Zhangjiang Ladies | It is the greatest shame of this era that Southern Weekly reporters cannot find work

I haven’t been in touch with Xiaodong for a long time. The last time we were in contact was at a farewell dinner for a former colleague ten years ago. We weren’t in the same department and didn’t interact much. But in my impression, he was a gentle idealist. One year, he was also sent to a town in Guangdong to serve as the deputy town mayor. At that time, I thought someone like him would be highly valued.

Once, during a meal, he mentioned his experience as a deputy mayor, and he was particularly excited. He said that being a journalist and being a deputy mayor were two different things. After all, a journalist is an outsider and cannot delve into the grassroots level, but as a deputy mayor, you are considered one of them and can learn a lot of things that a journalist cannot. He said he planned to write a book about this experience, but he hadn’t decided whether it would be fiction or non-fiction.

Later, I don’t know if the book was published or not. I only heard that he went into psychological counseling, and he taught himself. Later, I also left the newspaper, and my contact with Xiaodong decreased. I only occasionally saw his updates on WeChat Moments. But he hasn’t changed at all. Despite changing careers, he is still full of enthusiasm for his new job.

His WeChat Moments are almost all about psychological counseling. Later, when the video account came out, he also specifically made a video account to popularize the common sense of psychology. But a recent video was a little different. He was looking for a job in the video.

In the video, Xiaodong was wearing thick glasses, with graying temples. He said that his children were grown up, and his family hoped that he could find a relatively stable job. Psychological counseling is a freelance job, and the business is sometimes good and sometimes bad, so he can’t support his family. But he also doesn’t want to find a job related to writing, as he can’t sit for long. He probably can’t be a security guard either because he is severely nearsighted.

I watched it, and I was a little teary-eyed. A person with such ideals and talent, who had been an investigative journalist for 20 years, still has to look for a job at the age of 50. This era has failed him.

If someone like Xiaodong lived in another place, he would be a very respected senior journalist, a very socially prominent expert journalist, and might still be active on the front lines of news investigations, publishing a book a year, and occasionally winning a Pulitzer Prize. Even if he switched to psychological counseling, he would be very excellent.

Although I don’t know much about psychological counseling, from the content perspective, his videos are very professional. However, new media emphasizes being short, fast, and to the point. Whether the content is solid or not is not important; what matters is that the title must be sensational and the content must be inspirational. Someone who comes from in-depth reporting is definitely unwilling to compromise with such an environment.

It seems that this is the way of this era: the more idealistic people are, the less welcome they are and the more they are hurt. I also have a former colleague named Chu Chaoxin, one of China’s most outstanding political and current affairs investigative journalists. The year before last, I had dinner with him in Changsha, and I found that his down jacket had a hole in the elbow. He said it was from Uniqlo, very cheap, and he had worn it for several years and could still wear it. He has low material requirements.

I said, why are you still doing self-media? Wouldn’t it be better to go to a big company and do public relations? He said that many big companies had approached him, and the conditions were very good, but after talking, he found that he couldn’t do it, and he still wanted to be a journalist. But China no longer has a platform where he can display his talents, so he can only open an account and write.

Write one, and it gets blocked. Over the years, I don’t even know how many accounts he has been blocked. I thought he had given up, but he is still writing. If he can’t write investigative reports, he writes about news business and shows it to young people who want to do news.

The news of Howard French selling his car was very popular on WeChat Moments the other day. Many people were lamenting. Even a foreign writer like Howard French, who is friendly to China, has left China. What does this mean? In fact, China doesn’t lack its own Howard French. Xiaodong, Chaoxin, they are all China’s Howard French, and even far more love this land than Howard French.

Howard French can leave if he doesn’t like it, but they can’t. They have their families and children here, their friends, and the things they deeply cherish. In the recent Liupanshui case, Chaoxin ‘fired’ again, and the information he got was no less than that of the regular army. My other former colleague, Li Weiao, who is still on the front lines of news, said that he has received too many news leads recently, and he may not be able to finish them in a year.

This is the luck of the times. Although the times have failed them, they have not failed this era. It is also the misfortune of the times. As a friend said when reposting Xiaodong’s job-seeking video: ‘The industry that once shouldered the responsibility of justice is scattered and adrift. I really want to record the shame of this era. Of course, I don’t need to record it; it will be nailed in history.’