广告的轰炸式推广已威胁新闻业生态

“News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising,” runs the journalists’ mantra, variously ascribed to publishers William Randolph Hearst and Lord Northcliffe. If so, news is being deluged.
记者们有一句座右铭：“新闻是某些人不希望你印出来的东西。其他都是广告。”这句话有人说是威廉•兰道夫•赫斯特(William Randolph Hearst)说的，也有人说是诺斯克利夫勋爵(Lord Northcliffe)说的。如果这话属实，那么新闻正处于四面楚歌的境地。

In 2014, the fastest-growing form of online “content” is an epidemic of heartwarming videos (“One Mother Did Something Illegal To Help Her Kids, And This Cop Was Totally, Unexpectedly Cool”), funny lists (“33 Reasons Miley Cyrus Was Actually The Best Thing To Happen To 2013”) and click-bait headlines from sites such as BuzzFeed, Upworthy and ViralNova.
2013年增长最快的在线“内容”形式是像传染病一样四处传播的感人视频（“一位母亲为帮助孩子不惜以身涉法，警察太棒了，让人完全没想到(One Mother Did Something Illegal To Help Her Kids, And This Cop Was Totally, Unexpectedly Cool)”）、各种有趣清单（“麦莉•赛勒斯是2013年最大惊喜的33个理由(33 Reasons Miley Cyrus Was Actually The Best Thing To Happen To 2013)”）以及来自BuzzFeed、Upworthy、ViralNova这类网站的诱人点击的标题。

Rather than being found on news sites or through search engines, they flourish on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter . While reporters pride themselves on digging out bad news and awkward facts, these stories often appeal to positive emotions – affection, admiration and awe. They are packaged to make people share content with friends, and to spread like a virus.
这些内容不是来自新闻网站或搜索引擎，而是在Facebook和推特(Twitter)这类社交网络上大行其道。尽管记者们以发掘坏消息和糗事为荣，以上故事却常常能引起人的正面情绪——爱、赞赏和敬畏。它们的包装方式就是为了便于与朋友分享，然后像病毒一样扩散。

Some of this is advertising – BuzzFeed designs viral campaigns for companies that are difficult to tell apart from its other output. Much of it has an advertising-like aspect. Viral producers devote as much effort to marketing content as to concocting it, like an advertising agency married to a newsroom.
有些做法属于广告——BuzzFeed为一些公司设计了病毒营销方案，帮它们从该网站的其他页面中脱颖而出。这一做法中的很大一部分具有广告效果。病毒内容制造商在推销和制作方面花的精力一样多，他们就像是广告代理商与报社编辑部的结合体。

That upsets many journalists: complaints range from the blurring of the line between editorial and advertising to the way faked videos and Photoshopped pictures have at times become viral sensations without being fact-checked. Upworthy’s efforts to tug at readers’ heartstrings enrage sceptical editors.
这一点令许多记者不安，他们抱怨这模糊了新闻编辑和广告制作的界限，还抱怨虚假的视频和经过编辑的照片时不时未经验证就成为病毒式的轰动新闻。比如，Upworthy网站多次试图拨动读者心弦的做法，就激怒了持怀疑态度的编辑们。

“The crowd will eventually choose the juicy truth over a heartwarming hoax,” Nick Denton, publisher of the Gawker news and gossip sites (and a former Financial Times journalist), declared defiantly in December as BuzzFeed’s traffic overtook his own.
2013年12，新闻和闲聊网站Gawker的出版商、曾任英国《金融时报》记者的尼克•丹顿(Nick Denton)在BuzzFeed的流量超过他的网站时曾轻蔑地宣称：“这些人最终会选择有趣的真相，而不是温暖人心的段子。”