Does Journalism Have a Future?

y Nicholas Lemann

在这个信息爆炸的时代，人们想要获取新闻，早已不必坐等晚上的新闻频道或者第二天早上的报纸。新型传播媒介网络、电脑、手机的出现让我们随时随地知晓天下事的同时，也冲击着新闻这个古老的行业。除此之外，新闻业的发展由于广告成本、印刷成本等问题的束缚，加上虚假报道等问题屡见不鲜，可以说是一路坎坷。新闻业能否适应时代的发展？面对内外困境，又该何去何从呢？

People tend to have little sympathy with accounts1. account： 报道，叙述。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.这种现象被视为过度自我关注的证据，或被当成特别向政府请愿的前奏。come across： 发现，出现；prelude：前奏，序幕；pleading： 请求，恳求。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： 大摇大摆，昂首阔步；powerabusing： 滥用职权的。Doesn’t it command4. command： 拥有，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：《落后的纸媒：报纸、杂志和数字时代的新闻业》；dramatically： 显著地，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.（本书作者）乔治·布洛克是一名资深报刊人。在这本观点清晰、摘要性的、没有牢骚的书中，他表达了对于自己为之奋斗大半生的报刊业的忧虑之情。synoptic：摘要的，与摘要有关的；whiny： 爱抱怨的，好牢骚的。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： 发行量。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： 崩溃，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. 他还提醒我们很有价值的一点：直到19世纪新闻业才初具规模，实现了商业支持、政治独立、人员完备和规模生产。Before that, the press was a medium for the printed dissemination10. dissemination： 宣传，传播。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. 在英国，“记者”直到1830年前后才被看成是一份全职的工作。denote： 表示，指示。Interviewing, a socially impertinent12. impertinent： 无礼的，粗鲁的。American 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. 我们今天所知道的新闻报刊业的形成，得益于快速轮转印刷机的发明，城市发展以及编辑内容。这些内容极大充实了犯罪、运动、兴趣爱好、娱乐等方面的新闻，与严肃新闻一道将新闻行业推向成功。rotary printing press： 轮转印刷机；elevated： 高尚的，严肃的。……