Five years ago, I had my dream job. I was a foreign correspondent in the Middle East reporting for ABC News. But there was a crack in the wall, a problem with our industry, that I felt we needed to fix. You see, I got to the Middle East right around the end of 2007, which was just around the midpoint of the Iraq War. But by the time I got there, it was already nearly impossible to find stories about Iraq on air. Coverage had dropped across the board, across networks. And of the stories that did make it, more than 80 percent of them were about us. We were missing the stories about Iraq, the people who live there, and what was happening to them under the weight of the war.
五年前,我得到了夢寐以求的工作。 我任職美國廣播公司新聞的 駐中東特派員。 但我發現了牆上的一道缺口, 即是我們的行業出了問題, 我認為有必要去修補。 我在 2007 年末抵達中東, 那時伊拉克戰爭已經 打了一半。 但在我抵達時,已經幾乎不可能 找到可供廣播的伊拉克新聞故事。 各大電視網絡報導伊拉克的篇幅 一律下跌。 那些得以廣播出來的新聞故事當中, 超過 80% 是關於我方的。 我們不去報導伊拉克的新聞故事、 關於當地居民的新聞故事, 以及他們在戰爭重壓下 何去何從的新聞故事。
Afghanistan had already fallen off the agenda. There were less than one percent of all news stories in 2008 that went to the war in Afghanistan. It was the longest war in US history, but information was so scarce that schoolteachers we spoke to told us they had trouble explaining to their students what we were doing there, when those students had parents who were fighting and sometimes dying overseas.
阿富汗則早已不在報導議題中。 在 2008 年的所有新聞故事中 不到 1% 是關於阿富汗戰爭。 這是美國史上歷時最長的戰爭, 但相關資訊卻是如此稀少, 就連學校老師也向我們表示, 他們很難向學生解釋 究竟我們在阿富汗做些什麼, 而這些學生的父母 都在海外戰鬥甚或殉職。
We had drawn a blank, and it wasn't just Iraq and Afghanistan. From conflict zones to climate change to all sorts of issues around crises in public health, we were missing what I call the species-level issues, because as a species, they could actually sink us. And by failing to understand the complex issues of our time, we were facing certain practical implications. How were we going to solve problems that we didn't fundamentally understand, that we couldn't track in real time, and where the people working on the issues were invisible to us and sometimes invisible to each other?
我們得不到任何相關資訊, 而這不只是伊拉克和阿富汗。 從衝突地區到氣候改變, 到關乎公共衞生危機的各類議題, 我們無法報導我稱為 「物種層面的議題」, 因為這些議題都可以拖垮 我們整個人類物種。 無法了解當代的複雜議題, 我們就得面對這帶來的 若干實際影響。 我們怎麼解決得了問題, 要是我們沒有從根本了解問題、 無法同步追蹤問題, 而且處理這些複雜議題的人 都是我們看不見, 甚或互相看不見的人?
When you look back on Iraq, those years when we were missing the story, were the years when the society was falling apart, when we were setting the conditions for what would become the rise of ISIS, the ISIS takeover of Mosul and terrorist violence that would spread beyond Iraq's borders to the rest of the world.
回首看看伊拉克, 我們無法報導任何有關 當地新聞故事的那些年, 就是當地社會分崩離析的時期, 而我們也造就了 讓伊斯蘭國得以崛起的條件, 讓伊斯蘭國得以佔據摩蘇爾, 讓恐怖主義暴力得以跨過 伊拉克邊界遍布全世界。
Just around that time where I was making that observation, I looked across the border of Iraq and noticed there was another story we were missing: the war in Syria. If you were a Middle-East specialist, you knew that Syria was that important from the start. But it ended up being, really, one of the forgotten stories of the Arab Spring. I saw the implications up front. Syria is intimately tied to regional security, to global stability. I felt like we couldn't let that become another one of the stories we left behind.
當我正在進行觀察的時候, 我望向伊拉克邊界的另一邊, 發現我們也無法報導 另一則新聞故事: 敍利亞戰爭。 如果各位是中東問題專家, 一定知道敍利亞 從一開始就相當重要。 但結果卻是敍利亞 是在阿拉伯之春 被遺忘的新聞故事之一。 我親眼目睹這帶來的影響。 敍利亞與地區安全以至全球安全 息息相關。 我覺得不應該任由敍利亞變成 另一則我們不報導的新聞故事。
So I left my big TV job to start a website, called "Syria Deeply." It was designed to be a news and information source that made it easier to understand a complex issue, and for the past four years, it's been a resource for policymakers and professionals working on the conflict in Syria. We built a business model based on consistent, high-quality information, and convening the top minds on the issue. And we found it was a model that scaled. We got passionate requests to do other things "Deeply." So we started to work our way down the list.
所以我辭掉了大電視臺的工作, 創立網站「深度敍利亞」。 這網站旨在作為新聞及資訊來源, 使理解一則複雜議題變得更容易, 而它在過去四年來已經成為 處理敍利亞衝突的政策制定者 和專業人士的資訊來源。 我們的經營模式是 建基於具連貫性、高品質的資訊, 以及匯聚有關該議題的一流見解。 我們發現這個模式可以擴展。 有人熱切請求我們 「深度」探討其他議題。 於是我們開始探討清單上各個議題。
I'm just one of many entrepreneurs, and we are just one of many start-ups trying to fix what's wrong with news. All of us in the trenches know that something is wrong with the news industry. It's broken. Trust in the media has hit an all-time low. And the statistic you're seeing up there is from September -- it's arguably gotten worse. But we can fix this. We can fix the news. I know that that's true. You can call me an idealist; I call myself an industrious optimist. And I know there are a lot of us out there. We have ideas for how to make things better, and I want to share three of them that we've picked up in our own work.
我和眾多企業家, 我們和很多創投公司, 都嘗試補救新聞業出現的錯誤。 我們在前線工作的人都知道 新聞業的確出現了一些問題。 它已經敗壞。 傳媒公信力跌至歷年新低。 各位在這裡見到的統計數字 是在九月, 現在情況恐怕更差。 但我們可以補救。 我們可以補救新聞業。 我知道這會成真。 各位可以說我是理想主義者, 我就自稱勤奮的樂觀主義者。 我知道外面有很多像我一樣的人。 我們有辦法使事情變好, 而我想介紹我們找出的 其中三項辦法。
Idea number one: we need news that's built on deep-domain knowledge. Given the waves and waves of layoffs at newsrooms across the country, we've lost the art of specialization. Beat reporting is an endangered thing. When it comes to foreign news, the way we can fix that is by working with more local journalists, treating them like our partners and collaborators, not just fixers who fetch us phone numbers and sound bites. Our local reporters in Syria and across Africa and across Asia bring us stories that we certainly would not have found on our own. Like this one from the suburbs of Damascus, about a wheelchair race that gave hope to those wounded in the war. Or this one from Sierra Leone, about a local chief who curbed the spread of Ebola by self-organizing a quarantine in his district. Or this one from the border of Pakistan, about Afghan refugees being forced to return home before they are ready, under the threat of police intimidation. Our local journalists are our mentors. They teach us something new every day, and they bring us stories that are important for all of us to know.
辦法一: 我們需要建基於 深入領域知識的新聞。 由於全國各地新聞媒體 裁員一浪接一浪, 我們已經失去了專門報導的藝術。 「路線採訪」瀕臨絕種。 在海外新聞方面, 我們的補救方法就是 跟更多本地新聞從業員合作, 視他們為合作伙伴, 而不只是幫我們取得 電話號碼和原聲摘要的仲介人。 我們在敍利亞以至 亞、非各地的本地記者 給我們找來我們自己 肯定找不來的新聞故事。 就像這則在大馬士革市郊的新聞, 關於一場 給予戰亂傷患希望的輪椅競賽。 又或者這則在塞拉里昂的新聞, 關於一名當地首領 自發隔離自己的區域 以阻止伊波拉病毒蔓延。 又或者這則在巴基斯坦邊境的新聞, 關於阿富汗難民在未準備好、 被警察脅逼的情況下 被遣返家鄉。 本地新聞從業員是我們的師友, 每一天都有新東西教給我們, 也給我們帶來所有人都應該 知道的重要新聞故事。
Idea number two: we need a kind of Hippocratic oath for the news industry, a pledge to first do no harm.
辦法二: 我們需要給新聞行業訂立一種 希波克拉底誓詞, 即是承諾不造成任何傷害。
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Journalists need to be tough. We need to speak truth to power, but we also need to be responsible. We need to live up to our own ideals, and we need to recognize when what we're doing could potentially harm society, where we lose track of journalism as a public service.
新聞從業員需要不屈不撓。 我們要向當權者說出真相, 但我們也要為自己負責。 我們要按自己的理想行事, 也要明白 如果我們忘記新聞是一種公共服務, 我們所做的有可能損害社會。
I watched us cover the Ebola crisis. We launched Ebola Deeply. We did our best. But what we saw was a public that was flooded with hysterical and sensational coverage, sometimes inaccurate, sometimes completely wrong. Public health experts tell me that that actually cost us in human lives, because by sparking more panic and by sometimes getting the facts wrong, we made it harder for people to resolve what was actually happening on the ground. All that noise made it harder to make the right decisions.
我密切留意我們怎樣報導 伊波拉危機。 我們成立「深度伊波拉」, 並全力以赴。 但我們見到公眾 被排山倒海般的歇斯底里 和煽情報導淹沒, 它們有時不準確,有時完全錯誤。 公共衞生專家告訴我, 這樣其實會賠上人命, 因為引發更多恐慌甚或把事實弄錯, 使人們更難解決 實地發生的事。 所有這些雜音使人更難 作出正確的決定。
We can do better as an industry, but it requires us recognizing how we got it wrong last time, and deciding not to go that way next time. It's a choice. We have to resist the temptation to use fear for ratings. And that decision has to be made in the individual newsroom and with the individual news executive. Because the next deadly virus that comes around could be much worse and the consequences much higher, if we do what we did last time; if our reporting isn't responsible and it isn't right.
我們作為一個行業可以做得更好, 但必須明白我們上次何以犯錯, 並決心下次不再重蹈覆轍。 這完全由你決定。 我們要抵擋誘惑, 不用恐懼刺激收視率。 每個新聞部、每位新聞行政人員 都要作出這樣決定。 因為如果我們重蹈覆轍, 如果我們的報導不負責任、 不盡不實, 下一個來襲的致命病毒 可能更惡劣,帶來更嚴重的後果。
The third idea? We need to embrace complexity if we want to make sense of a complex world. Embrace complexity --
辦法三? 若要理解錯綜複雜的世界, 我們就要擁抱複雜。 擁抱複雜……
(Applause)
(掌聲)
not treat the world simplistically, because simple isn't accurate. We live in a complex world. News is adult education. It's our job as journalists to get elbow deep in complexity and to find new ways to make it easier for everyone else to understand. If we don't do that, if we pretend there are just simple answers, we're leading everyone off a steep cliff. Understanding complexity is the only way to know the real threats that are around the corner. It's our responsibility to translate those threats and to help you understand what's real, so you can be prepared and know what it takes to be ready for what comes next.
不把世界簡化, 因為簡單就是不準確。 我們活在錯綜複雜的世界。 新聞是成人教育。 我們作為新聞從業員 有責任抽絲剝繭, 找出新方法使任何人更易理解。 如果我們做不到這一點, 如果我們佯裝簡單答案就在眼前, 我們就像帶領所有人去跳懸崖。 理解複雜關係是 知道真實威脅近在咫尺的 唯一方法。 我們的責任是把這些威脅 以常人話語說出來, 幫助各位明白什麼是真實的, 讓你準備好並知道怎樣準備 下一個問題的來臨。
I am an industrious optimist. I do believe we can fix what's broken. We all want to. There are great journalists out there doing great work -- we just need new formats. I honestly believe this is a time of reawakening, reimagining what we can do. I believe we can fix what's broken. I know we can fix the news. I know it's worth trying, and I truly believe that in the end, we're going to get this right.
我是一名勤奮的樂觀主義者。 我的確相信可以補救已敗壞的東西。 我們每個人都想。 表現卓越的優秀新聞從業員 俯拾皆是, 而我們需要的只是新模式。 我確信現在是時候重新醒覺、 重新想像我們可以做什麼。 我相信找們可以補救已敗壞的東西。 我知道我們可以補救新聞業。 我知道這是值得嘗試的, 並衷心相信我們直到最後 會把事情撥亂反正。
Thank you.
感謝大家。
(Applause)
(掌聲)