紐時賞析／才剛得完普立茲獎… 「免費」新聞使媒體業沉淪

免費新聞對於優質新聞的產出頗具殺傷力。（路透）

The Tragic Decline of ‘Free’ News

「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，宣佈將裁撤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爲如此。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，大衆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，有着十分充裕的選擇：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.

爲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、社羣媒體、聚合網站、具黨派偏見的新聞和電臺談話節目。

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，向民衆收費以提供高品質新聞。部分有着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，正在裁員或着重（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。電視新聞則因爲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，意味着未曾付費且永遠不會付費看新聞的閱聽大衆，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。但一度支應着滿懷雄心的大衆新聞業的廣告收益，如今裝飽着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。

文／Lydia Polgreen　譯／高詣軒