Tags: 媒体
【Part 3】新模式，新尝试
JOANNE: So you raise a couple of questions there. I mean, one is simply the staffing issue. And it’s interesting, when you came in a year ago, the L.A. Times, you went to the L.A. Times and said, “I have no intention of being the captain of the Titanic,” and you also said that you didn’t believe in kind of cutting your way to success. You, more than the other of your competitive set, have really made very, very deep cuts and particularly among the journalists. So how does that gel with providing the reader more and building on the papers to create a model of success?
Joanne：于是，你在那里引爆了一系列的问题，其中之一就是精简人员。很有意思的是，一年前你刚到洛杉矶时报的时候说，“我来此无意成为泰坦尼克号船长”，同时你也说自己不相信裁员是通往成功之道。而今你比你的其他竞争对手们都要裁得更厉害，尤其是采编人员。那么这样如何能将为读者提供更多的内容和为报纸开创新的盈利模式结合起来？
SAM: Like everything else, we’re dealing with process, we’re dealing with changing methodologies of the way things were done before. If this gentleman over here is a reporter and he calls in and says, “I’ve got a story and you want to put it up on the Web,” he talks to one copywriter, they put it all together, it’s on the Web in 10 minutes. But if that same story with the same facts is going in the newspaper, then it goes to the copywriter, the section editor, the page editor, I mean, it goes to everybody. Okay? And you wonder why the newspapers can’t financially compete.
Sam：这没什么特别的，我们正在有步骤地处理，我们正在改变以往的做事方法。假设这位先生是一名记者，他走过来说，“我有一个新闻，想要把它在网上发布”，他与一名撰写人交流，然后两人一道完成了它，十分钟后这条新闻出现在网页上。但同样的情形下，如果想要在报纸刊载，它必须经过撰写人、区域编辑、版面编辑等一道道流程，我的意思是，它几乎要经过每一个人之手后才能出来。好了，这下你就明白报纸为何竞争不过其他媒体了。
JOANNE: But the newspaper is supposed to be giving you something more than the instant news that you get on the Web. Would you argue that your newspapers—after the year of cutting and attempting to fix the model—would you argue that the journalism is improved from when you purchased your newspapers?
Joanne：但是，人们总是期望报纸能够提供网络即时新闻之外的一些东西。经过一年的裁员和尝试修复商业模式之后，你认为目前你的报纸的新闻业务比起一年前刚收购它们的时候有所提升？
SAM: Interestingly enough, my customers say yes. My customers say yes.
Sam：有趣多了，我的客户这么说。按客户的说法是肯定的。
JOANNE: By what measure is that?
Joanne：但这一衡量尺度是什么呢？
SAM: I’ve reformatted all eight newspapers—they’re much louder; they’ve got more pictures; they have more color; they have easier navigation. I mean, simple things. I ride my motorcycle to work every morning…
Sam :我已经重新规划了旗下八家报纸——他们变得更加大气，有了更多图片，更多色彩，更简明的导读。这些都是很简单的事情。每个早晨我骑着摩托车去上班…..
JOANNE: Good for you.
JOANNE：这对你有好处。
SAM: I say goodbye to my wife as I walk out the door, and I used to ask her, “What’s the temperature?” Because if it’s bitter cold, there’s a problem. And then I would see her go, “Argh!” as she tried to find where the weather is in the newspapers. And in the reformatted Chicago Tribune in the bottom left-hand corner it says, “64 today, 75 tomorrow, 83 the next day,” in
one quarter of an inch in the lower left-hand corner. Isn’t that information that everybody wants?
Sam：出门的时候我跟妻子说再见，我习惯性地问她，“今天几度？”因为如果天气太冷，会出问题。然后我就看到她转身去查温度，“噢！”她开始在报纸上找天气预报的消息，改版后的芝加哥论坛报左下角印着，“今天64度，明天75度，后天83度。”就在左下角四分之一英寸的位置。这难道不是每一个人都想获得的信息吗？
JOANNE: But that customer…there’s a couple of customers that you have. You’re talking reader service. Another customer,obviously, is the advertiser, and your advertising has declined at a more rapid clip than some of your competitors, more so than he Times and USA Today…
JOANNE：但是，这类客户是你们的客户群体之一。你刚刚谈到的是读者服务这一块。显然，另一群客户是广告主。你们广告下滑的速度比其他竞争对手都要快，比如时代、今日美国…..
SAM: Well, I think that’s comparing leprosy to cancer. I mean, I beg to disagree with you, and I think Arthur Sulzberger is out here someplace, and I’m sure he would vie that his has gone down more than mine. [Editors note: In the third quarter of 2008, New York Times Co. ad revenue fell 14.4 percent, while Tribune Co. ad revenue fell 19 percent.] But the answer is everybody’s advertising is dramatically down. We’ve seen literally the destruction of classified advertising. You know, not just in our paper, but in all the papers. There’s somebody here, Mr. Craig, from Craigslist, who is responsible for that.
Sam：我认为，这是在拿麻风病和癌症在做比较。我想与你达成的一点共识是，我认为如果亚瑟·苏兹贝格也在现场的话，他肯定会认为自家下降的速度比我的更多。（编者按：在2008年第三季度财务报表中，纽约时报公司的广告收入下滑了14.4%，Tribune下滑了19%。）而答案却是，每一家报纸的广告都在急剧下降。我们已经看到了报纸分类广告的分崩离析。你要知道，不仅仅是我们报纸，其他报纸也一样。今天来自Craigslist【译者注：美国第一大在线分类广告网站】的葛雷克先生也在现场，他对这事负有主要责任。
I think the answer is that we have to come up with a product that our customers want. In Chicago, we launched a product called RedEye. RedEye, which is delivered to the train stations and the bus stations every afternoon, is aimed to the 25-to-40-year-old. It’s given away free. It has a higher circulation than the Tribune, and makes a profit. We launched a new paper in Chicago called Mash. It’s delivered to 50,000 high schools free once a week, underwritten by Verizon and Nike, to reach perhaps the hardest demographic there is to reach. So these are paper products. They are successful.
我想问题的解决之道是，我们必须拿出客户想要的产品来。在芝加哥，我们发行了一份叫做番茄酱（RedEye）的印刷品，每天下午向火车站和公交车站免费派送，主要针对25-40岁年龄段的群体。现在它的发行量已经超过了芝加哥论坛报，并已经实现盈利。我们在芝加哥还发行了一份叫做Mash的报纸，每周向5万所中学派送，由Verizon【译者注：美国最大的本地电话运营商】和耐克赞助，直抵最精准的人口统计学特征人群。这些纸媒都很成功。