Upstream News Cooperative Column "His Eyes on Chongqing" Launches Anew; Media Experts Enter Classroom to Guide Topic Selection and Planning

“This topic can be further focused, telling big stories with small angles.” On March 21, a lively news topic discussion was held at the Second Teaching Building of Chongqing University’s B Area. Tang Hanfeng, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Shangyou Finance-Chongqing Morning Post, and Li Yuanyuan, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Shangyou News, were invited to join the “News Editing” class for face-to-face exchanges with sophomores from Chongqing University’s School of Journalism, providing on-site guidance to students on refining the topics for the “His Eyes Chongqing” news column.

Scene of the topic planning meeting

“News Editing” is a practical course co-developed by the university and the school, and it is also a key project-based course at Chongqing University’s School of Journalism. The course aims to cultivate students’ ability to produce news content across all media. After nearly two years of exploration, the course has established an emerging teaching model of “cross-sector collaboration + school media synergy.”

The classroom has become a “training ground” for real news practice. The course team, led by Professor Liu Danling and including teachers Shen Zhiyi and Du Yizhu, collaborated with Chongqing Morning Post and Shangyou News to create the “His Eyes Chongqing” column. Centered on the creative idea of “Foreigners’ perspectives on Chongqing,” the project guides students to tell the new Chongqing stories with youthful expressions and an international communication perspective. Since its launch, 34 in-depth reports created and produced by students have been published in full pages of the Chongqing Morning Post, and 19 videos shot and produced by students have been uploaded online on Shangyou News, with over 2 million clicks across the internet and more than 5,000 shares for a single article. This has truly upgraded from assignments to works and then to products, forming a distinctive brand effect.

Tang Hanfeng comments on the topic planning proposal

The presence of media experts in the classroom to precisely “diagnose” the key difficulties in students’ topics further deepens this teaching model. Tang Hanfeng praised students’ efforts and pointed out that there is still room for improvement in expanding interview resources, suggesting that they extract highlights from the interviewees’ nationality, occupation, and personality traits. He also reminded students that planning is just the starting point; the execution of interviews and writing is equally critical, requiring continuous communication and on-site observation to enhance the persuasiveness of reports. Li Yuanyuan focused on the local relevance and communicative power of the topics, emphasizing that high-quality news topics should evoke emotional resonance and have a strong sense of social responsibility. “Students should avoid the trap of superficiality, using small angles to carry big themes, making their works both warm and profound.”

Li Yuanyuan comments on the topic planning proposal

The two media experts also combined their industry experience to analyze the topics from multiple aspects, including news value, feasibility, and typicality. Students gained a lot. Xie Jiajia, a 2024 journalism major, said, “I used to not know how to precisely highlight the key points of interviewees. The experts’ guidance helped me understand that starting from the real experiences and emotions of the interviewees makes reports more compelling.” Many students said that this topic planning session broke down the barriers between classroom learning and frontline news practice, creating an efficient, interactive, and real-time feedback platform, significantly enhancing their engagement and sense of achievement in class.

Professor Liu Danling’s concluding remarks

Professor Liu Danling expressed hope that students would take this topic session as a starting point, continuously refining details and improving quality in subsequent practice, ensuring that topics truly come to fruition, and expanding the expression dimensions of “His Eyes Chongqing” to enhance its brand influence.

With the ongoing deepening of school-media cooperation mechanisms, more works with academic value and social concern are expected to move from the classroom to the public eye, injecting fresh youth perspectives and dynamic communication energy into mainstream media.

Text by Wang Ji and Li Can; Photos by Su Hongyu and Li Can