(Minghui.org) Exposing the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of Falun Dafa was one of the main reasons Minghui was launched in 1999. Over the past 25 years, Falun Dafa practitioners and Minghui correspondents have worked tirelessly to provide information to overseas Minghui editors. Although they live thousands of miles apart and do not know each other, they work together and play an important role in Fa-rectification cultivation under the guidance of Master Li, Falun Dafa’s founder.
A portion of Minghui editors recently discussed their experiences and reflected on how they could better align with Falun Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance while exposing and reporting on the persecution. We also hope more practitioners in mainland China will pay attention to the topics discussed below and work with us to complete this task well.
Verifying Information Requires Sustained Focus
Our main job is to review and edit articles that are submitted to Minghui. They include persecution cases, cultivation experience-sharing articles, additional persecution news from China, and holiday greetings. We also select and edit articles sent in after calls for submissions.
Whether the articles I work on are published or not, I learn a lot from them. Through them, I truly cherish this project and understand the responsibility of doing it well. Over the years, I’ve worked on many types of articles, and some are related to my cultivation.
Some lengthy experience-sharing articles need to be shortened. They only talk about xinxing improvement, but because they provide few details, readers may not get much from them.
For long articles that summarize persecution accounts, we need to spend time verifying the details and checking previously published articles, and then they need to be edited. When I’m busy, I sometimes don’t pay enough attention to details. I think this is related to my cultivation state. If I slow down and check two more times, I usually notice some issues and correct them. But I’m not able to do this every time. On the surface, this is due to time constraints. In reality, I think I hurry because my mind isn’t calm.
I’ve benefited a lot from other editors when I work on various types of articles. We occasionally discuss the main points when we edit certain articles. By exchanging thoughts and reminding each other of Minghui’s goal, we improve together.
Paying Attention to Detail and Avoiding Notions
My workload and the type of assignments I work on haven’t changed, but I need to have more patience and pay more attention to detail. One reason is that the dramatic changes in our environment have put more pressure on practitioners. In addition, the practitioners who submit these articles come from various backgrounds, and their cultivation levels are different. There are also people who pretend to be practitioners and submit articles. So, the logic and accuracy vary significantly from article to article. As editors, we need to evaluate them based on common sense while paying attention to detail. This also requires us to truly focus and internalize the teachings when we read the Fa.
Some situations are complicated, and my first thought about how to edit an article may not be correct. We seldom encountered these cases in the past, and things were usually straightforward. Now I feel it’s necessary to think twice before making a decision.
An editor needs to review many articles. When we’re not sure, we sometimes exchange them to get a second look so that good articles won’t be missed. An editor may not agree with an article that looks good to another editor. These discussions help us better understand what the articles are about and their significance. If we maintain an open and humble mindset, we can learn from each other. Also, when I look for details while working on one article, I may find things I missed in a different article. When this happens, I deeply feel that Master is helping me and giving me hints. This is another reminder that I need to maintain a good cultivation state.
Reading articles from practitioners, including experience sharing, is very helpful. Although I need to straighten out the language for clarity, I can clearly see how diligent the practitioners are and that they have cultivated much better than I have.
Regarding the recent situation, some practitioners talked about their experiences and how they or practitioners around them responded. When I read these accounts, I realized that what they did was very good. When I looked around, I also felt that local practitioners handled the situation better than I did. I realized that I cannot just look at others as an editor or a reader–I also need to take action. I recently extended the length of time I send righteous thoughts. When there’s interference, I know I need to do better. I should have paid attention to this from the beginning, like other practitioners did.
Verifying Facts Rigorously and Providing Adequate Background
Based on recent articles, there have been fewer persecution news stories compared to previous years, but there have been some serious cases in which practitioners were sentenced to 8 or 10 years. Some submissions are short and have few details. Editors often need to find related articles about previous cases of persecution the practitioner was subjected to in order to produce a readable article that can be understood by readers, not just the person who submitted it.
In some submissions, the background information of the persecuted practitioners isn’t clear. Some submissions do not include the practitioners’ gender or age or the region in which the persecution took place. Sometimes, gender can be determined based on context, but sometimes it can’t. Especially when more than one practitioner shares the same name, researching previously posted articles can lead to mixups in the stories or details, thereby complicating the situation for editors.
For example, three practitioners who lived in one city and had the same name were persecuted. If a submission specified the gender, age, profession, and region (county, town, etc.), it would help editors verify the information and improve the resulting article.
When an article describes what happened to a CCP official who was involved in the persecution, it would be better to list persecution cases that took place when those individuals held their positions. Or, if these officials made certain speeches in meetings, made specific remarks when talking to others, or took certain actions related to defamation, we can include them as evidence to explain the cause-effect relationship. This would help make our reports more logical and convincing. Achieving this would require collaboration between those practitioners who collect the information, those who write the articles, and those who edit them.
We thank practitioners who have provided information and written and submitted articles. Despite the difficulty, they continue to provide factual information about the true situation in China. As a team, we should do our best to improve so that Minghui can play a greater role in providing information to practitioners inside and outside China. This is a platform for us to share experiences as part of our cultivation practice, and this is the responsibility given to us by Master.
We will continue to walk our path diligently. Thank you, fellow practitioners, for your perseverance and hard work. Thank you, Master, for your protection and guidance!Thank you to all the practitioners involved!
Views expressed in this article represent the author's own opinions or understandings. All content published on this website are copyrighted by Minghui.org. Minghui will produce compilations of its online content regularly and on special occasions.
Category: Clarifying the Truth
