y Nicholas Lemann

在這個信息爆炸的時代，人們想要獲取新聞，早已不必坐等晚上的新聞頻道或者第二天早上的報紙。新型傳播媒介網(wǎng)絡(luò)、電腦、手機的出現(xiàn)讓我們隨時隨地知曉天下事的同時，也沖擊著新聞這個古老的行業(yè)。除此之外，新聞業(yè)的發(fā)展由于廣告成本、印刷成本等問題的束縛，加上虛假報道等問題屢見不鮮，可以說是一路坎坷。新聞業(yè)能否適應(yīng)時代的發(fā)展？面對內(nèi)外困境，又該何去何從呢？

People tend to have little sympathy with accounts1. account： 報道，敘述。of crisis in a trade or profession. It comes across as evidence of excessive self-preoccupation, or as a prelude to special pleading before government.2.這種現(xiàn)象被視為過度自我關(guān)注的證據(jù)，或被當(dāng)成特別向政府請愿的前奏。come across： 發(fā)現(xiàn)，出現(xiàn)；prelude：前奏，序幕；pleading： 請求，懇求。Journalism’s difficulties seem to be drawing this kind of reaction from many people who aren’t journalists. Isn’t the press still a swaggering, even power-abusing actor in politics and society?3. swagger： 大搖大擺，昂首闊步；powerabusing： 濫用職權(quán)的。Doesn’t it command4. command： 擁有，掌握。vast attention and resources? Isn’t more news being read by more people than ever before?

Out of Print: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital AgeShows that something really has changed quite suddenly and dramatically in the press industry.5. Out of Print： Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital Age：《落后的紙媒：報紙、雜志和數(shù)字時代的新聞業(yè)》；dramatically： 顯著地，引人注目地。George Brock is aveteran newspaperman, and his main concern in this clear-headed,synoptic and never whiny book is with the institutions where he has spent most of his career.6.（本書作者）喬治·布洛克是一名資深報刊人。在這本觀點清晰、摘要性的、沒有牢騷的書中，他表達了對于自己為之奮斗大半生的報刊業(yè)的憂慮之情。synoptic：摘要的，與摘要有關(guān)的；whiny： 愛抱怨的，好牢騷的。In the United States, newspaper advertising revenue—the main source of economic support by far—was $63.5 billion in 2000. By 2012 it had fallen to $19 billion.(During the same period, advertising revenue at Google went from zero to $46.5 billion.) Employment in the American newspaper industry fell by 44 per cent between 2001 and 2011. In the European Union, newspaper revenue is falling by more than 10 per cent a year. In the UK, newspaper circulation7. circulation： 發(fā)行量。has dropped by more than 25 per cent during the twenty-first century. It would be hard to think of another industry that is going through such a sudden collapse.8. collapse： 崩潰，瓦解。

One reason this view of journalism isn’t more widely accepted is that, as Brock says, it represents only a small, time-limited part of the overall history of the press. Brock’s account begins in the late sixteenth century. As he usefully reminds us, it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that a commercially supported, politically independent, fully staffed, mass-produced press came into being.9. 他還提醒我們很有價值的一點：直到19世紀(jì)新聞業(yè)才初具規(guī)模，實現(xiàn)了商業(yè)支持、政治獨立、人員完備和規(guī)模生產(chǎn)。Before that, the press was a medium for the printed dissemination10. dissemination： 宣傳，傳播。of free speech and for making public basic information about government and business. The term “journalist”, denoting a full-time livelihood, wasn’t used in Britain until around 1830.11. 在英國，“記者”直到1830年前后才被看成是一份全職的工作。denote： 表示，指示。Interviewing, a socially impertinent12. impertinent： 無禮的，粗魯?shù)摹merican invention,became a standard British journalistic technique only in the 1880s.Newspaper journalism as we know it also required the invention of fast rotary printing presses and the growth of cities, and the editorial content that made news into a successful business had a generous complement of crime, sports, human interest and entertainment,along with more elevated material.13. 我們今天所知道的新聞報刊業(yè)的形成，得益于快速輪轉(zhuǎn)印刷機的發(fā)明，城市發(fā)展以及編輯內(nèi)容。這些內(nèi)容極大充實了犯罪、運動、興趣愛好、娛樂等方面的新聞，與嚴(yán)肅新聞一道將新聞行業(yè)推向成功。rotary printing press： 輪轉(zhuǎn)印刷機；elevated： 高尚的，嚴(yán)肅的。But successful newspapers were never completely high-minded14. high-minded： 品格高尚的，有思想高度的。. As Brock puts it, “there has never been a mass audience for serious news”. The economically viable15. viable： 切實可行的，能夠完成的。material paid for the socially valuable material.

During the second half of the twentieth century, now remembered in the newspaper business as a golden age,the position of newspapers was already weakening,Brock argues, mainly because of the advent16. advent： 到來，出現(xiàn)。of radio and television. In the US, newspaper sales per thousand people fell by 55 per cent from 1950 to 2008. The trouble wasn’t obvious at first,because economies in the developed world were generally growing, populations were rising,advertising revenues were increasing, and the losses in newspaper audience came mostly in the form of the weaker papers going out of business(London had more than fifty daily papers 200 years ago) while the more established17. established： 老牌的，早已建立的。papers grew. By,say, 1975, it had become just about impossible for a new entrant to start a big daily newspaper or a television station, because of prohibitively high costs and regulatory barriers.18. 比如到了1975年，因為過高的成本與制度上的阻礙，一個新手想要開辦一份大型日報或者一家電視臺已經(jīng)不可能。entrant： 新成員，新工作者；prohibitively： 過高地，過分地。

Satellite and cable television, and then, especially, the internet,have brought the protected position of big news organizations to a sudden end, and made the underlying erosion of the newspaper audience more obvious.19. 隨著衛(wèi)星和有線電視，特別是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的出現(xiàn)，大型新聞機構(gòu)受保護的優(yōu)勢突然間結(jié)束了，報刊潛在的讀者問題也變得更加明顯了。underlying： 潛在的，根本的；erosion： 侵蝕，腐蝕。Much of what news organizations produced was replicative—substantial press packs covered the same stories in roughly the same way—or was merely a repackaging of public information.20. 很多新聞機構(gòu)的報道都是重復(fù)的——實質(zhì)的內(nèi)文內(nèi)容都是一樣的故事和基本相似的報道方式——或者僅僅是公共信息的重新包裝。replicative： 重復(fù)的，復(fù)制的。But, operating from their safe perch21. perch： 棲息處，安全處。, journalists could tell themselves that if they produced something, it must have economic and social value. Those comfortable assumptions are now gone. As a business, newspapers have been subjected to devastating competition from new entrants in advertising sales and in information provision.22. subject to： 受……支配，受……影響；devastating： 毀滅性的，破壞性極強的；provision： 供給，提供。As a social activity, they have had to meet a much higher standard of originality and distinctiveness.23. originality： 獨創(chuàng)性，別致；distinctiveness： 特殊性，區(qū)別性。

The situation in journalism is changing so rapidly that it is difficult to get a sure sense of what is going on. There is a great deal of discussion but it mainly takes place in an endless series of panel debates and blog posts where there are plenty of confident assertions,24. panel： 小組；assertion： 斷言，主張。but not much reliable data. Roughly speaking, the discussants divide into two teams: Team Digital, whose members are quick to predict the imminent and not especially tragic death of the familiar news organizations, and Team Mainstream Media, whose members look hopefully at every new development for evidence to support their wish for a restoration of the good old days.25. 粗略來說，參加討論的人分為兩組：數(shù)字組，其成員很快預(yù)測出即將發(fā)生的事情，這不特指他們預(yù)測熟悉的新聞機構(gòu)會以悲劇收場；主流媒體組，其成員心懷希望地看待每一個新發(fā)展，以期能從中尋找證據(jù)去支持他們回到過去美好時光的愿望。discussant： 討論參加者，參加討論的人；imminent： 即將發(fā)生的，迫近的；restoration： 恢復(fù)，還原。WhenBuzzfeed26. Buzzfeed： 美國的一家新聞聚合網(wǎng)站。raises millions of dollars from venture-capital firms, Team Digital proclaims victory. When theNew York Timesintroduces a reasonably successful online subscription27. subscription： 訂閱，訂購。system, Team Mainstream Media does.

To work in a traditional city newsroom is to witness every day what is still quite an impressive28. impressive： 令人欽佩的，令人印象深刻的。industrial process. Information flows in from an enormous variety of sources, gets sorted, sifted, processed and translated into a clear, accessible form, moves onto gigantic machines for an instantaneous mass production process, and then gets physically distributed to hundreds of thousands of locations.29. 信息從龐大而繁雜的源頭流入，被分類、篩選、加工、翻譯成明白可懂的形式，再進入大型的機器中瞬間完成大量生產(chǎn)加工，再由人工將其分發(fā)到成百上千個不同地方。sift： 篩選，過慮；gigantic： 巨大的，龐大的；instantaneous： 瞬間的，即時的。On the business side, this now means grappling with30. grapple with： 應(yīng)付，處理。a new world in which readers have become accustomed to getting their news for free and advertisers have the luxury of paying far lower rates to reach far more highly targeted audiences through websites such as Google, Facebook and, most recently, Twitter.

Brock doesn’t try to solve this problem, but he does take on the project of defining the social value of journalism more precisely than merely asserting, implausibly, that everything journalists do is essential, and he offers a menu of four sub-categories—verification,sense-making, witness and investigation.31. 雖然布洛克并不試圖解決這個問題，但他確實承擔(dān)起責(zé)任，更準(zhǔn)確地定義了新聞業(yè)的社會價值，而不僅僅是不真實地斷言記者的每個言行都是至關(guān)重要的。布洛克將新聞業(yè)的社會價值分為四個類別：查證核實、意義構(gòu)建、目擊證明和調(diào)查研究。implausibly： 難以置信地，不真實地；verification： 證實，證明。It still leaves the question how this mission will be supported, if not by readers and advertisers.These are not entirely satisfying solutions to the problem of how to support the socially useful aspects of journalism: state support is out of sync with the current resources and inclinations of the developed world, and support by patrons is a happenstance, not a guarantee.32. sync： 同時，同步；inclination： 傾向，意向；happenstance： 巧合，意外。

There are alternatives, and, towards the end ofOut of Print, Brock notes some American examples of relatively new, online-only news sites that seem to be self-sufficient. One senses that Brock is trying to be optimistic about these, but he is intellectually honest enough to mention that all of them are still small and struggling. It is difficult to say with a straight face, and George Brock does not, that the fabled“new business model” for news—that members of Team Mainstream Media often see just around the corner—has arrived, or will arrive any time soon.33. straight face： 一本正經(jīng)，不動聲色的表情；fabled： 寓言中的，傳說中的。The internet might end up returning journalism to a faster, more technologically sophisticated34. sophisticated： 高級的，復(fù)雜的。version of what it was before the advent of the commercial newspaper business.