12. [Special] Every Day as a Reporter Is a Joy—Except Payday?! | Journalists' Day Special
Summary
Good reporting is never the natural product of some “more permissive era”; it is won by reporters and newsrooms working through bans, local power, and the fog of facts. Using the “three-color reports” and the Wenchuan earthquake as examples, 刘万永 argues that even when publication is temporarily impossible, a reporter should still be sent to the scene to preserve the possibility of publishing. “Good reporting in every era, and the reporting that survives to this day, has broken through layer upon layer of resistance.”
The hardest thing for an investigative reporter to manage is not a known threat, but a risk that cannot be located or anticipated. Before traveling to Fuxin in 2005 to investigate retired Fuxin party secretary 王亚忱, 刘万永 told editor-in-chief 李大同: “If you hear that I was paying for sex or trafficking drugs in Fuxin, don’t believe it.” His response was not a covert entry, but an openly arranged interview through the Publicity Department, with an official car taking him to the meeting; maximum visibility reduced the possibility of retaliation.
The news industry’s pay debate turns on low wages, professional ideals, and the lure of private gain. 刘万永 spent 21 years at China Youth Daily and took home about RMB8,000 a month before leaving in 2019. The joke circulating at Tsinghua was: “Every day at China Youth Daily is joyful; the only unhappy day each month is payday.” 卫诗婕 rejects equating the entire industry with poverty, arguing that people who reach the top can still earn a decent living—but she acknowledges that this excludes buying a home in Beijing or Shanghai. Their common bottom line is that a reporter must be able to say no to side benefits in order to keep doing the right thing.
The most valuable thing a reporting career can give young people is not a lifetime meal ticket, but a high-intensity education in how society works. It brings them into contact with different people and events, gives them work that no one can take away, and trains them in interviewing, judgment, and improvisation. But 刘万永 explicitly advises against staying a reporter too long: after 21 years, he believes he “came out too late.” 卫诗婕 goes further, arguing that reporters should leave, work in other organizations, and return to documenting the world with a more complex perspective.
Traditional media’s most important assets do not belong to any single institution; they are the talent entering the industry, the work it produces, and the standards used to judge that work. For at least 4 years after leaving China Youth Daily, 刘万永 recommended story ideas to its reporters, but “not a single one got made.” He eventually shifted his attention from one institution to “polishing drafts” and the “Emerging Content Creators Program.” In a period when old rules have been dismantled and new standards have yet to form, he sees a dangerous signal in journalism graduates no longer being able to tell what news is or what is worth learning from.
Journalism’s power to drive change looks more like a relay across generations than an immediate payoff from a single story. When 卫诗婕 investigated notary offices colluding with scam rings to seize elderly people’s property, she managed to get only 1 notary office investigated; years later, another reporter carried the story forward, and some of the victims she interviewed still send her updates. She describes it as a “Sisyphean process”: the media’s power is limited, but successive generations of reporters can still move a problem forward.
The long-term wealth left by journalism training is a worldview that rejects binary thinking and insists on verification. In the Middle East, 卫诗婕 saw grand buildings and immediately asked how many laborers had died from heat exposure; when confronted with an evil condemned by tens of thousands, she first asks what soil allowed it to grow. 刘万永 adds the methodological bottom line: skepticism is not the goal; it must be followed by verification and work that “eliminates information uncertainty” for the public.
Deep dive
1. The Luo Caixia Case Shows That Impact Comes From a Closed Factual Loop, Not Award Recognition
卫诗婕 recalls that in 2013, at 19, she joined China Youth Daily’s university student reporter training camp, setting her journalism career in motion. Ten years earlier, she had covered the breaking story of 7 petitioning farmers from Sihong, Jiangsu, who collectively ingested pesticide outside the newspaper’s offices in an attempted suicide, and entered the hospital to interview those who had taken the poison. The petitioners chose that location because they believed it was a newspaper that “would speak up for the people.”
刘万永 believes the 2009 Luo Caixia college-entrance-exam impersonation case became a landmark story not simply because of the victim’s account, but because the initial report had established “who had impersonated her,” presenting a relatively complete factual picture. Many similar cases remained at the level of allegation for years.
During his 21 years in the profession, 刘万永 won the China News Award 3 times, but says bluntly that “none of them was my best reporting.” His career was not built around a single breakout moment: he spent his first year as a night-shift editor, then 7 or 8 years on the education beat, and only after joining Icepoint Weekly in 2004 did he produce more work he was satisfied with. He estimates that his strongest run lasted about 15 years.
2. The Precondition for Good Reporting Is Preserving the Right to Reach the Scene
Responding to nostalgia for a time when “the boundaries were looser,” 刘万永 argues that stories still remembered today faced resistance at the time as well. The reports “The Red Warning,” “The Green Sorrow,” and “The Black Aria,” which covered fires in the Greater Khingan Range, also waited roughly 3 months for a window to publish.
His distinction is between being barred from publishing immediately and not sending a reporter to report the story in the first place: “If there is supposedly an instruction and I don’t send a reporter to cover it, that story will never come out.” A newsroom can wait for a window, but only if a reporter has already been sent to the scene, completed the interviews, and preserved the possibility of publication.
When word came in the early days of the Wenchuan earthquake that reporters were not to be dispatched, 贺延光, head of China Youth Daily’s photography department, heard the instruction and immediately told reporters to buy tickets and fly to the affected area. As frontline coverage emerged, restrictions began to ease after 2 or 3 days, then 3 or 4 days. Such action was not an exception, but a recurring mechanism in 刘万永’s view of Chinese journalism history.
3. The Fuxin Investigation Turned Unknown Risk Into an Open Contest
The investigation “The Business Playbook of a Retired Senior Official” centered on 王亚忱, a retired party secretary in Fuxin, Liaoning. 高文华, a businessman who had invested more than RMB100M in a commercial complex, was accused of 3 offenses and held for about 22 months. After the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security jointly supervised the case, all 3 charges were found to be unfounded. When the case returned to Liaoning, it was not closed; the outcome instead became release on bail pending trial.
The lead reached 刘万永 only after passing through 7 or 8 people. Several national media outlets had already made contact: some pitches failed to clear, while one reporter reached Shenyang but backed away from traveling on to Fuxin because of the risks. Local power ties were particularly sensitive: 王亚忱’s daughter was executive deputy director of the Public Security Bureau, and his son was deputy head of the public-order detachment.
刘万永 initially wanted the report setting out the joint conclusion of the 2 departments. He sent a formal interview letter and waited at least 1 month, but received no reply. He eventually decided he could not wait any longer and left 李大同 this warning: “If you hear that I was paying for sex or trafficking drugs in Fuxin, don’t believe it.”
His security strategy drew on the Liu Bei matchmaking story: the more public the affair, the harder it is for the other side to retaliate. He approached the Publicity Department and asked it to contact the now-retired 王亚忱, then had the department provide a car to take him to the meeting. The long interview took place under an arrangement visible to everyone, turning “your greatest danger is not knowing where the danger is” into an open contest among all parties.
4. The Core of Investigative Writing Is Suspecting Both the Powerful and the Vulnerable
The deputy head of the Publicity Department reacted to the case as if he knew nothing. 刘万永 later learned from other channels that the official not only knew about it, but had previously mediated it. 王亚忱’s responses during the interview then helped him determine which parts were true and which were lies.
His warning is particularly important: the weaker party may also lie. Even without saying anything false, people may leave out “the whole truth,” concealing facts that hurt their own position. Investigative reporting cannot substitute a moral stance for an evidentiary judgment.
The final article used a 3-part structure: one side’s accusation, the other side’s response, and what the facts were. 刘万永 attributes this ability to contain complex facts to accumulated experience. Early in his investigation of a public-security bureau in Shanxi, he called 李大同 from a county post office and said, “My ability can’t keep this under control,” as if he had fallen into an ocean with no visible end. Only after enough interviews did he gradually learn whether the facts would exceed the boundaries he had originally drawn.
5. The News Community’s Cohesion Comes From Mentorship, Intern Traditions, and the Memory of Good Work
When 卫诗婕 first came to seek his advice, she had questions about reporting mechanics and doubts about her journalistic ideals after reading the Special Reports Department’s anthology, Digging Out the Truth. 刘万永 later regularly brought students who loved journalism into department dinners and editorial discussions. The department’s year-end gathering for interns also became a tradition lasting for years.
刘万永 estimates that about 90% of his interns initially had “light in their eyes,” but many later left journalism. 卫诗婕 observes that whether they move into higher-paid work or pursue fulfillment elsewhere, many former media workers still feel the urge to return when a major story breaks.
卫诗婕’s report on the Zhang Koukou case was deleted less than 24 hours after going live, but many veterans who had left the profession forwarded it or messaged her privately, saying it brought back the feeling of being a reporter. 刘万永’s dose of cold water is worth preserving: “Don’t believe them.” It may be no more than a momentary impulse; missing journalism is not the same as being willing to bear its costs again.
6. Payday Exposes the News Industry’s Incentive Conflict
Before leaving China Youth Daily, 刘万永 had spent 21 years in the profession and was taking home about RMB8,000 a month in 2019. He knew before joining that the paper paid poorly, but people chose it anyway because they valued the platform. The Tsinghua joke went: “Every day at China Youth Daily is joyful; the only unhappy day each month is payday.”
卫诗婕 rejects portraying the entire industry as destitute. If someone genuinely loves the work, improves over time, and reaches the top tier, some parts of the industry can still pay a decent salary. Her definition of “decent” does not include buying a home. 刘万永 immediately asks, “How can you live decently without a home?” She argues that young people can still live respectably while renting in Beijing or Shanghai, though marriage and children bring a different level of pressure.
The 2 reach limited agreement on the idea that journalism may suit people who are financially secure. 卫诗婕 did not accept that view when she was young, but now believes that lower material wants do help someone sit on a cold bench for the long haul. More important, the authority attached to a reporter’s position can attract money and other temptations. Only those able to refuse such benefits can keep doing the right thing.
刘万永 also points out that media once offered a strong entry route into society for young people from rural areas and with limited resources. He knew 1 reporter who arrived in Beijing unable to afford even a basement room and had to sleep in a park, then gradually became a well-known journalist. “The media industry is extraordinarily inclusive.” That inclusiveness and the reality of low pay have to be seen at the same time.
7. Leaving Journalism at the Right Time May Broaden a Career Path
刘万永’s 4 takeaways for young people are that journalism knowledge is a basic literacy for modern citizens; whether someone becomes a reporter deserves equal respect; reporting experience absolutely helps people grow; and “you should not stay a reporter too long.” Looking back on his 21 years, he increasingly feels he “came out too late.”
卫诗婕 agrees with leaving, but does not see it as a permanent farewell. Media organizations are relatively flat, and working relationships are comparatively direct; someone who has never entered another kind of institution may underestimate society as a complex organism. Taking on different identities and roles can broaden one’s horizon and standpoint before returning, as an institutional reporter or freelancer, to document the times from a more plural perspective.
刘万永 describes the chain from interest to ability with deliberate restraint: “If you enjoy it, you’ll have motivation; if you have motivation, you may be able to do it well.” The key phrase is “may.” Reaching the top of the industry still depends on the platform, time, energy, and sustained investment; passion does not automatically convert into excellence.
8. Once the Old Standards Break, the Industry’s Biggest Shortage Is a Yardstick
After leaving China Youth Daily, 刘万永 spent nearly every day in a small group sending reporters leads, believing that the topics were ones “China Youth Daily should be reporting.” Over at least 4 years, not 1 of the recommended stories was completed. He eventually stopped sending story leads and stopped treating whether a single institution covered a story as the measure of the industry’s success.
His focus shifted to online “polishing drafts” and the offline Emerging Content Creators Program. The former critiques news reports, identifying problems while extracting lessons worth learning; the latter expanded beyond reporters to nonfiction and video creators, looking for strong work and building a recommendation mechanism similar to a leaderboard.
The work showed him that large numbers of young people still love journalism, overcome obstacles, and invest their time and effort. What matters is not any 1 media outlet, but the “steady stream” of young people entering the field, finding their voice, and gaining works and role models they can use as reference points.
刘万永 uses a small episode to illustrate the collapse of standards. A young person who had graduated from Renmin University’s journalism program and was already working in media sent him a tourism advertorial, saying he would be satisfied if he could write something like that one day. What shocked 刘万永 was not the young person’s lack of ability, but that the old rules and values had been shattered while no new yardstick had emerged; even what was worth learning from and what should be criticized had become unclear.
9. Journalism’s Public Payoff Requires a Relay Across Generations
The first attraction of journalism lies in the uncertainty of the process. When an interview subject refuses, the reporter has to test intelligence and experience, improvise, and find a way to achieve the interview’s purpose. For young people who see that difficulty as “fun,” the resistance itself becomes part of the job’s appeal.
The payoff on the results side is much slower. In investigating a notary office’s collusion with a scam ring to seize elderly people’s property, 卫诗婕 managed to get only 1 notary office investigated and punished; she believes many similar problems remain across Beijing and the country. Years later, 耿学清 of Legal Daily picked up the story, and some of the victims she interviewed at the time still send her updates on the case.
They agree that 1 article cannot solve a social problem. The media’s power is limited, but that does not justify denying its ability to push things forward. “This is a Sisyphean process”: it is not completed once by 1 hero, but carried forward by successive generations of media workers.
卫诗婕 uses the example of seeing lavish buildings in the Middle East and confronting an “evil” condemned by tens of thousands to explain how reporters look for the labor and blood behind the architecture, and the soil in which evil grows. She ultimately defines a reporter as a stance, not merely an institutional identity. 刘万永 supplies the operating rule: remain skeptical, but do not “question for the sake of questioning”; complete the verification and eliminate information uncertainty before delivering the result to the public.