经济学人下载:西班牙报业的压力 一个持续紧缩的制度

Spain's press
西班牙报业的压力

A shrinking order
一个持续紧缩的制度

Sacked editors are a sign more of financial than political pressures
不断失业的编辑们背后意味的经济压力远大于政治压力

Two of the remaining readers
剩余读者中的两位。

JOURNALISTS are supposed to check their facts, but when editors are sacked rumours will do. Some see dark political forces behind the ousting of editors at Spain's three big dailies,El Pais, El Mundo and La Vanguardia. But the upheaval also reflects a deeper business crisis.
原本应该是记者们去调查事件的真相，但是当编辑们不断被解雇，谣言开始出现了。实际上一些人已经透过西班牙三大日报—国家报（El Pais）;西班牙世界报（El Mundo）和先锋报（La Vanguardia.）不断解雇编辑这一事件的表面，看到了藏在幕后操作的政治黑手。但是这种剧变更加折射出来的是一次更严重的商业危机。

Until last month, Pedro Ramirez had edited El Mundo from its birth 25 years ago. Famed for investigations, sharp-tongued columnists and conspiracy theories, it ruffled many feathers. Mr Ramirez blames Mariano Rajoy's ruling Popular Party (PP) for his sacking. The new editor, Casimiro Garcia-Abadillo, points to poor sales, which have halved in five years, and says Mr Ramirez alienated readers loyal to Mr Rajoy who found a feud over PP corruption too personal.
到上个月为止，Pedro Ramirez 已经在世界报做了25年的主编了。这份报纸一向以深查事件真相，尖酸刻薄的专栏作家和充满阴谋论的言论而闻名于世，当然它也得罪了不少人。Ramirez谴责马里亚诺·拉霍伊为了一己私欲在毁灭人民党。新任主编CasimiroGarcia-Abadillo 则指出近五年来报纸的销量下滑了一半多，并且说Ramirez对于拉霍伊的指责太个人化，让那些原本忠于这位发现人民党贪污现象的党魁的读者们开始变得生疏。

El Pais's editor, Javier Moreno, also pursued corruption. But he has overseen a fall in circulation and last year sacked almost a third of the staff, damaging morale even as he cut operating losses. El Pais aims to be “the global newspaper” in Spanish; its next editor, Antonio Cano, ran its Latin American website. Mr Cano denies that El Pais will shed its centre-left identity, though he is clearly more conservative than Mr Moreno.
至于国家报的前主编，Javier Moreno，同样在追查贪污的事。但是他全然忽视了销量的暴跌，而且去年他们报社差不多解雇了三分之一的雇员，在他降低运营亏损的同时也严重地打击了员工的士气。国家报的目标直指“世界级的”西语报纸；它的下一任主编，Antonio Cano 已经开始运营它的拉丁语美国网站。Cano否认国家报要推翻自己左倾的立场，尽管他明显要比Moreno要保守。

El Mundo vies with El Pais for domination of the Hispanic world's online news audience, but turning that into money is an uphill task, admits a senior executive at El Mundo. La Vanguardia's local Catalan subscription base has kept it mostly profitable. There the choice of Marius Carol as the next editor is being interpreted as a shift from the Catalan nationalist flag-waving of his predecessor, Jose Antich.
世界报和国家报一直在网络上竞争西语读者的占有率，但是事实上要将这种占有率转化为盈利是一件很艰巨的任务，对此世界报的高级执行官也不得不承认。反观先锋报，它本身的西语读者订阅量就足以让它维持盈利。但是对于新任主编马吕思·卡罗尔来说却有很多选择，他解释说这对先锋报来说是从加泰罗尼亚语主义的旗帜中转型的一次机会，这将于他前任Jose Antich.大不相同。

If newspapers are not bending to political pressures, might they bow to more commercial ones? Some journalists admit to self-censorship for fear of annoying big advertisers. El Mundo accused Telefanica of cutting advertising after it reported a 2002 insider-trading probe against the firm's chairman, Cesar Alierta, a charge Telefanica denied. Although Telefanica accounts for only a small fraction of advertising—the biggest general advertisers are non-Spanish multinationals like Procter & Gamble and L'Oreal—other channels of influence also exist. Loss-making Prisa, the owner of El Pais, has been repairing its balance-sheet and has won a reprieve from its bankers. But after conversion of a convertible bond, Prisa's banks will own 16% of the shares, more than the founding Polanco family. Telefanica will also have a stake, and hedge funds claim another 17%.
如果报纸行业不对政治压力屈服，他们是否会对更加商业化的因素弯腰？一些记者在自我审视时承认，他们会害怕让那些大的广告客户感到厌烦。世界报指控Telefanica在2002年报纸刊登了他与公司董事长（Cesar Alierta）的内部交易之后减少了报纸的广告刊登量。但是Telefanica否认了这一指控。尽管Telefanica解释说，只有一小部分的广告业受到了影响—传统的大额广告发布商依然是那些非西语系的跨国公司，诸如宝洁和欧莱雅。—但是对于其它的渠道的影响肯定也是存在的。而国家报的控股人—总是亏损的Prisa，已经开始修复它的收支平衡并且从银行债主那获得了一定的延期。但是在债券转换完成之后，银行将持有公司16%的股份，这甚至超过了创始家族—Polanco的持股量。Telefanica同样执有一部分股票，还有17%的股权在放亏损基金会手中。

The biggest challenge is more fundamental. Dailies reach just a third of Spaniards. Print-advertising income has fallen by 56% since 2008; digital advertising has not made up for this. Owners want higher paper sales, more advertising and fancy websites, all done with smaller budgets and fewer staff. Battling political pressure is the least of their worries.
其实最大的挑战是来自更基层的方面。这些日报在西班牙人中只有三分之一的覆盖率。2008年之后印刷业的广告收入下降了56%；而数字广告带来盈利并不足以填补这一空缺。老板们都想要更高的报纸销量，更多的广告和完美的线上网站，少而精的预算以及更少的雇员。相比之下，与政治压力的对抗对他们来说实在不值一提。