经济学人下载:新闻的福克斯化

cnn, meanwhile, continues to lose out to its more strident rivals, in prime time at least. Mr Griffin, himself a former cnn employee, reckons that the channel has failed to move with the times by favouring the “disinterested, at-arm’s-length anchor”. Mark Whitaker, cnn’s managing editor, disagrees. He says his (highly profitable) channel is known for “integrity and avoiding cheap opinion”, and for providing more global coverage than its rivals. “In this day and age you should have a point of view, but not necessarily one that’s rooted in knee-jerk ideology,” he says.

与此同时，cnn却不断被其更为尖锐的竞争对手攻城略地。在cnn鼎盛时期，前cnn雇员Griffin认为cnn还固守着其“无利害关系的公平之锚”，无法跟上时代的脚步。而cnn的管理编辑Mark Whitaker则表示反对，他认为他们（高盈利的）频道一直以来“秉承公正的精神，拒绝廉价的观点”，同时比其他竞争对手提供更为广泛的全球性报道。"在这个时代，我们都应当有自己的观点，但这些观点不见得都来自于潜在的意识形态，"他说。

The idea that journalists should be impartial in reporting news is a relatively recent one. “A lot of newspaper people treat it as one true religion, when it’s an artefact of a certain set of economic and historical circumstances,” says Joshua Benton of the Nieman Journalism Lab. America’s Founding Fathers nurtured a vibrant, fiercely partisan press with no licensing of newspapers or policing of content. During the 19th century newspapers gradually adopted a more objective stance, for several reasons. By appealing to a wider audience, they were able to increase their circulation and hence their advertising revenue. Consolidation, and the emergence of local newspaper monopolies, also promoted impartiality. “When you are the only paper in town, you can’t risk pissing off liberals by being too conservative, or vice versa,” says Mr Benton.

要求记者在报道中的公正性是近期才出现的观点。"许多新闻人将其作为真正的职业信条，而这一信条其实只是一系列经济和历史条件下的人工产物。” 尼曼新闻实验室的Joshua Benton这样说。美利坚合众国的创始人所建立的是具有强烈党派性的，充满活力的媒体，对于新闻媒体没有资质审查或内容限制。19世纪，出于多种理由，新闻媒体逐渐开始秉持更为客观的立场。通过吸引更多的受众，他们可以增加报纸销量，从而提高广告收入。媒体的间的兼并地方媒体大亨的出现更加促进了新闻的公正性。“如果你是镇上的唯一一家媒体，你不可能过分坚持保守主义而冒险去惹怒那些自由主义者，反过来也一样。”Benton先生说。

With the professionalisation of journalism in the early 20th century came a more detached style of reporting. In effect, a deal was struck between advertisers, publishers and journalists, says New York University’s Jay Rosen. Journalists agreed not to alienate anyone so that advertisers could aim their messages at everyone. That way the publishers got a broader market and the journalists got steady jobs but gave up their voices. Objectivity is “a grand bargain between all the different players”, says Mr Rosen. When radio and television emerged, America’s private broadcasters embraced impartiality in their news reporting to maximise their appeal to audiences and advertisers and avoid trouble with regulators.

在20世纪，随着新闻工作的职业化，出现了更为分离化的报道风格。纽约大学的Jay Rosen认为，这事实上是广告商，出版商，以及记者之间达成的协议。记者不排除任何受众，那么广告商就可以吸引更多消费者。如此一来，出版商扩大了市场，记者得到了稳定的工作，但是却无法发出自己的声音。Rosen说，客观性是“各利益方之间做成的一笔大交易”。广播和电视出现之后，美国各个私人广播公司都在其新闻中坚持公正性原则，以此来赢得更多的观众和广告商，也避免在监管方那里惹出麻烦。

These days different countries have different preferences. In Europe overt partisanship in newspapers is widespread and state-run television channels often have partisan allegiances: Italy’s three state channels are each aligned with specific parties, for example. The political independence of the BBC in Britain is unusual, and is in any case contested by critics who complain that it is too left-leaning. In India 81 of the 500 satellite-TV channels that have sprung up in the past 20 years are news channels, most of them catering to specific political, religious, regional, linguistic or ethnic groups. Only a few take an objective, pan-Indian approach, says Daya Thussu of the University of Westminster.

如今不同国家的新闻风格迥异。欧洲报纸上随处可见公然的党派观点，国有电视频道也往往对其所拥簇的党派保持忠诚：例如意大利的三家国有电视频道就分别支持各自不同的党派。BBC的政治独立性比较特别，但是同样会有很多批评者抱怨其过于左翼。在印度过去二十年来出现的500家卫星电视频道中，有81家是新闻频道，它们之中多数偏向于某一特定的政治，宗教，地方，语言或种族群体。只有少数持客观的，泛印度的观点，威斯敏斯特大学的Daya Thussu如是说。