness helps the world, but poverty is not affected by it. In this sense, I have a strong sense of home and country in my bones, and a strong sense of pleading for the people, just like the traditional literati in China. And my career, just have such opportunities and possibilities. In a democratic country, these consciousnesses are not important, but they are precious in China.
People Weekly: What do you want to do when you are 50?
Cheng Yizhong: I hope that at the age of 50, I will be more tolerant and free. I don't need to be angry or angry. I can live in a society where human rights, democracy and the legal system are truly implemented, and I can see that officials are honest and clean, the environment is improving day by day, the society is fair and just, and the people live and work in peace and contentment. It really doesn't matter how much you can do and how much you can achieve. I would rather be a happy civilian under the system than a tragic hero under the bad system.
People Weekly: The biggest insult to you and your possible excuse.
Cheng Yizhong: Some people say that the reason why Southern Metropolis Daily and I have suffered setbacks is that I am not tactful, delicate and sophisticated enough to follow the unspoken rules. I am firmly opposed to this view. On the contrary, it should be said that the most successful place and reason of Southern Metropolis Daily is that I am not smooth, delicate and sophisticated enough. More importantly, the greatest thing about Southern Metropolis Daily lies in its setbacks.
China's greatest dross is the so-called knowledge of being a man, but what China people lack is frankness and purity. China is full of all kinds of specious ways of being an official and vulgar management, whose ancestors are larded and hidden rules. From these studies, what I see is the shameless of scrambling and creativity. I often feel a little incredible. Why are there so many things that teach people how to be an upright and moral person? On the contrary, they all teach people how to be a smooth, sophisticated and unaffordable person.
People Weekly: A few years ago, someone said that "there is only a bad system, but there is no bad humanity". Now there is a new understanding of the relationship between system and humanity.
Cheng Yizhong: The worst reality is that institutional corruption and national corruption play a dual role in this era. On the one hand, institutional corruption has transformed and harmed the national character and aggravated the corruption of the national character. On the other hand, the increasingly corrupt national character also provides fertile soil for institutional corruption. The two complement each other, cause and effect each other and contribute to each other. But the terrible thing is that we don't care, or we don't know, just like boiling frogs in warm water.
People Weekly: Do you agree? How can China live more calmly now?
Cheng Yizhong: I am not angry now, because I have mastered two secrets of survival in this era, absurdity and sadism. I think this is my greatest intransigence and unwillingness. We live in an era full of drama, where the ceremony collapses and the music is bad, and the river is going downhill. If there is no sadism and absurd spirit, how should we deal with ourselves in this era? So it's not easy for me to get rid of anger now. I am ashamed that I am a little more indifferent to reality and enthusiastic about myself.
People Weekly: Applause in the face of flowers, stab in the back mentality, reasons for loneliness.
Cheng Yizhong: I know who I am, where I come from and where I'm going, whether I applaud with flowers or stab in the back, whether I'm proud or depressed. I will not lose myself in success, nor will I lose myself in setbacks.
There is loneliness that I don't understand, but I can't let it go. I feel that I understand more than I don't understand. My sense of loneliness does not stem from how many misfortunes and setbacks have happened. When I am unlucky or frustrated, I won't feel helpless. There are more people who stand up for me and help me, and their efforts are greater than I expected.
My loneliness is also the time when I return home in triumph. I often go out from the back door of the high hall alone, where the flowers are intertwined and shining, and I feel sad in the moonlight. This is my greatest loneliness and loneliness.
People Weekly: What is your self-positioning in the media profession? Are you a natural leader?
Cheng Yizhong: I don't consider myself the best journalist, editor, columnist or proofreader. But I am at least one of the best former journalists in contemporary China, the most organized manager and integrator of media resources, and the maker of excellent media environment, atmosphere and culture. I don't think I was born to lead a team. I think I can lead the team, because I dare to take responsibility and often have the ability to take responsibility. I am not a good subordinate, but I will be a good leader. I think it is relatively easy for me to get along with my subordinates, but it is relatively difficult to get along with my superiors.
People Weekly: What do you think of the role transformation of metropolis daily? It is weak at the beginning and strong at a certain stage?
Cheng Yizhong: I don't think that Metropolis Daily started by endorsing the weak. When they reach a certain stage, they will become strong. I think this judgment is a prejudice and insult to urban newspapers. There are all kinds of problems in urban newspapers, but this is not the main problem. Besides, even if there is a problem, it is better than those words and tools. In my opinion, the so-called endorsement for the weak or strong alliance is a moral proposition, and there is no distinction between right and wrong and competition. What needs to be clarified is, is there any problem with the concept of news? Is authenticity, impartiality and professionalism guaranteed? How about circulation, influence and word of mouth? Nowadays, due to the pressure of profits, some newspapers occasionally make short-sighted behaviors. I think it's certainly best not to do this, and there is no need to do it, but I also think it's harmless. Just change it later. The problem is that in the face of invincible political pressure, this bring disgrace to oneself newspaper chose to compromise to survive. We should attack the oppressor, not the oppressed. Isn't it?
The political environment of Metropolis Daily is very difficult, and we can't make it worse.
People Weekly: What is your understanding of the role of "Godfather of Spirit"? Is leadership and appeal also dangerous?
Cheng Yizhong: I am embarrassed by this statement. I have neither the will nor the ability to play such a role. I am an idol destroyer, and I refuse to be an idol. First of all, I don't think this question has anything to do with me. I must say, I have always been very wary of things like spiritual godfather and leadership temperament. The temperament of a leader is actually a temperament that is easy to use violence against violence. It is nothing more than a greater violence and successfully pushes it to another relatively smaller violence. My expectation for myself is that my opinion is very convincing and operable; It is reasonable that my opinion can be recognized and supported; My plan can become a reality very efficiently.
Of course, I also admit that the more backward a country is, the more it needs spiritual godfather and leadership temperament.
People Weekly: What is your overall description of the fate of China intellectuals in the past 100 years? Do you know that you have been added to this sequence? What honors and humiliations are added to this sequence?
Cheng Yizhong: The first question is a bit big and general. I can only say that in the past 65,438+000 years, the fate of intellectuals in Chinese mainland and China has not changed on the whole-no, it should have gotten worse. Although the material conditions have changed, intellectuals have not really gained respect and dignity in the past 60 years, and their personality has become less and less independent and academic freedom has become less and less. The fate of being raised has not changed. On the contrary, they have become more and more dependent on power. This is pathetic. More sadly, even "public intellectuals" have become a word that is not allowed to be mentioned. How despicable! It is absurd to allow only "private intellectuals" instead of "public intellectuals"!
Although fate and status have not changed, treatment and wages can be changed. What I see now is that most of the so-called intellectuals have completely abolished their ability to make a living and are willing to be retained and retained; Very few intellectuals with conscience, feelings and morality usually have a hard life, and their ideas are stumbling and their lives are stumbling.
I don't know what kind you put me in. Most, or few? I don't want to be the majority; I am not qualified to be a few. So don't put me in any sequence. What I ask myself now is to find a job by knowledge and expertise, not to lose my conscience, feelings and morality, and to stand on my own two feet.
(Southern People Weekly reporter pays)
[Attached]
Another dimension of freedom
Text/Li Duoyu
People who have touched the free ceiling and those who have never touched the free ceiling have essential differences in their understanding of freedom. People who don't meet think they are outside the cage, and people who meet know that they are already in the cage.
People often ask Cheng Yizhong, before 2005, you spent ten years to start two of the best newspapers in China, Southern Metropolis Daily and Beijing News. Once, you ran around Guangzhou and Beijing, managing two news teams with more than 2,000 people. Now, you have been convicted of any crime, and you also manage a sports magazine with dozens of people. The gap is so huge. Don't you want to? Any new plans?
People who ask these questions don't understand that a person who knows his real life doesn't care how big the site he sits on. Sitting on a low stool will not be less free, and sitting on a leather sofa will not be much free.
There is a poem that says, wherever you sleep, you sleep at night.
This state is not depression, but philosophy, because I know where I am, because I have an insight into the tragedy of reality, so I am philosophical. This philosophy comes from setbacks, so it is particularly precious. For Cheng Yizhong, setbacks are not shameful. The only thing that can humiliate you is that you automatically give up a dignified life in the face of setbacks and call it "sleek and sophisticated."
Fortunately, after the great changes caused by the Sun Zhigang incident, Cheng Yizhong did not lose his enthusiasm for the media. The media person with the most pattern and institutional awareness and the excellent producer of media culture have survived the marginalization of the system despite their inner struggles. Now, he chooses to continue his best media career in another dimension, which is a kind of luck for the media industry in China.
Cheng Yizhong now runs the Chinese version of Sports Illustrated. Although the media is small, the pattern is large. Whether it is a daily newspaper with an average of 80 pages or a biweekly newspaper with 1 12p, it is equally important and difficult to establish standards. Sports news is especially difficult. The China edition of Sports Illustrated was born in a sports industry that was almost destroyed by scandals. Trying to rebuild Chinese people's confidence in sports industry and sports media and rediscover their dreams and glory is almost equivalent to establishing a new sports industry. But at present, especially before 2008, such constructive efforts are as necessary as building a perfect stadium, and its advantages are endless. Anyone who has read the Chinese version of Sports Illustrated is a concerned reader if he feels this effort and his pulse. Sports represents human nature, as well as the most transparent organizational contract spirit and individual competition consciousness. Any country with the healthiest contract spirit and competitive consciousness is a big sports country and a big sports media country. Sports Illustrated is a must-read magazine for almost every family in the United States, and its Chinese version is actually a citizen reader in another sense.
Luckily for Cheng Yizhong, he took over the Chinese version of Sports Illustrated, which is by far the most expensive magazine to produce. From the perspective of investment alone, Cheng Yizhong is endowed with unusual trust. At this point, we have seen the mind of the financial news media. A media group that produces top-quality financial magazines is also trying to enter the sports media. Obviously, this group is carrying out a wider magazine quality movement than other magazine groups.
Although the China edition of Sports Illustrated has begun to show an extraordinary development trend, Cheng Yizhong still cautiously "uses" the investment trust. His promotion budget is always lower than investors' expectations. For him, the influence based on quality is a valuable influence, and he is cautious and restrained in dealing with propaganda. He is not a gold digger in the magazine industry.
Born in Chen Duxiu and Haizi's hometown, this man still has endless pursuit for the glory of media people. The Chinese version of Sports Illustrated is only his first attempt in another dimension. Imagine that he was born in the Chinese department, and joining the media was just an accident. All kinds of accidents made it inevitable, and the media became his way to gain the value of life. When Southern Metropolis Daily was founded, he liked to recommend The Shawshank Redemption, a film about system dilemma and spiritual salvation, to people around him. Now, when he stepped out of Shawshank's fate and stood in this new dimension, his concern for public rights and well-being did not stop. When all the voices are noisy, he sometimes thinks of Dr. Zhiwaji, "The empty countryside, the silent white night of the great era, the vast Russian Yuan Ye, under the orange light, Zhiwaji is reading a poem in shock, a woman is sleeping soundly in bed, and there are bursts of wolves howling in the distance." He can't choose to live in seclusion, a seemingly free escape; In the great era, he felt more zhivago-style sadness and endless longing.
(Southern People Weekly was published on March 2, 20081day, with some revisions)