????但是，令我不安的是，我時(shí)常聽到同齡人或年輕一代鼓吹不再需要掏錢訂報(bào)刊了。他們認(rèn)為付費(fèi)的做法太過(guò)老套，完全可以通過(guò)關(guān)注我這樣在社交媒體上轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)那些收費(fèi)內(nèi)容來(lái)解決。現(xiàn)在出現(xiàn)了一個(gè)現(xiàn)象，免費(fèi)內(nèi)容越來(lái)越同質(zhì)化。投資者亨特?華克最近發(fā)帖提到了杰西卡?萊辛新辦的交易刊物《情報(bào)》（The Information）。他認(rèn)為，她寫出來(lái)的內(nèi)容和隱去的內(nèi)容同樣重要。萊辛將出版物定位在小眾人群上，商業(yè)模式有些像老套的股票簡(jiǎn)報(bào)和陰謀家在地下室里印制出來(lái)的小冊(cè)子。問(wèn)題的關(guān)鍵是她對(duì)內(nèi)容收費(fèi)，并且只要內(nèi)容獨(dú)到、觀眾樂(lè)見，她就能生存下去。

????媒體理論學(xué)家杰夫?賈維斯曾說(shuō)過(guò)一段著名的話：商業(yè)模式（或者類似的東西）絕沒(méi)有標(biāo)準(zhǔn)答案。對(duì)此，我十分同意。我并沒(méi)有強(qiáng)求消費(fèi)者要出于某種義務(wù)感一定要花錢訂閱。我想說(shuō)的是，如果你沒(méi)有讀到《時(shí)代》周刊有關(guān)無(wú)家可歸者的報(bào)道，還有《華爾街日?qǐng)?bào)》有關(guān)政府卑鄙行徑的報(bào)道，你就算不上是一位真正意義上的公民，就算事情已經(jīng)過(guò)了幾十年。如果你沒(méi)有讀過(guò)《財(cái)富》雜志對(duì)主要競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手采取的行動(dòng)，你就不可能成為成功的商人或媒體主管。換言之，如果你不愿意花錢訂閱的話，吃虧的是你，而不是我們。

????最近，我碰見一位硅谷大公司的高級(jí)主管，她自稱因?yàn)闆](méi)有時(shí)間而不讀報(bào)紙或雜志（我想，書她也不會(huì)讀）。我越想，就越替她、她的公司和我們的社會(huì)感到悲哀。因?yàn)橐Ｓ趹?yīng)付手頭的工作，只有時(shí)間讀郵箱里那些專業(yè)和與工作高度相關(guān)的材料。我敢打賭，這樣下去，那些肯花時(shí)間拓展視野、閱讀各種人寫的東西、同時(shí)認(rèn)真擔(dān)負(fù)起作為公民和領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者的責(zé)任的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)者，終將超越她。

????雖然不敢斷言最終勝利花落誰(shuí)家，但是，我知道，勝利絕不青睞那些不能夠——或不愿意——掏錢閱讀高質(zhì)量新聞報(bào)道的人。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：鄧婕???

????What grates, however, is the sense I keep hearing from people of my generation and younger that they don't need to pay for journalism. They treat the paid model as somehow quaint and even chastise people like me for posting articles on social-media sites that aren't available for free. Yet what is beginning to dawn on people is that there's a sameness to what is available for free. Investor Hunter Walk captured this in a recent post about Jessica Lessin's new trade publication The Information. He praised her as much for the content she is omitting as for what she is producing. Lessin is aiming for a narrow audience, a business model as old as stock newsletters and conspiracy theorists cranking out pamphlets in their basements. The point is that she is charging for something, and she will succeed only if what she produces is unique and desirable.

????Media theorist Jeff Jarvis has become famous for saying that "should" isn't a business model (or something like that). I agree. I'm not advocating that consumers should pay for journalism out of some sense of duty. I'm saying that you're not the citizen you ought to be if you don't read the Times on homelessness and the Journal on shocking governmental behavior, even decades after the fact. And you can't possibly be the businessperson or media executive you need to be without reading Fortune's take on a key competitor. In other words, if you're unwilling to pay, you're the loser, not us.

????I recently met a senior executive at a major Silicon Valley company who doesn't read newspapers or magazines (or, I presume, books) because she doesn't have time, she said. The more I think about it, the sadder it makes me -- for her, for her company, and for our society. She thinks she only has time to read the specialized and highly germane material that flows into her inbox because she is too busy with the tasks at hand. I'm willing to bet that over the long haul her competitors who take time to broaden their horizons, to read about other kinds of people, who take seriously their responsibilities as citizens and leaders will win out over her in the end.

????I can't confidently predict what that victory will look like. But I know it won't look like the ignorance of someone who can't -- or won't -- pay to read the high-quality journalism that's all around them.