sur-praehen-dere！

今天继续说“Free: The Future of a Radical Price”这本书相关的事情哈！

互联网时代到来，尤其是近日twitter在伊朗选举、新疆7·5暴力事件中的表现（可参见路透、Beatblogging的分析报道），让很多人重新开始思考未来新闻发展的问题。

今天，克里斯·布朗（Chris Brown）去听了克里斯·安德森（Chris Anderson）在英国Bristol的一场演讲，并写下这一篇Nobody “owns” news – we were never meant to。他写到，

News was never meant to be owned in a democracy. It is about what happens to us and the people around us. And we are free to share it as far and wide as we can.

这位Chris Brown还提到一个让人莞尔的流氓点子，如果媒体不愿意在网上免费公开其内容——

I would in future take their own stories on myself, adding new angles and better balance of the issues, but would have no obligation to credit them as the original source. The fact is though that I will continue to do that anyway, because I feel it is more honest and gives readers the chance to decide for themselves on the validity of what they are being presented.

传播技术成本下降，让更多人能参与到信息传播中来，以往新闻媒体的垄断地位不断遭遇挑战，相应地发行、广告收入也开始缩水，Inland Press最新报告显示，美国报纸的收入近五年来在持续下降。

新闻没可能被垄断，更不能被占有，当然，具体选择从哪里获取新闻，最后的选择权还是在民众——千万不要低估了“免费”的力量！

传统传媒业若没能抓住技术发展带来的转型机会而就此凋敝，也并非不可能的事情，唱片业已经是前车之鉴。

似乎，而今更多的人还在忐忑犹疑和观望之中。

不知安德森啥时候来中国推销他的新书。

这是我觉得相当不错的一条稿子——

Tribune大裁员是最近新闻界的热点新闻。

金融危机和传媒颓靡，是同时正在媒体人耳边呼呼刮着的寒风。纸媒这棵枯木能否等到春天，新媒体这枝嫩芽能否绽放，是正在让很多报纸都头疼的问题。

Sam Zell是个口无遮拦的生意人，一点都不忸怩地就媒体的本质问题说了一些相当诚实的话——这点非常可贵——且直击国内不少媒体人要么太把自己当回事、要么太不把自己当回事的痛处！

Sam Zell从房地产转战到传媒业，配合次贷危机以来的美国地产这块大背景，再聚光灯一下金融危机中的传媒，实在很好玩。

在对话中，应该说Sam Zell其实并没有真正找到所谓的“新商业模式，这也是所有媒体们遭遇共同困境的真实情况，但他非常直白地挑明了纸媒的死穴，而且我觉得很更重要的是，他确实在践行一些想法，在尝试一些可能。

媒体人VS.媒体大老板，这对话组合也是不错的。

——所以，忍不住吭哧吭哧把它翻了一遍。

谨遵医命要按时就寝，翻过了之后没有顺它一遍，且纯属义务劳动，难免粗糙，请将就着看吧！

英文也附上，看到有不妥的地方，请自行核对英文版。

原文这里，它本是一气呵成的，可实在太长了，被我强行给拆分，分开来贴，标题也是我塞进来的。

Zell’s Sell

by Portfolio Staff Nov 24 2008

The former real estate mogul discusses his approach to newspapers.
前地产巨头谈他的传媒之路

Before Sam Zell bought the Tribune Company last year, he said he was “skeptical” of using staff reductions to increase profit. He famously told the Los Angeles Times, “I promise you I did not come here to be the captain of the Titanic.”
在Sam Zell去年收购Tribune公司以前，他声称对通过裁员的办法来提高盈利持怀疑态度。他对洛杉矶时报全员说的一句话非常有名，他说，“我保证，我来到这儿可不是想当泰坦尼克号的船长。”

Since then, however, the newspaper industry’s woes have intensified—and Zell has made numerous staff reductions at Tribune’s newspapers, which in addition to the L.A. Times also include the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun. The outspoken Zell,who made his fortune investing in real estate, has dubbed the Tribune purchase “the deal from hell.”
然而，话刚落音，报业不景气日益严峻——Zell也已经在Tribune报业集团旗下包括洛杉矶时报、芝加哥论坛报、巴尔的摩太阳报等在内的多家媒体实行了多次裁员。靠房地产发家的Zell戏称，收购Tribune是一桩“来自地狱的交易”。

On November 12, Zell spoke with Condé Nast Portfolio editor in chief Joanne Lipman at Quadrangle Group’s Foursquare media conference, where, true to form, he came out swinging against journalistic icons. He declared the worthlessness of Pulitzer Prizes (”I haven’t figured out how to cash in a Pulitzer Prize”), said the newspaper business model is “unequivocally…a failure,” and challenged New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, saying “If you want to be a charitable trust, be a charitable trust. If you don’t want to be a charitable trust, then you’ve got to focus on producing a return for investors’ capital, and it’s just that simple.”
11月12日，在私人投资公司Quadrangle GroupZell的媒体会议上，Zell和康纳利旗下Portfolio的主编Joanne Lipman展开了一次对话，他一如既往地对新闻业的前景做了多方位阐述。他公然宣称普利策新闻奖毫无价值（“我到现在还没有弄明白如何去衡量普利策奖的价值”），认为报纸的商业模式“毫无疑问地…..是一种失败”，并质疑纽约时报出版人亚瑟·苏兹贝格说，“如果你想要做一个公益信托，那就做成公益信托好了。如果你不想成为公益信托，那么最好是致力于让投资人有所回报，就这么简单”。

Zell also talked about running spadias (ads that wrap around an entire newspaper section) and said that comparing Tribune’s advertising declines to that of other newspaper companies is “comparing leprosy to cancer.”
Zell同样也谈到了running spadias（一种缠绕在整份报纸上的插页广告），并说比较Tribune公司和其他报业集团的广告下滑，等于是在“拿麻风病和癌症做比较”。

The Foursquare conference was an off-the-record event; Sam Zell and event organizersagreed to put this transcript on the record.
Foursquare媒体会议不允许做现场录音，Sam Zell和活动组织者同意将这次会议记录公开发表。

（未完待续）

【Part 1】早知今日，会有当初的收购吗？

EMCEE: Thank you, gentlemen. And now Sam Zell will be in a conversation with Joanne Lipman.
主持人：谢谢，各位绅士们！下面我们有请Sam Zell和Joanne Lipman开始对话。

JOANNE LIPMAN: All right. Welcome, Sam Zell. It’s great to have you here. Thanks very much. You barely need introducing, but a quick recap. Sam, of course, made his reputation buying up distressed real estate, earning himself the nickname, “The Grave Dancer.” In his more recent incarnation as a media mogul, that nickname might be more apt than ever. Last year, Sam, of course, bought the Tribune Company, which owns newspapers and local television stations, for $13 billion. Since then, the newspaper industry, as we all know, has been in a free fall, and Tribune properties, which include the L.A. Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, and the Orlando Sentinel, have also been in a free fall, along with the rest of the industry. And so it’s apropos that we talk with Sam today. And everybody here wants to know the same thing, which is: If you knew then what you know now, would you have made this deal?
JOANNE LIPMAN: 好，欢迎Sam Zell。很高兴今天你能来到这里。非常感谢。你都不需要我再多做介绍了，当然，Sam在房地产行业中树立了自己的名声和威望，并赢得了“坟墓舞者”这一雅号。现在他转身成为媒体巨头，也许这一雅号用来形容现在的Sam更为贴切。去年，Sam以13亿美元的价格收购了Tribune公司——该公司旗下拥有好几家报纸和地方电视台。正如我们所知，从那以后，报业开始了自由落体运动，Tribune旗下包括洛杉矶时报、芝加哥论坛报、巴尔的摩太阳报、奥兰多哨兵报在内的报纸及其他产业也同样难以幸免。因此这也是为何今天我们和Sam在这里进行探讨。此刻这儿的每一个人都想知道的同一件事情，就是：早知有今天的局面，当初你还会做这一笔收购吗？

SAM ZELL: Well, obviously, the newspaper business and advertising, generally, has gone off a cliff. And it didn’t go off a cliff in October or September. It went off the cliff in January. When we looked at the historical numbers, we saw an average erosion of about 3 percent. At the time we underwrote the transaction, we used a 6 percent erosion.  And the last time I checked, 19 percent erosion is bigger than 6.
Sam Sell：好的，很显然，大多数报纸的行情和广告都已经掉下了悬崖。而且，它不是在今年10月或者9月才开始掉的，而是在今年1月便已经开始。回看媒体过往历史数据，我们看到下降的速度大概是3%，我们在确定财务细目的时候，我们使用的数字是6%，而在我最近一次的数据核对中，我发现这个数字是19%，比 6%要多得多。

JOANNE: Yeah.
Jonne:的确。

SAM: And so it’s just a whole new ballgame. Just like if you asked the guy would you have stepped on the tracks if you’d known the train was coming, the answer is no. But once the train is here, you’ve got to deal with it.
Sam：所以，情况完全不一样了。就像是你问一个人，如果知道明火车就要开过来了是否还会走在铁轨上一样，答案当然是No。而一旦火车已然在这里了，你就不得不去面对它。

JOANNE: Right. Would you actually have gone into the newspaper industry, or would you simply have wanted to adjust the price accordingly?
Jonne：没错。那么你是否会因此深入报业，或者你仅仅只是想要相应地保住当初收购时候的价值而已？

SAM: I don’t think that I ever woke up in the morning and said, “I want to own a newspaper.” I think that the attraction to the Tribune deal was the ability to put the deal together, to apply a business patina to what has historically been a nonbusiness business, and ultimately test the thesis as to whether or not there is a place for the newspaper in the 21st century.
Sam ：我并不是在某个早晨醒来忽然一拍脑袋说，“我想要拥有一份报纸”。我想我当初之所以看中了Tribune这笔交易，很重要原因是，给一直以来作为一项非商业性目的的事业加上商业色彩，并最终来检验报纸在21世纪能否保有一席之地，这两者可以在这一桩买卖中结合起来。

【Part 2】报纸能否在21世纪传媒丛林中保有一席之地？

JOANNE: And the answer to that question would be what? Is there a place for the newspaper?
Jonne：那么，报纸有没有一席之地？今天你对这一问题的答案是什么？

SAM: I think the answer is certainly, but the answer to whether the conventional approach to the newspaper business that has been the model since the beginning of time, I could tell you unequivocally that model is a failure, or that model has passed its time of relevance. The newspaper business basically grew up as a monopoly, and like every other monopoly, it built processes and approaches that reflected its monopoly status. One example was the rate card you give to an advertiser in order for that person to determine how he would like to participate. You needed a Ph.D. in order to understand the rate card. In the days where the customer had no options, you could give him the rate card and say, “Take it or leave it.” But today, that doesn’t work.
Sam:我认为，答案是肯定的，但至于报纸有史以来所采用的传统经营模式能否达成这一目标，我可以毫不含糊地告诉你，这个模式不会成功，或者说，报纸的传统经营模式已经过时了。从根本上说，报纸商业模式是在垄断的基础之上发展起来的，就跟其他行业的垄断一样，报纸建构的过程和方法和反射出其垄断地位。一个例证就是广告价目单，你给广告主提供了不同种类的广告价格清单，以供他们决定如何投放广告。要真正理解一张广告价目表，或许得派一个哲学博士来才行。在广告主没有太多媒体选择的时候，你可以扔给他一张价目表并告诉他说，“你爱登不登”。但是今天，这招已经不管用了。

I think the newspaper industry truly still doesn’t understand that it is in a business with customers, and the business must reflect the needs and demands of the customer. And to the extent that we don’t do that, we will disappear.
我认为，今天的报业真的还是不理解自己其实是在跟客户做生意，而这生意必须要考虑到客户的需求。否则，我们就玩完了。

JOANNE: So what is the new model? Have you figured that out yet, or are you cutting your way to…?
Jonne：那么，新的模式是什么呢？你是否已经弄明白了，或者你也在艰难寻找的路上…..?

SAM: I think the answer is we are testing and testing and changing. We’ve reformatted all eight newspapers. Among other things, we shrunk the size of the newspapers by an inch. And then we responded to our customers. Our customers have an enormous interest in our newspaper on Sunday; have almost no interest on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday; Thursday and Friday, they’re more interested; and Saturday might as well be in the desert. So we did something that was really extraordinary. It kind of came out of Econ 101. We looked at demand and we said, “Gee, we ought to reduce supply when demand is weak”—a very shocking concept, particularly for the newspaper industry. So, we’ve now done that across all of our newspapers.

Sam：我想，我们正在不断地试验和调整试图找出答案。我们重新规划了旗下的全部8家报纸。此外，我们还把报纸的规格缩减了一英寸。同时我们还对客户需求做出回应。客户对我们的周末版很有兴趣，对周一、周二、周三刊兴趣索然，对周四、周五刊比较感兴趣，对周六刊避之不及。于是，我们对此做了相应的调整。这有点儿像是Econ 101【译者注：经济101管理办法】的法子。我们接受了这些要求并表示，“嗯，在需求减弱的时候我们得减少供应”——这是一种有点让人吃惊的观念，特且是在报业。现在我们已经在旗下所有报纸中推行。

We did not have a single salesperson on commission. In other words, every single newspaper had a cadre of salaried salesman.Now, you know, I’m just a businessman, but I’ve never seen any kind of a sales force that was effective if, in fact, they had no incentives. Now, part of the reason is that historically, because it was a monopoly, newspapers heavily depended, and still do, on national advertising, where the salesman is an order taker. When the guy from Macy’s calls and says, “We want six pages,” you don’t say to him, “Well, how about nine.” You just say, “Yes, sir. Send me the check and we’re on.” But, among other things, what that led to was a massive abdication of potential advertisers within the local markets using zones,so that, in effect, the zone belongs to the salesman. Nobody else can go in there. Even if nobody has bought anything in that zone for 20 years, it’s still his territory.

我们连一个靠抽取佣金拿提成的销售员都没有。换言之，我们每一家报纸都有一支付给薪水的骨干销售队伍。你知道，我只是一个生意人，我从没见到过有任何销售人员能够在没有没有激励措施的情况下积极高效地工作。部分的原因在于，报纸是垄断的，而且自有史以来、到目前也一直都极大地倚重于全国性广告，报纸销售人员等于是报纸的订购者。当一名来自梅西公司的客户打电话来说，“我们想要6份报纸”。你不会跟他说，“拿9份吧。”你一般回答说，“好的，先生。请给我付款，我们将为您送到。”如果你不去主动争取对方多订购你的报纸，在某些层面上这会导致来自当地市场的潜在广告客户流失，而这些市场是属于这些当地销售人员的地盘。此后再也没有谁能够凭空打入这一市场。甚至即使在20年里那一区域再没有人来买报纸，在以后的报纸发售中，这也仍是属于他的地盘。

I mean, this is nutty stuff. And, in effect, what we’re trying to do is address the newspaper business like a business.
我的意思是，这一发行模式是很牢固的。事实上，我们正在试图把报纸销售当作一门生意在经营。

As you and I talked about earlier, somebody has to address the home-delivery question. Right now, if you go across the street and you buy a newspaper from a vendor, you will pay 50 cents. But if you get it home-delivered, which costs the company 10 times as much, you pay 30 cents. I don’t understand. Okay? I mean, you try and make those numbers work, and it don’t make any sense.

像我和你早些时候所谈到的，一些人已经抱怨过家庭投递的问题。现在，如果你穿过街道从小贩手里买一份报纸大约需要50每份，但如果你是家庭订阅的话，每份的价格是30美分，而报社的实际支出将十倍于此。我没法理解，好不好？我的意思是，你尽量提高订阅量，但却没有任何意义。

JOANNE: So, all the things you’re talking about are somewhat around the periphery. They’re all working within the structure of the conventional newspaper, and if you really need to blow up the business model and start from scratch, what might that model be? We saw the Christian Science Monitor just said they’re doing away with the print edition and only going to the Web. Do you see something that radical, or is there some other way of looking at this?

Jonee：呃，现在你谈到的都是一些报纸的外围话题。他们都是围绕着报纸约定俗成的模式在运转，如果你真的想要从头开始一种全新的商业模式，那么它将是怎样？基督教科学箴言报前不久称他们正准备放弃印刷版投身网络版。你认为此举是否激进，或者是一种可以接受的方式？

SAM: Well, if you want to play futuristic—and I don’t know how big an f on the word futuristic—you can make a case that the world in the future is all Kindles, and you’ll send out an email to everybody to their Kindle, and that’s how they’re going to get their newspaper every morning. That’s a real possibility at sometime in the future.

SAM: 好的，如果你想玩新潮的话——我不知道F【译者注：此处F应该代表False，英文中用T和 F表示对与错的判断】在新潮的（futuristic）这个单词中占到多大的比重——你可以设想这一情形，未来全世界都是Kindle【译者注：Amazon于2007年11月发布的一种名为“点燃”（Kindle）的便携式阅览器，它能够从互联网上下载数字格式的图书，报纸与杂志。零售价大约是399美元】，你可以给每一个人的Kindle上发送电子邮件，这也成为他们每天获取报纸的方式。未来这一情况极有可能发生。

But most importantly I think the newspaper has to acknowledge the reality of the world we’re in. When I grew up—and I hate to tell you I’m that old—but when I grew up, the definition of “breaking news” was your front door. So you run…you go up in the morning, you open up the front door, you see what happened. Okay? Well, that’s not the case anymore. Now, you hit your homepage, now you turn on CNN, or some other news-TV program, and that’s how you find out what the latest news is.

但是我想最重要的一点是，目前报纸必须认清楚当下的现实。当我长大成人——我可真不喜欢告诉你们，我已经老了——但是当我长大成人的时候，“爆炸性新闻” 来自于你的家门口。你每天早上起床来，冲到门口，打开大门，然后你在报箱取出报纸得知发生了哪些事情。那么，如今事情已经不是这样了。现在你点开你的主页，你打开CNN，或者其他的电视节目——这才是现在你获知新闻的方式。

So then the question becomes: Is there a role for newspapers? And I think the answer is yes, there’s a role for newspapers,providing the newspapers understand what that role is and are able to adjust to it. So, for example, most of my newspapers do not have a comparative advantage on international news. I’m not going to compete with Bloomberg or Reuters to, in effect,secure the latest international news. On the other hand, I’ve got staff and people and knowledge locally that nobody else has. So…and when you do focus groups with people and you ask them, “What do you want from your newspaper?” they tell you,”local, local, local.” And they say it over and over again, “I want to know what’s going on locally because that’s the onlything I can’t find from 10 other sources.”

接下来的问题是：报纸还有自己的位置吗？我认为答案是肯定的，倘若报纸能够理解自己的角色是什么并能够适应该角色的耍，那么报纸仍将有自己的舞台。比如，我的大部分报纸在国际新闻方面并不具备比较优势，我并不打算和彭博社或者路透社去竞争有效、可靠的最新国际新闻。另一方面，我拥有其他家媒体都不可能具备的本土职员、读者和知识。所以，如果你举行焦点座谈会并跟参与调查者提问，“你想从你的报纸上获得什么？”然后他们会告诉你，“本土新闻，本土新闻，还是本土新闻。”他们会反复说明，“我想要知道本地发生了什么，因为只有这些东西才是我从其他10家另外的消息来源无法获知的。”

【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。

【Party 4 】继续业务探讨时间

JOANNE: And a lot of the products that you’re talking about come as a result of focus grouping, and you’ve talked a lot about how you’ve done a lot of focus groups, and readers tell you they want short stories, and they want graphics, and they want big pictures. I find it curious that you are embracing focus groups because…and maybe this word has been tarnished now, butyou’ve always been a maverick. Right? I mean, if you ran your business according to how focus groups told you you should run your business, you wouldn’t be up here today.
JOANNE:你刚谈到的产品大多是来自于焦点座谈会的结果，而且你也提到你们做了一系列的焦点座谈会，读者告诉你们他们想要短小的故事、图表和更大幅的图片。我发现很有意思的一点是，你们正在拥抱焦点座谈会……也许这个单词现在已经过时了，但是你们一直都是这么特立独行，对不对？我的意思是，如果你只是根据焦点座谈所反馈的信息来经营报纸，那么今天你就不会来到这里。

SAM: Yeah, but the answer is you are acting like a journalist—okay?—because you grabbed the word focus group and, in effect, turned it from one element that’s relevant in a hundred elements to somehow or another we’re going to take one focus group and implement everything that they said, which is silly. One of the benefits of focus groups is you get a chance to listen to your customer. And all I’m saying is that there isn’t a successful business out there that doesn’t listen to their customer.
Sam：是的，但答案是你正在以新闻从业人员的身份行事——好不好？——因为你抓住了焦点座谈会上蹦出的词汇，有效地将它这一个元素从一百个相关的元素中抽离出来。我们举行一个焦点座谈会，并执行他们所提的每一个意见，那才是愚蠢。焦点座谈会的一个好处是，你有机会得以直接聆听你客户的心声。我想要说的全部就是，世界上没有哪一个成功的生意是完全不听取顾客意见的。

JOANNE: And the kind of journalism that…as you know, you’ve become a popular topic of conversation among journalists.
JOANNE: 这种新闻事业….正如你所知，你们已经成为了新闻业界的一个热门话题。

SAM: Really? No shit.
Sam：真的？别开我玩笑呢。

JOANNE: Maybe you read some of the blogs about yourself.
JOANNE: 或许你也读过一些关于你自己的博客？

SAM: No, never.
Sam：没，我还从没读过。

JOANNE: But I think the question really is, journalists believe that there is a reader service and a public service, that there’s a public good…
JOANNE: 但我认为真正的问题是，新闻人认为新闻业同时存在读者服务和公共服务职能，存在一种对公众有益的….

SAM: And journalists are more than willing to tell you what they think you need to know. And to some extent, that’s a valid position, but I certainly don’t think it is the answer. And to the extent that you have journalists who are unwilling to listen and only want to talk, they really should give up journalism and become college professors.
Sam:而且，新闻人更想要告诉你一些他们认为你需要知道的事情。在某种程度上，这是一种很正当的想法，但是我不认为应该如此。就这个范畴来说，还存在一种新闻人并不想去倾听而只想着不停地说，他们真不应该做新闻人而该去大学当教授。

JOANNE: It takes a lot of resources to pour into investigative reporting…and this is not just “How much did Sarah Palin spend on her wardrobe?” but serious investigative reporting that takes…could take months at a time that could take you down some dark alleyways that are not going to pay off. Is there a place for that? Is there a way to fund that, or are newspapers not the place for funding that any longer?
JOANNE: 调查性报道需要投入大量的人力物力资源…..这不是指像“莎拉·佩林花了多少钱置装？”这类的调查报道，而是指那些严肃类调查性报道，有时候它让你花上好几个月时间最后却走进了一条黑胡同，所获了了。这些报道是否还有空间？有没有一种方式来资助这类报道，或者报纸不再适合于承载它？

SAM: Well, you know, you were just talking to me a minute ago about the precipitous decline in advertising revenue. So the answer is that every piece of a newspaper has to be economically evaluated, because, in the end, we’re not an eleemosynary institution, even though most of the newspapers have been run as one. I mean, how would I not challenge every cost, every decision, and basically look at the cost benefit, just like our government is supposed to do when it raises our taxes? I got to look at the cost benefit and say, “What’s the benefit? What’s the cost? Does this make sense?”
Sam：要知道，一分钟前你还在跟我讨论报纸广告下滑的问题。报纸的每一个版面都必须接受经济评估，尽管所有的报纸一直以来都尽量如此运作，但最终我们毕竟不是慈善机构。换言之，就跟在政府提高我们税收的时候一样，叫我如何不去计较每一项花销、每一个决策，并将每一项活动都从根本上着眼于成本收益呢？我不得不去考虑成本收益，并且问自己，“收益是什么？支出是什么？这样做有没有意义？”

JOANNE: So at the L.A. Times, for example, which under a previous editor before you owned it won quite a few Pulitzer Prizes and really put a lot of effort into pieces that may or may not pay off, does that no longer make sense in the business model that we’re talking about?
JOANNE: 譬如我们拿洛杉矶时报来说，在你收购之前他们曾获得为数不少的普利策新闻奖，而且有些新闻的努力真是付诸东流，或者是根本没有获得相应的回报，而在我们刚刚所谈到的新商业模式下，这些是否还有价值？

SAM: I haven’t figured out how to cash in a Pulitzer Prize. There was a day when a newspaper put “Winner of Pulitzer Prize” on the front page, and people flocked to read the Pulitzer Prize story. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that that’s the case today But I also think that there are scale issues. In other words, I think that if the goal is a Pulitzer, it’s in the wrong place. In other words, we’re not in the business of, in effect, underwriting writers for the future. We’re a business that, in effect, has a bottom line. So as far as we’re concerned, I think Pulitzers are terrific, but Pulitzers should be the cream on the top of the coffee. They shouldn’t be the grounds. And I think there are a lot of scenarios in the newspaper industry where the entire focus is on Pulitzers. The entire focus is on becoming an international correspondent. I mean, I know that because our newspaper sent somebody to Kabul to cover the “Afghan Idol Show.” Now, I know Idol is the No. 1 TV program in the world, but do my readers really want a firsthand report on what this broad looked like who won the “Afghan Idol” Show”? Is that news?
Sam：我到现在还没有弄明白如何去衡量普利策奖的价值。某天，一家报纸把“普利策奖得主名单”放在头版，然后一大群人聚集过来读普利策奖获奖新闻。不幸的是，我不确定今天的情况是否仍然如此，但我也承认确实存在一定的衡量标准。换言之，我认为如果报纸的目标就是为了得普利策奖，那就是摆错了位置。也就是说，实际上，我们不是在给作者承诺未来。事实上，我们是在做一桩买卖，是有底线的。就目前我们所讨论的，我认为普利策奖真可怕，但它应该是一杯咖啡之上的那团奶油，而不是一切的基础。恐怕报业内部有不少人是在把全部的精力都投在普利策奖上，一心想要做成一个国际化的通讯机构。我知道因为我们的报纸派了记者去喀布尔报道“阿富汗偶像秀”（Afghan Idol Show），现在，我知道了它是世界第一号的电视节目，但是我们的读者真的想要诸如“阿富汗偶像秀”等这么宽泛的第一手报道吗？这是新闻吗？

JOANNE: The “Afghan Idol Show”…I’d like to know what the broad looked like.
JOANNE: 阿富汗偶像秀…..我倒是想看看这个报道宽泛到什么样。

SAM: I’ll send you a picture, okay? I mean, really, it’s not a problem.
Sam：稍后我给你发张照片好了。我的意思是，真的，这不是问题所在。

JOANNE: But you’re talking about two different things here, though.
JOANNE: 但是，你在谈论两件全然不同的事情。

SAM: Why am I talking about two different…?
Sam：为什么我实在谈论两件不同的…..?

JOANNE: Because I think the essential question, what the Pulitzers get at, would be that…the way that newspapers had seen themselves, and I spent many years on a newspaper, was as a public trust. And, you’re right, their finances were not put first. So I guess you’re saying that that age is over and we need to be…
JOANNE: 因为我认为最实质性的问题，普利策奖带来的将是…..报纸评判自己的方式，我在报纸工作了多年，我认为最重要的是公众信任。对，你是对的，商业没有放在报纸的第一位。所以我猜你要说的是这样的时代要终结了，我们需要成为……

SAM: My question is real simple. As of last night, the entire market cap of the New York Times [Co.] was $1.2 billion. And my question to Arthur, who I think is out here someplace, is if you want to be a charitable trust, be a charitable trust. If you

don’t want to be a charitable trust, then you’ve got to focus on producing a return for investors’ capital, and it’s just that simple. It worked in the old days because you could be a public trust and you could do well for your shareholders because you had a monopoly, and monopolies are wonderful. I mean, I think competition is terrific, particularly for all those guys out there. Me? I like monopolies. I’m just sorry I waited 60 years to get into the newspaper industry because the 40 I missed were great.
Sam :我的问题非常简单。到昨晚为止，纽约时报公司的整个市值大约是12亿美元。我想问亚瑟的是——我想他今天不在这里啊——如果你想成为一个公益信托，那就索性做一个公益信托好了。如果你不想成为公益信托，那么最好是致力于让投资人有所回报，就这么简单。在过去这很管用，你既可以做公益信托，同时还可以很好地对股东负责，因为那时候你占据了垄断位置，垄断是个好东西。我是指，我认为竞争很可怕，特别是所有人都参与竞争的时候。我？我喜欢垄断。我只是感到非常遗憾，我等了60年才进入报业，因为我错过的前40年非常美妙。

JOANNE: I think the audience is going to have some good ones for you. Just broadly, if you could speak to the industry as a whole…first of all, are we in a recession or are we in a depression?
JOANNE: 我想，受众将会给你带来一些好消息的。就大行业而言，首先，你认为目前这个行业是处在衰退期还是萧条期？

SAM: I think we’re in a recession. I think that government action, both past and future, will more than likely make it a recession and nothing worse. In my opinion, the comparables to the ’30s are not comparable. It’s just almost 180 degrees different. I mean, we had a recession in 1930 that government policy turned into a depression. I don’t think we’re going to see that happen at this point.
Sam：我认为是衰退。我想政府在过去和未来的一些举措，都将把它推往衰退，再也没有比这更糟糕的了。在我看来，这和上个世纪30年代的大萧条没有可比性，这是一个180度的大转弯。在1930年代我们也面临着衰退，但是政府把它扭转成为了一次大萧条。但是我想这次历史不会重演了。

JOANNE: So…and the second question would be in terms of advertising, the advertising industry. We’ve seen it fall off a cliff, as you said. When does it bottom out, and where do you think it bottoms out? Would it be in…next year, 2009, or is it going to go beyond 2009?
JOANNE: 那么….第二个问题是关于广的。正如你所说，我们已经看到了广告掉下了悬崖，什么时候见底？你认为底在哪里？会是……明年，2009年，或者在2009年以后？

SAM: I’d answer your question by saying that I think advertising will return as the economy returns. I think the question for the media industry really revolves around are we in the middle of a, quote, economic reduction in advertising, or are we seeing structural change? Are we seeing advertisers challenging the assumptions as to what works for them and what doesn’t work for them. So I think to some extent part of the advertising reduction is very much connected to the advertisers trying to see if there’s a different blueprint that produces higher bang for the buck.
Sam：我的回答是，我认为随着经济的恢复，广告也会相应地回升。我认为对传媒业来说，问题在于我们是身处因广告下滑而带来的经济缩水期，还是我们正在经历结构性变化？所以，我认为从某种程度上说，广告的缩减与广告主试图寻找另一种不同的直击目标人群的广告投放蓝图。

JOANNE: So are you betting on secular versus cyclical changes?
JOANNE:所以，你在赌这一长期而又相对周期性的变革？

SAM: Well, I mean, the question is what’s the percentage? In other words, there’s no question in my mind that there’s been a secular change. The question is what’s the percentage, and what can we as media companies and newspapers, in particular, do to respond to it and to find different avenues? Our high-school newspaper is a perfect example of finding a different methodology to, in effect, attract advertising dollars and serve the public at the same time.
Sam：呃，我指的是，问题在于这个百分比会是多少？换言之，在我看来长期的变化是必然的。问题在于，作为媒体公司和报纸，我们能占到的百分比是多少？特别是我们如何去对这一变化做出回应，并开辟出不一样的道路来？事实上，在寻找不同方法来获得广告收入同时还服务公众方面，我们的中学报就是一个很好的例子。

JOANNE: But a year from now when the Tribune earnings come out, will we still be seeing declining numbers in advertising revenue, or will those numbers start to shift?
JOANNE:但是，一年后Tribune公司的收入出来后，我们将看到的是广告收入的下降还是上升呢？

SAM: I, of course, don’t know, but if I were guessing, I would think that we will start coming out of the current recession in the third quarter of next year.
Sam：这个问题我也不知道，但我推测明年第三季度开始，我们将从当前的颓势中走出来。

JOANNE: All right.
JOANNE: 嗯，好。

SAM: And I think it will be a slow recovery, much more an “L” than a “V.” The No. 1 issue for everybody is going to be inflation, because you can’t stimulate at the level of which we’ve stimulated and not have that risk. And so, in effect, it’s going to be a redo of where Greenspan was in 2001 and 2002. Bernanke is going to have to deal with the question of “When do I take the punch bowl away?”
SAM: 我认为这是一个缓慢的恢复过程，更像是一个L型而不是V型。每个人都必须经历的第一个问题是通胀，因为你不可能在原来激励的水平上受到激励，不会再冒一次险。所以，接下来是格林斯潘在2001-2002年所做的那些提振经济的举措再重来一遍，伯南克将要处理“何时将盛满的酒杯拿开”的问题。