The Tragic Decline of ‘Free’ News 「免費」新聞造成媒體業沉淪

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The Tragic Decline of ‘Free’ News 「免費」新聞造成媒體業沉淪

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The Tragic Decline of 'Free' News 「免費」新聞造成媒體業沉淪
The 2024 GOP Field Faces a Choice: Law and Order or Loyalty 法治忠誠難兩全川普「密件案」考驗同黨參選人

The Tragic Decline of 'Free' News 「免費」新聞造成媒體業沉淪
文/Lydia Polgreen
譯/高詣軒「免費」新聞造成媒體業沉淪 The Los Angeles Times announced it will reduce its newsroom staff by 13%, a month after the paper celebrated winning two Pulitzer Prizes. Last month, Vice, a company that once seemed like the invincible future of media, sought bankruptcy protection. BuzzFeed shuttered its Pulitzer Prize-winning news division. We've seen deep cuts at the major TV and cable news networks. 洛杉磯時報歡慶贏得兩項普立茲獎的一個月後，宣布將裁撤13%的新聞部員工。上個月，一家曾經看似是前程似錦的媒體「Vice」尋求破產保護。BuzzFeed關閉旗下贏過普立茲獎的新聞部門。我們看到，無線和有線電視新聞部大裁員。 The loss of jobs in any industry, particularly one as central to protecting our democracy as journalism, is always worrying. But what makes these losses particularly troubling is what many of these news organizations have in common: They sought to make quality news for the masses that cost little to nothing to consume. 任何產業的工作流失一向都令人憂心，對於捍衛我們民主制度至關重要的新聞產業尤為如此。但使這些流失格外讓人不安的是，許多這些新聞機構所具備的共同點：他們努力生產優質新聞，大眾卻幾乎可以免費享用。 In an ever more unequal world, it is perhaps not surprising that we are splitting into news haves and have-nots. Those who can afford and are motivated to pay for subscriptions to access high-quality news have a wealth of choices: newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times compete for their business, along with magazines such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic. 在這個不平等日益加深的世界，或許不令人意外的是，我們在新聞（資源）上也有貧富差別。那些負擔得起、且願意付費訂閱來接收高品質新聞的人，有著十分充裕的選擇：紐約時報、華盛頓郵報、華爾街日報和金融時報等報紙任君選擇，雜誌則有紐約客、大西洋。 It bodes ill for our democracy that those who cannot pay — or choose not to — are left with whatever our broken information ecosystem manages to serve up, a crazy quilt that includes television news of diminishing ambition, social media, aggregation sites, partisan news and talk radio. 為我們的民主制度埋下隱憂的是，那些無力付費、或者選擇不付費的人，僅剩殘缺不全的資訊生態系所能勉力供給的內容，這包括逐漸失去理念抱負的電視新聞、社群媒體、聚合網站、具黨派偏見的新聞和電台談話節目。 There are a few very successful media companies that charge people money for high-quality journalism. Some have relatively porous paywalls, and even drop their paywalls entirely for coverage of major events involving public safety. But many surviving free consumer sites are cutting staff and focusing on aggregation — which is an important service, but not the same as investing in original journalism. Television news is dominated by talking heads as budgets for real newsgathering shrink. Cable news is in terminal decline in the age of cord cutting. 有幾家非常成功的媒體公司，向民眾收費以提供高品質新聞。部分有著相對容易穿透的付費牆，並甚至就涉及公共安全的重大事件報導上，完全撤除付費牆。但許多現存的免費用戶網站，正在裁員或著重（新聞）聚合；聚合是項重要服務，但不同於投資在原創新聞內容上。電視新聞則因為採編新聞的預算萎縮，充斥著名嘴談話。時值「剪線」（譯註：取消訂閱有線電視頻道）時代，有線電視新聞正處於臨終衰退期。 The current landscape means the mass audience that never paid for news and never will pay remains underserved, and that has big implications for the future of our country. 當前的光景，意味著未曾付費且永遠不會付費看新聞的閱聽大眾，將持續無法受到充分服務，而這對於我們國家（美國）的未來有很大的潛在影響。 For the better part of two centuries, news that was free — or at least felt free, owing to its reliance on advertising — was good business. But the advertising dollars that once underwrote ambitious mass journalism are now stuffing the pockets of technology billionaires. We're all — even those of us willing and able to pay for quality journalism — the poorer for it. 在過去兩個世紀較美好的時期裡，免費的（或者說由於仰賴廣告，至少「感覺」是免費的）新聞是一門好生意。但一度支應著滿懷雄心的大眾新聞業的廣告收益，如今裝飽著科技業富豪們的私囊。我們所有人，即便是願意且能夠付費獲取高品質新聞的人，皆因此而更加困窘。

The 2024 GOP Field Faces a Choice: Law and Order or Loyalty 法治忠誠難兩全川普「密件案」考驗同黨參選人
文/Jonathan Weisman, Ken Bensin
譯/高詣軒法治忠誠難兩全川普「密件案」考驗同黨參選人 The federal indictment of former President Donald Trump has left the Republican Party — and his rivals for the party's nomination — with a stark choice between deferring to a system of law and order that has been central to the party's identity for half a century or a more radical path of resistance, to the Democratic Party in power and to the nation's highest institutions that Trump now derides. 美國前總統川普遭聯邦起訴，讓共和黨陣營以及爭取黨內提名的對手陷入一場嚴峻抉擇，該選擇服膺半世紀來一向是該黨核心理念的法律與秩序機制，或者要選擇一條更激進的反抗路線，對抗當權的民主黨和川普如今不屑一顧的國家最高體制。 How the men and women who seek to lead the party into the 2024 election respond to the indictments of the former president in the coming months will have enormous implications for the future of the GOP. 爭取帶領共和黨迎戰2024年大選的男男女女，未來幾個月要如何回應這位前總統的起訴案，將對該黨未來有巨大潛在影響。 So far, the declared candidates for the presidency who are not Trump have divided into three camps regarding his federal indictment : those who have strongly backed him and his insistence that the indictment is a politically driven means to deny him a second White House term, such as Vivek Ramaswamy; those who have urged Americans to take the charges seriously, such as Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson; and those who have straddled both camps, condemning the indictment but nudging voters to move past Trump's leadership, such as Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. 目前除川普以外，宣布角逐總統大位的參選人對於他遭聯邦起訴，分成三類陣營：有人力挺川普，認同川普堅稱起訴是具政治動機的手段，意在使他無法回到白宮展開第二任期，例如拉馬斯瓦米；有人呼籲美國人須嚴正看待起訴，例如克利斯蒂和哈欽森；還有人腳踏兩陣營，既譴責起訴又示意選民應揮別川普的領導，例如德桑提斯和海理。 The trick, for all of Trump's competitors, will be finding the balance between harnessing the anger of the party's core voters who remain devoted to him while winning their support as an alternative nominee. 所有川普競爭者的竅門，將會是找到平衡點，要利用仍然忠於川普的共和黨核心選民之怒，同時要作為替代的提名人選去贏得他們的支持。 The danger for Republicans, after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, is that encouraging too much anger could lead to chaos — and to what pollsters call the "ghettoization" of their party: confined to minority status by voters unwilling to let go of the fervent beliefs that have been rejected by the majority. 2021年1月6日國會山莊暴動事件後，共和黨陣營的危險在於，激起過多憤怒可能導致脫序局面，也導致民調機構所稱該黨的「隔都化」，意即該黨因選民不願放棄被多數人摒棄的狂熱信念，陷入少數派處境。 How the party, and its 2024 candidates, respond will matter, to the country and to the party's political fortunes. The core Republican voter might stand with Trump, but most Americans most likely will not. It is a dilemma, acknowledged Clifford Young, president of U.S. public affairs at the polling and marketing firm Ipsos. 共和黨和黨內2024年參選人如何應對，對於國家和該黨政治命運至關重要。死忠於共和黨選民可能力挺川普，但大多數美國人很可能不會。民調與行銷公司易普索的美國公共事務總裁柯立福．楊坦言，這是個兩難處境。 "For the average American in the middle, they're appalled," he said, "but for the base, not only is support being solidified, they don't believe what is happening." 「對於一般的美國中間選民，他們很震驚」，他表示，「但對於基本盤，不只（川普的）支持度更為穩固，他們還不相信正在發生的事」。 "Heck," he added, "they believe he won the election." 「要命」，他補充說道，「他們相信他贏了那次大選」。

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