記者！是可愛的流氓還是人權的捍衛者？

We journalists must be puzzling creatures to the rest of the world. We adore “The Front Page” and “Scoop,” which present us as lazy, unprincipled, and hopelessly in thrall to bogus information. Hildy Johnson befriends a murder suspect who’s escaped from jail and hides him inside a rolltop desk in the Newsroom, so that nobody else can get an interview with him—great! William Boot gets an exclusive on a coup in the nation of Ishmaelia because the rest of the press pack has left town on some reportorial fools’ errand, and Boot was so hapless that he couldn’t manage to join them—love it!
我們記者應該算是別人看來非常新奇的一羣生物了。我喜歡封面和獨家新聞，但是這些新聞又證明了我們只是一羣無紀律、慵懶和沒希望的只專注於一些假信息的人。Hildy John通過把一個剛從監獄裏逃出來的殺人犯藏在了旋轉桌下面來避免有人會看到他，這還真是個好想法。Willam Boot獲得了一次在Ishmaelia的專訪，原因竟然是其他記者都跑到城鎮外面去辦事了， 而Boot這麼“倒黴”是因爲他沒能趕上，這就是人品啊！

But, if journalists enjoy being raffish and self-mocking, what explains our equally powerful inclination (especially in the United States) to bang on portentously about the Founders, the First Amendment, the Fourth Estate, and the people’s right to know? Are journalists lovable rogues or human-rights crusaders? Or people who have granted themselves the right to switch between these two identities on a whim?
但是呢，如果記者都是一羣世俗又喜歡自嘲的人，又怎麼解釋他們喜歡去猛烈的炮轟那些國家的建立者，第一修正案和新聞這個產業本身，還有公民的知情權呢？他們到底是可愛的流氓還是人權的捍衛者？還是說這些人覺得自己可以在這兩種身份中隨意轉換呢？

One can sense the Murdoch press, now minus one large-circulation outlet but otherwise going strong, descending into self-pity about the phone-hacking scandal, even as its public statements are alternately contrite and defiant. News Corporation belongs to a region of the press that likes to think of itself as sitting comfortably and unpretentiously within the “Front Page”/“Scoop” tradition, in closer touch with public tastes than with establishment ones, and resistant to the self-regard that defines the broadsheet culture. There’s a palpable suspicion, within the corporation, that the outrage over the scandal is a cover for ideological enmity and commercial rivalry.
大家都可以感受到，這個雖然說少了一大組成部分的默多克新聞集團在電話竊聽的醜聞中陷入了自憐自哀的境地，但是整體上這個集團還是在繼續壯大，這也導致他的公開聲明既有悔恨的成分又有目中無人的成分。新聞集團本身處在一個喜歡舒適和鎮定的坐在“頭條和獨家新聞”盛行傳統的領域，這個領域更關注消費者喜歡什麼而不是已經有了什麼，同時也不接受那些定義了這個領域的各種文化。對於這個公司其實有一個更爲現實的懷疑，就是這些公衆對於醜聞的憤怒只是理想主義的仇視和商業競爭的掩蓋。

Is there anything to this not quite openly made argument? The answer is related to two issues that correspond to the two halves of the journalistic soul, the scamp and the saint. The first is whether the phone-hacking scandal represents a notably egregious type of press misbehavior, rather than the usual naughtiness. The second is whether violating ordinary boundaries of decent behavior in search of big stories actually has a redemptive public-interest aspect.
針對這個並不公開的爭論究竟有什麼成分呢？這些成分就是他們分別對應了記者分裂的兩個靈魂，醜惡和神聖感。第一個是指到底電話竊聽是否爲非常惡劣的錯誤行爲，還是隻是一個普通的惡作劇。第二個是指到爲了手機新聞而超越了普通正直行爲的底線——是否也有一個可以挽回的公衆窺探欲的成分在其中。

The first question is easy: yes! The phone-hacking case that set off the scandal took place within a newsroom culture (and possibly a company culture) in which technologically abetted intrusions on people’s privacy had become about as commonplace as a reporter’s notebook. It’s also—sorry to sound prissy—not O.K. to bribe police and other public officials to serve as unofficial collaborators. Equally repellent is the Mafia-like ecosystem supporting News of the World-style journalism, in which even the highest politicians feel that they will suffer grave personal consequences if they fail to feed the hungry monster. The charm of the journalists in “The Front Page,” it’s worth remembering, had to do with their functioning, for all their gruff cynicism, as a force for good in society—exposing bribery, not engaging in it, and helping to exonerate the falsely accused, not sullying the innocent.
第一個問題的答案爲：是！引發了這場醜聞的電話竊聽事件生長在這樣一個新聞環境之中，或者說一個公司文化之中，這些文化和環境鼓勵通過科技手段竊聽別人的隱私，並視之爲平常之事，把別人的隱私當成記者的記事本。謹慎的講，我只能說賄賂警察也是不好的，不應該把警察變成侵犯別人隱私的同謀。同樣噁心的是黑社會一般的新聞生態環境，這個環境鼓勵世界新聞報模式的新聞，在這個環境裏即使是最高級別的政治領袖也會擔心如果自己不能滿足這個變態環境的要求，自己就會面對嚴重的後果。新聞頭條的作用是作爲一股曝光瀆職的正義力量而不是參與其中，幫助排除那些錯誤的指控，而不是迫害那些清白的人。