2016年经济学人 美国新闻业 数字复兴

 

Journalism¹ in America

美国新闻业

Digital resurrection

数字复兴

Some moderately good news in the news industry

新闻业的好消息

IN FEBRUARY Vice², a media firm that caters³ to youngsters who like their news with a dollop of sass and hip-hop, toured the opulent residence of the ousted⁴ president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, and posted the video online. “It looks like a weird⁵ dictatorship theme park,” the sardonic⁶ reporter told the camera. A new report by the Pew Research Centre, a think-tank, finds that a third of Americans now watch news videos online, about as many as say they watch news on cable television. Among those aged⁷ 18-29, around half do.

传媒公司Vice迎合年轻人的口味播报充满狂言妄语的新闻及嘻哈音乐。今年二月，该传媒公司的记者参观了已被罢黜的乌克兰总统亚努科维奇豪宅并将视频传到了网上。“这个地方就像一个怪异的独裁主题公园”记者颇具讽刺性地对着摄像机说道。智库皮尤研究中心最近发表了一个新的报告，该报道显示近三分之一的美国人在网上看视频新闻，约近乎三分之一的人称他们在有线电视上看新闻。在那些18-29岁的年轻人中，近一半的人在网上看新闻。

In years past Pew's “State of the News Media” reports have been sombre, chronicling the evisceration⁸ of jobs and the gutting⁹ of news budgets. This year, however, Pew sounded more optimistic, pointing to the slew¹⁰ of digital-news services, such as Vice's online news channel, that have sprung up recently. Around 5,000 full-time¹¹ jobs have been created at 468 digital-news firms, according to Pew. Many online-news firms have hired high-profile journalists away from big publications, such as the New York Times and Washington Post, and are launching bureaus around the world (although not nearly as many as have been shuttered by newspapers).

在过去的几年，皮尤中心有关“新闻媒体的状况”的报告都是阴郁的，长久以来都是老生常谈的就业问题和新预算。但是今年，皮尤似乎更为乐观，指出数字新闻服务局势的回转，比如说Vice在线新闻频道，最近如雨后春笋一般冒出来。根据皮尤的数据，468家数字新闻公司已经创造了近5000个全职岗位。许多在线新闻公司从大型出版社挖墙脚，雇了许多高知名度的记者，如纽约时报级华盛顿邮报，并在全球广设分局（尽管并非很多由于纸质新闻业而惨遭关闭）。

Digital news firms used to do little besides rehashing traditional newspapers'stories. Now they are starting to feature more original articles. Last year Business Insider, a business-news site, ran a profile of Marissa Mayer, the boss of Yahoo. At 23,000 words, it was as long as a novella. “Online you can afford to do that. In a magazine you'd go broke,” says Henry Blodget, the boss of Business Insider. Buzz Feed, which used to be known for casting out “click bait” online, now claims around 170 full-time staff, including a Pulitzer-prize winner, Mark Schoofs, who has been hired to run a new investigative team.

数字新闻公司过去除了重复传统新闻报纸的故事之外很少写自己的东西。而现在他们正开始创作更多原创的文章。去年，商业新闻网站“财经内幕”就写了一篇文章概述雅虎的老板玛丽莎·梅耶尔，该文章字数达到2.3万，已然是一部中篇小说了。“你可以在网上这么做，若是在杂志上你就直接破产了”，该杂志的老板亨利·布洛杰特声称。Buzz Feed，曾经因网上清楚“点击诱惑”而闻名，现拥有约170名全职员工，其中包括普利策奖获奖者Mark Schoofs，他目前负责一个新闻调查组。

Lower costs explain why so many digital news firms, like Silicon¹² Valley start-ups, are launching today. Ken¹³ Doctor, a newspaper analyst¹⁴, reckons it costs as little as $5m to start a “credible” digital news offering. Financiers and philanthropists are investing in news: eBay founder¹⁵ Pierre Omidyar put $250m into a new non-profit, First Look Media. All this has injected hope into a beleaguered¹⁶ industry. Last month Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist, predicted that journalism may “be entering into a new golden age” and that the news industry would grow ten- or a hundredfold.

低成本运行解释了为什么现在如此之多的新闻公司就像硅谷的暴发户一般地崛起。新闻分析人肯·多科特回想当时打造可靠的数字新闻产品仅需500万美元。现在金融家和慈善家都在投资新闻：易趣网创始人皮尔斯·奥米戴尔投资了2,5亿元运营一个新的非盈利网站First Look Media。所有的这些为这个四面楚歌的行业注入了一缕希望。上个月，风险资本家Andreessen预测新闻业将“进入一个新的黄金期”并且新闻业的利润将增长十倍甚至百倍。

Journalism is at least becoming more participatory. Pew finds that around half of social-media users share news articles or videos, and comment on them. Around 7% of American adults have posted their own news video to a social network, or submitted one to an established news site. Interactive¹⁷ features are doing particularly well. Last year the New York Times's most popular “article” was a quiz in which people could test whether they spoke¹⁸ more like a Los Angeleno or a Louisianan.

至少现在新闻业变得越来越具参与度了。皮尤研究中心发现近乎一半的社交媒介用户分享新闻视频和文章并且在上面发表评论。约7%的美国成年人将他们自己的新闻视频传到社交网站，或转交至已存在的新闻网站。交互式的特写做的尤其出色。去年，纽约时报最受欢迎的文章是一个小测试，通过该测试人们可以知道他们的口音是更像洛杉矶人还是更像路易斯安娜人。

Some positive news is welcome, but newsrooms continue to bleed jobs (see chart). The rise of digital-media firms has done little to restore local news coverage¹⁹, which has suffered with the closure of many local papers. Digital-news firms'long-form narratives²⁰ and investigative journalism may grab attention, but they are unlikely to compensate²¹ for projects that will never take place again in old newsrooms because of budgetary woes²².

积极的新闻总是受欢迎的，但是新闻编辑室持续削减全职编辑（见图）。数字媒体公司的崛起为重建本地新闻报道做的事少之又少，当地许多报刊倒闭。数字新闻公司长篇的叙事手法以及调查性新闻或许能吸引读者的眼球，但是他们依然不能弥补那些由于预算困难而不再恢复其在新闻编辑室的位置。

Facebook users may be reading news, but they spend on average only a minute and a half on a news site each month if they come from Facebook, about a third of the time that visitors spend if they go to a newspaper's site directly. And digital video may be growing, but its advertising²³ only accounts for around 10% of all digital ad revenues, and viewing growth has slowed. Even television news is not having an easy time. In 2013 the three big cable news channels—CNN, Fox and MSNBC—lost around 11% of their combined audience during prime-time. The news industry today resembles Newton's third law of motion, says Amy Mitchell, Pew's director of journalism research: for every action, there is an equally strong reaction. The momentum²⁴ might have shifted online, but gravity is still pulling everyone down to earth.

脸谱网的用户或许在读新闻，但是如果消息来自脸谱网，他们平均一个月花一分半钟看新闻，若他们直接进入新闻网网页，访客花费的时间约占三分之一。数字视频或有增长，但是其广告收入仅占所有数字广告收入的10%，并且据观察增长已放缓。即便是电视新闻日子也不好过。2013年，三大新闻频道，美国有线新闻网、福克斯和微软全国有线广播电视新闻公司黄金时间流失了约11%的共同观众。今天的新闻业与牛顿的第三运动定律很像，皮尤新闻调查中心的主任Amy Mitchell如是道，每一步都会有同等强烈的反应。新闻业的发展势头或许已经转向了网络，但是重力作用依然在将人们往地上拽。

1 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

2 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

3 caters   

提供饮食及服务( cater的第三人称单数 )； 满足需要，适合

参考例句：

• That shop caters exclusively to the weaker sex. 那家商店专供妇女需要的商品。
• The boutique caters for a rather select clientele. 这家精品店为特定的顾客群服务。

4 ousted   

驱逐( oust的过去式和过去分词 )； 革职； 罢黜； 剥夺

参考例句：

• He was ousted as chairman. 他的主席职务被革除了。
• He may be ousted by a military takeover. 他可能在一场军事接管中被赶下台。

5 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

6 sardonic   

adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的

参考例句：

• She gave him a sardonic smile.她朝他讥讽地笑了一笑。
• There was a sardonic expression on her face.她脸上有一种嘲讽的表情。

7 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

8 evisceration   

n.除脏（术）

参考例句：

• Under the impression of absolute glaucoma, evisceration was performed. 其后六年眼痛之症状获得舒缓未再出现。 来自互联网
• The adoption of their amendments would have amounted to an evisceration of the act. 采纳他们的修正案将会减弱那项法案的意义。 来自互联网

9 gutting   

n.去内脏v.毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的现在分词 )；取出…的内脏

参考例句：

10 slew   

v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多

参考例句：

• He slewed the car against the side of the building.他的车滑到了大楼的一侧，抵住了。
• They dealt with a slew of other issues.他们处理了大量的其他问题。

11 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

12 silicon   

n.硅(旧名矽)

参考例句：

• This company pioneered the use of silicon chip.这家公司开创了使用硅片的方法。
• A chip is a piece of silicon about the size of a postage stamp.芯片就是一枚邮票大小的硅片。

13 ken   

n.视野，知识领域

参考例句：

• Such things are beyond my ken.我可不懂这些事。
• Abstract words are beyond the ken of children.抽象的言辞超出小孩所理解的范围.

14 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

15 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

16 beleaguered   

adj.受到围困[围攻]的；包围的v.围攻( beleaguer的过去式和过去分词)；困扰；骚扰

参考例句：

• The beleaguered party leader was forced to resign. 那位饱受指责的政党领导人被迫辞职。
• We are beleaguered by problems. 我们被许多困难所困扰。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 interactive   

adj.相互作用的，互相影响的，（电脑）交互的

参考例句：

• The psychotherapy is carried out in small interactive groups.这种心理治疗是在互动的小组之间进行的。
• This will make videogames more interactive than ever.这将使电子游戏的互动性更胜以往。

18 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

19 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

20 narratives   

记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分

参考例句：

• Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning. 结婚一向是许多小说的终点，然而也是一个伟大的开始。
• This is one of the narratives that children are fond of. 这是孩子们喜欢的故事之一。

21 compensate   

vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消

参考例句：

• She used her good looks to compensate her lack of intelligence. 她利用她漂亮的外表来弥补智力的不足。
• Nothing can compensate for the loss of one's health. 一个人失去了键康是不可弥补的。

22 woes   

困境( woe的名词复数 )； 悲伤； 我好苦哇； 某人就要倒霉

参考例句：

• Thanks for listening to my woes. 谢谢您听我诉说不幸的遭遇。
• She has cried the blues about its financial woes. 对于经济的困难她叫苦不迭。

23 advertising   

n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的

参考例句：

• Can you give me any advice on getting into advertising? 你能指点我如何涉足广告业吗?
• The advertising campaign is aimed primarily at young people. 这个广告宣传运动主要是针对年轻人的。

24 momentum   

n.动力，冲力，势头；动量

参考例句：

• We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
• The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。