Bai Yansong, a well-known presenter with China Central Television, noted that we should be more positive about the future. When I graduated from the university 30 years ago, those working in the radio stations were worried that they would be laid off soon due to the rapid development of television. But 30 years have passed, radio stations are still here, with room for continuous improvement. So we shouldn’t be so negative about new media, because in another 15 years, the Internet may become “traditional media” as well, Bai said.

So what should journalists do in this continuously changing environment? Bai said he has always believed in the four fundamental skills of a journalist, namely: the ability to turn an event into news, which will require one to condense the core of a news event into as few words as possible quickly and accurately; the ability to write, which is a required skill in any aspect of communication; the ability to ask questions, in which curiosity is crucial; and the ability to speak. With these four skills in hand, a journalist will never have to worry about unemployment.

The media is always producing new kind of products, Bai said. Short video is just the newest product of the media. A product of the media can either be grain or anesthetic, both of which have their own value of existence. Grain provides nutrition, while anesthetic can remove one’s pain. There is no problem with anesthetic itself, but if it is misused it can be quite harmful. If one in the process of maturity takes too much anesthetic and eats too little grain, then his growth will be impaired. This is the same with short videos. An appropriate amount is harmless, but overdoses can be risky. So, Bai emphasized the importance of building up a resistance toward addiction instead of complaining about its existence.

In the last part of the speech, Bai made his point on short videos. He envisaged in the generation of 5G, short videos will become slightly longer videos of 3-5 minutes. But length in time does not necessarily mean that it is better. He hoped that short videos could be “longer” quality-wise, because the shorter the video, the harder it is to condense the information to its core. 

Hu Zhifeng, dean of Beijing Normal University School of Arts & Communication, compared three types of videos in our lives, i.e. short videos, movies, and TV shows.

The short video has the largest coverage and highest participation rate, which means that we have to be stricter with the examination and filter out all the harmful products. Because the length is limited, the content of the short video is often “shallow”, “vulgar”, or “lightweight”. If the harmful content is filtered out, the short video’s existence will be neither hazardous nor beneficial, and there might even be some situations where we need it.

In the present, movies are a kind of art, an indication of the current fashion and trend. Unfortunately, China’s movie industry is still immature, and the quality of the movies are inadequate in various aspects. So, in the future, we should work hard to create an aesthetic system unique to China. Admittedly, this is a difficult job, but people in the media industry should have the awareness to work towards this direction.

TV shows are still part of China’s mainstream media. Hu Zhifeng said to develop television shows, we should first start by developing our creativity and technology. Currently, the television’s audience is the masses, but Hu argued we should start mixing it up with the technology of the Internet and start transitioning towards an audience of individuals.

Everyone is worried that “traditional” media will be replaced by “modern” media. However, as long as they develop their own individual appeal, traditional media will not die out. Instead, traditional and modern media can complement and integrate with each other. This is what Hu hopes to see in the future.