竊聽事件後風雨飄搖的默多克新聞集團

During his long career as the pantomime villain of the media world, Rupert Murdoch has seen out many scandals, but nothing like this one. Back in 1983, under attack for his decision to publish a set of diaries from Adolf Hitler that turned out to be forged*, he famously remarked, “After all, we are in the entertainment business.” Today, nobody, least of all Murdoch, is laughing.

在他常年扮演童話裏壞人的媒體行業，默多克經歷並送走很多流言蜚語和醜聞，但是沒有一次像這次這麼嚴重。回顧1983年，當他正在經歷由於他杜撰了阿道夫希特勒日記並出版的輿論攻擊時，他隨口一句：畢竟這是娛樂行業，讓他迅速出名。但是今天，沒有任何人會被他的言論逗笑。

With the British parliament about to come together in an unprecedented move to thwart him, Murdoch this morning accepted the inevitable and called off News Corporation’s takeover bid for British Sky Broadcasting, which, together with the BBC, dominates British television. Meanwhile, one of his own papers, the Wall Street Journal, confirmed my suspicion that he might even be prepared to sell his three remaining British newspapers—the Times, the Sunday Times, and the Sun—assuming a buyer can be found.

由於英國國會史無前例的反對，今天默多克不得不放棄新聞集團對於大不列顛天空電視臺的收購，同時還有英國電視巨頭BBC的收購。與此同時，默多克的華爾街日報最近也透露如果有買家的話，默多克還會出售他現在依然擁有的時代週刊，週末時光和太陽報。

The BSkyB announcement marks a humiliating climb down for Murdoch. At this stage, however, he has more important issues to deal with—namely, insuring the survival of himself and his family at the helm of his beloved News Corporation. In the midst of a media frenzy, it is always dangerous to make definitive judgments, but at the moment it is hard to see how Murdoch can ever fully recover from the blows he has suffered in the last few days.

BSKYB的聲明是默多克恥辱失敗的證明。但是，這一次他自己還需要解決保全自己以及自己的家族能夠在新聞集團的保護下倖免於難這個更重要的差事。當事件還處在瘋狂狀態時，任何決定性的言論都爲時過早，但就現在來講想看見默多克從過去幾天痛苦的災厄中恢復過來恐怕很難。

Failing in his designs for BSkyB was the least of it. To all intents and purposes, the media company, whose satellite dishes protrude from the roofs of ten million British homes, is already part of the Murdoch empire. News Corp. owns thirty-nine per cent of BSkyB’s shares, and Murdoch picks its boss. From 2003 until 2007, his youngest son, James Murdoch, was BSkyB’s C.E.O. Since then, Murdoch, Jr., who now runs all of News Corp.’s operations in Europe and Asia, has held the post of non-executive chairman of BSkyB, a post he will continue to hold, the company said today.

失去BSKYB的競購應該說是最無足輕重的事情了。因爲無論出於什麼目的，那些從數以萬計的英國家庭中突出的衛星接收器早已是默多克媒體王國的一部分了。新聞集團擁有BSKYB公司39%的股份，默多克是這個公司的老闆。從2003年到2007年，他的長子詹姆斯默多克是這個公司的CEO。從那時開始老默多克就已經是亞洲和歐洲兩個板塊的非執行董事主席了，當然他現在也是，將來依然會是。

The motivation for the takeover bid was purely financial. Having spent more than twenty years building up BSkyB—which was loathed on the left when it was launched, but which has since established itself as part of the fabric of British life—Murdoch is understandably keen to consolidate the business with the rest of News Corp., thereby gaining access to a hundred per cent of its cash flow. But now that the takeover bid has failed, nothing much has changed. News Corp. remains a formidable company with profitable businesses all over the world. After today’s announcement, its stock price actually rose.

這次收購的動機其實純粹是爲了收益。這個從一開始建立就不被人喜歡但是默多克執意要將其建立爲自己英國事業一部分的BSKYB集團耗費了默多克20年的時間，默多克毫無疑問的希望全資收購它進而鞏固新聞集團的基礎，也進而獲得這個公司所有的現金流。但是現在都不可能了，引文收購計劃必須終止。新聞集團依然是業界令人敬畏的企業，在全球都有利潤可觀的生意。當天的聲明過後，新聞集團的股票甚至應聲上漲了。

The question marks hang over the Murdochs, not News Corp. In the coming months, both Rupert and James will be called before a British judge to explain what they knew about phone hacking and when. The judicial inquiry that David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, announced today will be modelled on the 2003 Hutton Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, the British weapons scientist who had expressed skepticism about government claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The evidence that Lord Hutton unearthed, about which I wrote a long article for the magazine, effectively destroyed Tony Blair’s reputation.

所有的問題都將應向默多克，而不是新聞集團。在之後的幾個月裏，不論是老默多克還是小默多克都要在英國的法官面前解釋關於此次的手機竊聽他們知道多少以及何時知道。此次卡梅倫總理下令進行的法庭質詢，將依照2003年hutton案（調查David Kelly的死亡環境）的質詢模式以及英國的軍火專家質疑英國政府懷疑薩達姆侯賽因藏有大規模殺傷性武器擁有證據的質詢模式進行。我曾經寫過一篇文章講述關於Hutton公爵出土的證據，這個案件直接毀掉了Tony Blair（前首相）的名聲。Lord Justice Leveson will want to know not only about the phone hacking itself, much of which took place five or ten years ago, but about News Corporation’s 2007 internal inquiry, which purported to establish that the misdeeds were the work on one “rogue reporter.” From the outside, only two possibilities present themselves. The inquiry was horribly botched, or there was a deliberate coverup.

Leveson法官將會需要知道不僅僅關於這次發生在5到10年前的電話竊聽，還包括2007年默多克公司本身進行的內部質詢，在這次內部質詢中公司認爲竊聽行爲只是某些流氓記者的個人行爲。從局外者的角度看，這個結果只有兩個可能型。要麼這次質詢徹底被搞砸了，要麼就是有人故意隱瞞些什麼。

Leveson, a Liverpudlian with a reputation for independence, is also sure to take an interest in what happened subsequently. News International, the News Corp. subsidiary that runs the British newspapers, reached legal settlements with a number of phone-hacking victims, effectively buying their silence. James Murdoch, it is now known, explicitly approved some of these payments.

Leveson，這位以獨立審判著稱的利物浦人，也會有興趣知道在質詢之後發生了什麼。新聞集團的下屬主管英國新聞業的新聞國際通過法律途徑和受害人達成了保密協定，買到了他們的沉默。而詹姆斯默多克已經是公認的對此完全知情。

Scotland Yard, meanwhile, will be continuing its investigation into allegations that journalists from the Murdoch newspapers bribed police officers to obtain information about celebrities, the royals, and others. Bribery is a serious charge which carries long prison sentences. Who authorized these payments? Who else knew about them? From 1995 to 2007, the head of News International was Les Hinton, a longtime Murdoch aide who is now chief executive of Dow Jones. In 2009, Rebekah Brooks, who previously edited the Sun, took over as head of News International, a post she still holds, despite calls from all sides for her resignation.

當前，Scotland Yard依然在調查默多克公司的記者所說的新聞集團通過收買警察局的官員來獲得關於名人和皇室成員的信息。行賄罪是非常嚴重罪行，它可能導致極長的服刑期。誰授權了這些收買？哪些人知道這些事情？從1995年到2007年，新聞國際的負責人是Les Hinton，他不僅是默多克的好友，現在也是道瓊斯的首席執行官。在2009年，Rebekan Brooks成爲了新聞國際負責人，雖然很多人現在要求他下臺，但是他還是繼續做着他的負責人。

Then there is the U.S. angle, such as it is. Yesterday, Senator Jay Rockefeller, who heads the Senate Commerce Committee, called on the American authorities to determine whether phone hackers tied to News International had targeted U.S. individuals. “I am concerned that the admitted phone hacking in London by the News Corp. may have extended to 9/11 victims or other Americans. If they did, the consequences will be severe,” Rockefeller said in a statement.

隨後，美國方面也有反應。昨天，美國的參議員Jay Rockfeller,同時也是美國商業議會的負責人，要求美國官方對於電話竊聽進行調查，了結是否由美國公民牽涉其中。他表示：我擔心發生在英國新聞國際的電話竊聽可能擴展到了美國911的受害人和其他美國人。如果真的是這樣，後果很嚴重。

In short, the Murdochs and News Corp. are going to be besieged for months and years to come. What now are the chances of James Murdoch, or any of his siblings, taking over from his father as chairman and chief executive of News Corp.? The odds are a lot longer than they were this time last week.

短期上看，默多克和他的新聞集團將會經歷長年累月的圍攻。如果現有由詹姆斯默多克或者他的其他姐妹來接手老默多克在新聞集團的董事長兼首席執行官的職位是否可行呢？可能從這周來看，似乎更大了。