出版与作家生涯2015mobile.nytimes.com
克莱·舍基谈印刷业未来的一幅“更暗淡的叙事”
A ‘Darker Narrative’ of Print's Future From Clay Shirky
导读
这篇是《纽约时报》公共编辑对 Clay Shirky 关于印刷媒体前景的悲观论调的回应与摘评：报纸这种载体在衰退，但新闻业本身不能随之消失。对写作者而言，它值得一读，因为它逼我们思考：当发表渠道、收入模式和读者阅读仪式都在改变时，内容的价值究竟依附于什么。评论区里关于“评论区应成为对话而非观点堆放地”的讨论，也直接关乎写作与读者的关系。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把评论区当作需要经营的对话空间：目标是激发学习与讨论，而不只是收集观点。
- 02
要区分内容与载体：新闻业需要被保存下来，报纸这种形式未必。
- 03
削减成本会悄悄改变报道的“直接程度”，省下的钱往往以离新闻现场更远为代价。
- 04
留意读者真实的阅读仪式（比如周日慢慢翻阅），并据此设计内容的呈现方式。
HN 评论精选
认真主持的评论区可以从“观点堆放地”变成激发思考的对话场，常常比原文更有洞见。
有人知道《纽约时报》评论系统的技术栈演变史吗？和 HN 一样，这里的评论常常比文章本身更有见地。被引用的读者来信里提到几点：把订阅理解为“会员制”，利用忠实读者社群，通过不断提供更多价值来开辟更多收入来源；从评论区开始改造，把它从如今的“观点堆放地”变成有良好主持的对话论坛，让人从中学习、取得进展，而不是各执观点；周日版是一种独特的文化仪式，读者一周里慢慢翻阅、享受偶然发现的乐趣，而 A 叠早已是旧闻。
walterbell查看英文原文
Does anyone know the history of technology stacks used by NYT to provide comments? Like HN, the comments are often more insightful than the article: Transactional revenue "... Yes, "think of subscribership as membership." But that doesn't mean "in short, get some percentage of the loyal readers of The Times to pay more — some of them a lot more." It means, leveraging the strength of the very real community of loyal readers that the Times has, by building more and more revenue streams from delivering more and more value to members of that community." Public debate "... A good place to begin would be with the comments areas, with the goal to transform them from the current depositories of opinion into well moderated forums for dialogue which instead of producing points of view stimulate learning and advancement. Public intellectuals rather than know-it-alls would be the result. That would be different!" Weekly cultural ritual "... The Sunday edition of The NYT is different. I peruse this all week while giving my electronic devices a break. I'm older and still enjoy the serendipity of discovery. Yet I rarely look at the A-section. It's old news and I've already digested all - more than likely I have digested it prior to your pages being sent to the printing plant." "Truth be told, I'd be sad about the disappearance of all but the Sunday edition from print, but more to the point: It's infuriating, and confounding, that the Times insists on undermining its Sunday edition, a cultural institution so important and dear to its readers' hearts." "... every Sunday morning I would buy the $$$Sunday London Times PAPER, spending all the long day reading it because every article in that preposterously-thick paper was delicious-even the sports section."
新闻业与报纸载体理论上可以分开，但眼下调查报道仍离不开报纸。
Shirky 2009 年那篇文章是一记响亮的警钟。失败永远是一种选项，而且不是那种能让你学到东西、再转型的失败。指出“报纸不必要，但新闻业必要”很好，可问题在于大量（也许是大多数）新闻工作仍然是在报纸里完成的。如今 Tribune、Gannett 这类公司把电视业务与报纸业务拆分，说明新闻业和报纸未必天然绑定，但就实际运作而言两者仍然紧密耦合。Vox、Fusion、Gawker、BuzzFeed 这类网络新闻机构在资助新闻上有所动作（BuzzFeed 尤其有出色的调查记者），但数量太少，即便在如今萎缩的行业状态下，也无法取代报纸成为调查报道的家园。
knowtheory查看英文原文
Shirky's post in 2009 was one of those great clarion calls. Failure is always an option (and not the kind you learn from and pivot off of). Noting that newspapers aren't necessary (but journalism is) is great, but the problem is that a lot of (most?) journalism is still done in newspapers... and the way the media is currently breaking up, where companies like the Tribune Company and Gannett are splitting their television holdings from their newspapers means that journalism and newspapers may not be inherently tied together... but when it comes down to it, they are still for all practical intents and purposes tightly coupled. Web based news orgs like Vox, Fusion, Gawker and Buzzfeed are making some moves towards funding journalism (Buzzfeed in particular has great investigative reporters), but they are way too few in number to replace newspapers as a home for investigative journalism even as the industry stands today in its depleted state.
一味削减成本会让报道离现场更远；订阅设计应服务读者体验，而非公司自身的便利。
“全公司削减成本”这条让我不安。我没有更好的拯救行业的方案，但我们不断把“报道”重新定义为更不直接、更便宜的东西，代价是我们所有人都离新闻现场更远。作为纯数字订户，我觉得《纽约时报》现在的订阅结构很奇怪：基础档每月 20 美元只给网页和 iPad，不含 iPhone（要再加 10 美元）。这种设计让我更少使用、更不看重这项服务，也就更容易退订；它更像是在照顾公司的需要而不是客户的体验，恐怕难以达到他们的预期。我更希望看到大幅降价（比如 7.99 美元）并大幅扩大权益（比如订阅含填字游戏），以此扩大订户基础。
stuart78查看英文原文
"2) Do more to cut costs, companywide. (“The most valuable long-term dollar to an organization with declining revenues is a dollar you don’t spend.”)" This one worries me. I don't have better proposals to save the industry, but we keep redefining coverage to be less direct and less expensive and we all end up paying for this by being further removed from news as it happens. As a digital-only subscriber, I find NYT's current subscription model bizarre. For the base ($20/mo) tier, I get access to web and iPad but not iPhone (which costs an additional $10). This structure means I use and value the service less, making me more likely to cancel. Feels like a business model that privileges their needs over their customer's experience. And as a result, I opine that it is not likely to meet their expectations. I'd rather see an attempt to broaden the subscription base by aggressively lowering the cost ($7.99) and aggressively expanding the entitlement (sub includes crossword, for example).
读者真正的阅读发生在数字端，纸质报纸更多是一种仪式性的纪念品。
我们（我和伴侣）只订周日印刷版，它附带数字访问权限。其实我们不该被算作传统意义上的“印刷订户”。九成时间里我们只是翻翻杂志、也许读一篇文章，然后就送去回收。我们大部分的阅读和对广告的接触，都发生在一周之中，共用一个数字账号。那份纸质报纸更像是纪念品，甚至是家里的装饰，而不是接触报道的方式。
xbryanx查看英文原文
We (my partner and I) subscribe to the Sunday only print edition, which gives us digital access. We shouldn't really be considered "print subscribers" in a traditional sense. 90% of the time we scan the magazine and maybe read one article in the paper. Then straight to the recycle. The majority of our consumption, and engagement with ads, happens throughout the week as we share a single digital account. The physical paper is more of a souvenir, or possibly a house decoration, than a means of engaging with the stories in the paper.
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