记者！是可爱的流氓还是人权的捍卫者？

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!

我们记者应该算是别人看来非常新奇的一群生物了。我喜欢封面和独家资讯，但是这些资讯又证明了我们只是一群无纪律、慵懒和没希望的只专注于一些假信息的人。Hildy John通过把一个刚从监狱里逃出来的杀人犯藏在了旋转桌下面来避免有人会看到他，这还真是个好想法。Willam Boot获得了一次在Ishmaelia的专访，原因竟然是其他记者都跑到城镇外面去办事了， 而Boot这么“倒霉”是因为他没能赶上，这就是人品啊！

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，如果记者都是一群世俗又喜欢自嘲的人，又怎么解释他们喜欢去猛烈的炮轰那些国家的建立者，第一修正案和资讯这个产业本身，还有公民的知情权呢？他们到底是可爱的流氓还是人权的捍卫者？还是说这些人觉得自己可以在这两种身份中随意转换呢？

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，这个虽然说少了一大组成部分的默多克资讯集团在电话窃听的丑闻中陷入了自怜自哀的境地，但是整体上这个集团还是在继续壮大，这也导致他的公开声明既有悔恨的成分又有目中无人的成分。资讯集团本身处在一个喜欢舒适和镇定的坐在“头条和独家资讯”盛行传统的领域，这个领域更关注消费者喜欢什么而不是已经有了什么，同时也不接受那些定义了这个领域的各种文化。对于这个公司其实有一个更为现实的怀疑，就是这些公众对于丑闻的愤怒只是理想主义的仇视和商业竞争的掩盖。

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.

针对这个并不公开的争论究竟有什么成分呢？这些成分就是他们分别对应了记者分裂的两个灵魂，丑恶和神圣感。第一个是指到底电话窃听是否为非常恶劣的错误行为，还是只是一个普通的恶作剧。第二个是指到为了手机资讯而超越了普通正直行为的底线——是否也有一个可以挽回的公众窥探欲的成分在其中。

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.

第一个问题的答案为：是！引发了这场丑闻的电话窃听事件生长在这样一个资讯环境之中，或者说一个公司文化之中，这些文化和环境鼓励通过科技手段窃听别人的隐私，并视之为平常之事，把别人的隐私当成记者的记事本。谨慎的讲，我只能说贿赂警察也是不好的，不应该把警察变成侵犯别人隐私的同谋。同样恶心的是黑社会一般的资讯生态环境，这个环境鼓励世界资讯报模式的资讯，在这个环境里即使是最高级别的政治领袖也会担心如果自己不能满足这个变态环境的要求，自己就会面对严重的后果。资讯头条的作用是作为一股曝光渎职的正义力量而不是参与其中，帮助排除那些错误的指控，而不是迫害那些清白的人。