特朗普等民粹主义者的崛起让记者们困惑
When Spotlight won the Oscar for best picture, every print journalist cheered. But the celebration of brave Boston Globe reporters investigating paedophile priests flatters our dying industry. Most people distrust us and have stopped buying our products. Populists in particular, from Marine Le Pen to Donald Trump, make a living out of insulting us.
《聚焦》(Spotlight)拿下奥斯卡最佳影片时，每一位纸媒记者都欢呼雀跃。但对那些调查恋童癖神父的勇敢的《波士顿环球报》(Boston Globe)记者的颂扬，抬举了我们这个行将就木的行业。大多数人并不信任我们，也不再购买我们的产品。尤其是，从马琳•勒庞(Marine Le Pen)到唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的民粹主义者，都靠侮辱我们谋生。
Worse, they have a point. We are flummoxed by their rise, in large part because we rarely report from the places — mostly exurbs and poor provincial towns — where their voters live. Journalists in western countries (including me) tend to huddle in a few rich big cities, speaking to people like ourselves. No wonder the people we exclude are angry.
更糟糕的是，他们说得有道理。这些民粹主义者的崛起让我们困惑，很大程度上这是因为我们很少去他们的支持者所生活的地方做报道——那些地方大多是远郊地区和贫困的外省城镇。西方国家的记者（包括我自己在内）往往都挤在少数几个富裕的大城市里，与像我们一样的人说话。难怪被我们排除在外的人很愤怒。
When a clever ruling class encounters popular anger, it knows what to do: change a little so that everything can stay the same. The classic case is 19th-century Britain: toffs avoided revolution and clung on to power by gradually letting more ordinary people vote. In today’s populist moment, the media — like every establishment group — need to change. Journalists should spread into the provinces and listen to ordinary people.
聪明的统治阶级知道在遭遇民众的愤怒情绪时该做什么：稍微改变一点点，从而让一切能够保持不变。一个经典案例是19世纪的英国：通过逐渐让更多普通人获得投票权，上层阶级避免了革命，握紧了权力。而面对当今民粹主义的崛起，媒体就像每一个统治群体一样，需要改变。记者应该分散到外省各处，听一听普通人的声音。
National media have probably always over-covered the metropolis. When I began reading British newspapers as a teenager in London, I assumed I was reading local London editions, because almost all the news was about London (north of the river). The first time I went somewhere else in Britain and bought a national newspaper, I realised: it is a London paper. It’s just called a national newspaper.
全国性媒体对大都会的报道很可能一直都太多了。当我还是一个伦敦少年时，我开始阅读英国报纸，当时我以为我读的是伦敦的地方报纸，因为几乎所有新闻都和（泰晤士河以北的）伦敦有关。第一次去了伦敦以外的英国，买了一份全国性报纸以后，我才意识到：这就是一份伦敦的地方报纸，只是叫做全国性报纸而已。
Until the early 21st century, western countries had strong local newspapers too, from the Boston Globe to the Yorkshire Evening Post. The provinces got covered.
直到21世纪初，西方国家才拥有了强大的地方报纸，包括《波士顿环球报》和《约克郡晚间邮报》(Yorkshire Evening Post)。外省的新闻得到了报道。
Then the internet destroyed local papers. Even the Globe’s newsroom has shrunk, while its circulation has plummeted. Today, most remaining journalists live in metropolitan enclaves such as Brooklyn, north London and central Paris, and look like the elites they cover. “Elitist Britain”, the 2014 report of a government-appointed commission, found that 54 of the country’s “top 100 media professionals” attended private schools. Journalists, politicians, senior civil servants and business people meet as classmates, then marry each other or become neighbours.
然后互联网摧毁了地方报纸。即使是《波士顿环球报》的新闻编辑室都减员了，其发行量也一落千丈。今天，大多数尚存的记者生活在布鲁克林、伦敦北部和巴黎中部等代表正宗大都市的区，他们看起来就像他们所报道的精英一样。一个政府委任的委员会在2014年发布的调查报告《精英主义英国？》(Elitist Britain?)发现，英国“前100名专业媒体人”中有54名曾就读私立学校。记者、政界人士、高级公务员和商界人士同窗求学、结为连理或者比邻而居。
Admittedly, we need lots of journalists in capital cities, because that’s where power is. However, there are now too many. The result is “inside the Beltway” reporting that fixates on Boris Johnson’s position on Brexit instead of venturing into the hinterland to see what voters think. It’s worse in France: Le Monde newspaper often reads like a Versailles palace gazette circa 1788, chronicling which courtiers are currently in favour. Here are three headlines from adjoining pages in the February 21 edition: “How Montebourg [former economics minister] is preparing his return”, “In the Republican Party, two departures that harm Nicolas Sarkozy”, and “François Hollande: I could be a candidate, I could not be a candidate.”
诚然，首都需要大量记者，因为首都是权力的中心。然而，现在首都的记者太多了。结果是，只有聚焦伦敦市长鲍里斯•约翰逊(Boris Johnson)对英国退欧问题立场的“首都内”报道，而没有深入外省探究选民们在想什么的报道。法国的情况更加糟糕：《世界报》(Le Monde)往往读起来就像是1788年左右的凡尔赛宫报纸，记载着哪位侍臣正得宠。以下是2月21日的《世界报》相邻几版的三条标题：“阿诺•蒙特布尔(Arnaud Montebourg)（前经济部长）如何为归来做准备”、“法国共和党(Republican Party)内：两人的离开伤害尼古拉•萨科齐(Nicolas Sarkozy)”以及“弗朗索瓦•奥朗德(François Hollande)：我可以是个候选人，我不可以是个候选人”。
I’m a metropolitan animal, as guilty as my peers. It’s more agreeable interviewing someone in a five-star hotel lobby an easy subway ride from home than in a freezing community centre in some rundown small town. But the rundown small town is closer to the average national experience.
我也是个大都会人，和我的同行一样有罪。在乘地铁可以轻松抵达的同城五星级酒店的大堂里做采访，自然比去某个破败的小镇，在冰冷刺骨的小镇社区中心里做采访更舒服。但破败的小镇更接近全国的平均体验。
Once every four years, during the US primaries, the American media discover the heartland. Evan Osnos, covering the 2016 race for The New Yorker, marvels: “Twenty-four hours spent on the ground in South Dakota is worth about six weeks in your office in Washington.” He says you learn more listening to “all these people out there”.
每隔四年，在美国大选初选的时候，美国媒体会“发现”美国的中部地区。为《纽约客》(The New Yorker)报道2016年大选的欧逸文(Evan Osnos)惊叹：“在南达科他州土地上度过24小时，抵得过在华盛顿的办公室里待上大约6个星期。”他说，听一听“那里的所有人”所说的东西能让你学到更多。
The obvious solution is to station more journalists “out there”. That would save reporters the bother of dashing around the metropolis covering what the historian Daniel Boorstin called “manufactured pseudo-events”, such as lying press conferences that, anyway, are now streamed online. It would end the absurdity of having the American commentariat take the nation’s pulse from Brooklyn. It would show people “out there” that the media know they exist. Best of all, a journalist moving from an overpriced metropolis to the provinces will get the sort of de facto pay rise that’s now almost unheard of in our industry. (I’m still not volunteering.)
显而易见的解决办法是在“那里”派驻更多记者。这就省得记者在大都会中东奔西跑，报道一些历史学家丹尼尔•布尔斯廷(Daniel Boorstin)所说的“制造出来的伪事件”（比如一些尽管谎言连篇、如今却在线播放的新闻发布会）了。这会终结美国评论家依据布鲁克林来为全国把脉的荒谬事。这会向“那里”的人们传达，媒体知道他们的存在。尤其是，一个从物价过高的大都会搬到外省的记者，会享受到实际上的涨薪——在我们这个行业涨薪这种事现在基本已经闻所未闻了。（但我依然不会自告奋勇地去外地。）
Sending educated young people to the countryside may sound like a Maoist re-education campaign but the media need a shake-up. Just 43 per cent of Europeans now trust the written press, reports the European Commission. Four in 10 Americans, an all-time low, have “a great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust in mass media, say pollsters Gallup. Trump knows exactly what he is doing when he attacks journalists as well as politicians. Think of his misogynistic onslaught on Fox presenter Megyn Kelly, or his threat on Monday to change the laws “so that the press has to be honest”.
把受过教育的年轻人派往乡村，听起来可能像是毛式“再教育”运动，但媒体需要一次重大调整。根据欧盟委员会(European Commission)的报告，现在仅有43%的人信任纸媒。民调公司盖洛普(Gallup)表示，每10个美国人中只有4个人“非常”或者“比较”信任大众媒体，这个比例处于历史低点。特朗普在攻击记者和其他政治人士时完全清楚自己在做什么。想想他对福克斯电视台的女主持人梅金•凯利(Megyn Kelly)带着仇视女性意味的抨击，或者他在不久前的那个周一发出的威胁——要更改法律，“让媒体不得不诚实”。
Every section of the western establishment now has to reach out to the downtrodden without simply aping Trumpist racism. Future political hopefuls might learn from Hillary Clinton’s travails and not get into bed with banks. Harvard might abolish tuition fees. Banks might accept a little more regulation. A big establishment push, and perhaps it won’t be 1789 again.
西方统治集团的每个组成部分现在都必须向受压迫者伸出手，但不应该一味模仿特朗普式的种族主义。未来的政治候选人应该从希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)的痛苦经历中吸取教训，不要和银行交往过密。哈佛或许能免收学费。银行或许能受到稍微多一点的监管。如果统治集团能向前迈出一大步，或许我们能够避免再来一场法国大革命。
