经济学人下载:生活在环球小报中

Historyand political culture explain some differences. In post-war France manyeditors had ties to former resistance networks. Papers are still seen as a means to further political aims, not to make money, says Jean-Clement Texier, an investment banker specialising in media. The French press has always catered to elites, notes Olivier Fleurot, former chief executive of the Financial Times Group: Le Figaro is for the wealthy, Liberation for the cultured left, Le Monde for intellectuals. "They have not properly understood what a mass audience wants to see in a newspaper."

历史和政治文化解释了一些区别。在二战后的法国，许多编辑与前抵抗组织都有联系。报纸仍然被看做是实现更深远的政治目标一种手段，而不是为了赚钱，珍克莱门特·特希尔（Jean-Clement Texier），一名专注于媒体的投资银行家说道。前金融时报集团首席执行官奥利维尔·弗雷洛特指出，法国报业一直是为精英服务：《费加罗报》为富人，《解放报》为左翼，《世界报》为知识分子。“他们还没有正确地理解大众读者想要在报纸中看到什么。”

Tabloids have an edge when the rest of the media is conformist. Japan's media landscape is dominated by conglomerates, which see themselves as peers of industry and government rather than insurgents. Coverage is dominated by"Press Clubs", groups of reporters from big papers, who often have offices in the ministries they cover. That gives tabloids a special role in investigative reporting, even if they include much hearsay and error. They usually air dirty laundry before the tamer mainstream press dares touch it. In2007 the tabloids broke the allegations of match-fixingin sumo wrestling, the national sport.

当其他媒体都墨守成规时，小报就有了优势。综合性大企业掌控者日本的媒体格局，这些企业把媒体看做是工业和政府的伙伴，而不是叛乱者的。由来自大报纸的一些记者组成的“新闻俱乐部”掌控者新闻报道，他们在所报道范围的各个部门都有办公室。这为小报们在调查性报道中提供了一个特殊的角色，即使这些报道包括大量的传言和错误。他们通常在温顺的主流媒体敢接触丑闻之前，将这些丑闻公之于众。2007年，小报披露了日本国家运动——相扑的操纵比赛丑闻。

But themost important reason for the variation in tabloid cultures is economic. If theSun and its rivals are more aggressive than Bild, it is because competition in Britain is more intense than it is in Germany,or anywhere else. Whereas British tabloids are sold on newsstands, which makes sensationalist headlines even more important, Bild is a quasi-monopoly.

但是，造成小报文化多元化最重要的原因是经济因素。如果《太阳报》和他的竞争对手们表现得比《图片报》更加富有侵略性，那就是因为英国的竞争比德国，或者其他任何地方，都要激烈。《图片报》的销售处于半垄断状态中，然而英国小报是在报摊上出售的，这就使得轰动效应的大标题更加重要。

In America most papers are subscription-based regional monopolies, which leads them to be more balanced in their coverage,says Richard Edmonds of the Poynter Institute, a media think-tank that owns amajority stake in the (Florida)St Petersburg Times. And the few remaining strands of tabloid journalism are being cut, as slimmed-down newspapers focus onlocal fare. What is more, good American tabloid journalists seem in scarce supply, probably a result of sharply varyingethics (think puritanical American professionalism versus anything-goes Britishruthlessness). The New York Post  and the National Enquirermore than once felt the need to import British hacks.

理查德·埃德蒙德说道，在美国，大部分的报纸都是以订阅为基础的地域性垄断的，这使得这些报纸在新闻报道更加的均衡。他来自一家名叫Poynter Institute的媒体智囊团，这家智囊团拥有《圣彼德斯堡时报》（佛罗里达州）的大部分股权。因为“瘦身”后的报纸聚焦本地经营，仅存的少数几个小报正在被裁撤。更重要的是，优秀的美国小报新闻从业者从供给上来看变得稀少，这可能是伦理道德急剧变化的结果（想象一下将清教徒式的美国专业化与随心所欲的英国式冷酷无情对比）。《华盛顿邮报》和《国家询问者》不只一次的体会到了引入英国小报从业者的需要。