????2012年，哈佛大學（Harvard）教授，保守派討厭鬼尼爾?弗格森利用一些極具爭議的數據，撰文抨擊奧巴馬總統。他遭到了嚴厲的批評，甚至有人要求哈佛審查弗格森是否有資格擔任教授。弗格森的回應？他變本加厲地抨擊總統，另外還對批評者以牙還牙。最終他全身而退。

????一天，某位不肯透露姓名的公關專員承認了這一事實：“千萬不要道歉。”當然，沒有誰愿意公開承認這點。

????問題在于，一旦你道歉，就等于你認罪了。再沒有辯護的機會，你的支持者失去了立場。

????《評論雜志》(Commentary Magazine)正是以這種方式對扎卡瑞亞的第一次剽竊丑聞展開論述：“毫無疑問，法里德?扎卡瑞亞剽竊了。他承認抄襲了《紐約客》（New Yorker）的一篇文章，并為此道歉。”

????實際上，當我那時嘗試著公開質疑扎卡瑞亞過錯的嚴重性時，最常見的反駁是：“他都承認了——你還不服嗎？”

????這一規律在雞毛蒜皮的小事和嚴肅的大事上同樣適用。我認識一個作家，在編輯的要求下，他為一個極小的錯誤道了歉。他的批評者立即利用這次道歉對他展開抨擊。那位編輯盡管承認了自己非常怯懦，但還是炒掉了他。

????邁克爾?杰克遜否認了所有對他的控訴。比爾?考斯比如今也矢口否認他遭受的一切指控。你可以想象，如果這兩位遭遇公關危機的演藝人員承認那些控訴屬實，他們的生活會變成什么樣子。

????網絡改變了這一切。不再有門衛來攔住那些不速之客，也不再有禮儀或理性辯論規則。即便你的道歉說服了幾個電視制片人、編輯或作者，那又怎么樣？他們會被網上混亂噪雜的聲音所淹沒。（本周在Twitter上，人們用各種惡意的稱呼攻擊勞特恩，與此同時卻聲稱他們是抵制“仇恨言論”和“網絡暴力”的。）

????我們沒理由相信Twitter的世界會更加民主。那里沒有固定的溝通流程，也沒有辯論的準則。理性的討論會被那些最大、最憤怒的聲音所淹沒。正如我們所知，網上對話通常會被一小批不具代表性的人主導。愛荷華大學（University of Iowa）對最大的網絡社區之一雅虎財經頻道（Yahoo Finance）的研究也證實了這一點。這項研究發現，其中50%的評論來自3%的評論者，75%的評論來自11%的評論者。

????顯然，如果你完全站不住腳，那你別無選擇，只能道歉。但我們通常遇到的卻不是這種情況。

????如果勞特恩拒絕讓步，那她的情形可能會好得多。比如，她可以指出多年前，卡特總統9歲的女兒艾米曾在白宮的晚宴上看書，并廣受媒體批評。（的確，當時媒體一片責難。）勞特恩還可以在媒體上攻擊其他人允許青少年穿著休閑褲、T恤和短褲出現在父母的工作場所。

????或許這也起不到什么作用。但我們知道的是，勞特恩遵循了傳統智慧，這讓她輸得精光。（財富中文網）

????譯者：嚴匡正

????In 2012, Harvard professor and conservative gadfly Niall Ferguson published a polemic against President Obama that made some highly debatable uses of data. He came under serious criticism. Some even called on Harvard to review Ferguson’s position. Ferguson’s response? He doubled down on his argument, and returned fire on his critics for good measure. He rode out the storm comfortably.

????“Never say you’re sorry,” a senior public relations executive admitted to me the other day, but only on the condition of anonymity. Absolutely no one wants to admit this in public.

????The trouble is, when you apologize, you admit guilt. And that throws away any chance of a defense. Your supporters have nowhere to go.

????This is how Commentary Magazine began an article about Zakaria during his first plagiarism brouhaha: “There is now little question that Fareed Zakaria is guilty of plagiarism. He has admitted copying a portion of a New Yorker essay and apologized.”

????Indeed, when I tried to question the seriousness of Zakaria’s offense in public at the time, the most common pushback I received was, “He’s admitted it—what’s your problem?”

????The rule applies to the trivial and the serious. I know a writer who apologized for a very small error on the command of his editor. His critics promptly used his apology against him, and the editor, admitting her own cowardice, fired him anyway.

????Michael Jackson denied the allegations levied against him. Bill Cosby is denying those against him today. If you think the two entertainers suffered serious public relations reversals, imagine what they would have been like if they admitted that the alleged accusations were accurate.

????The Internet has changed the game. There are no longer any gatekeepers. There are no longer any rules of civility or reason. Even if you persuade a few TV producers and editors and writers with your apology, so what? They’ll be drowned out by the chaos and cacophony online. (This week on Twitter, people were showering Lauten with spiteful epithets and then boasting that they were taking a stand against “hate speech” and “cyberbullying.”)

????There’s no reason to think the “Twitterverse” is more democratic than anywhere else. There is no established process. There are no rules of debate. The conversation, such as it is, is drowned out by the loudest, angriest voices. And as we all know, and a recent study confirmed, online conversations are often dominated by a small, unrepresentative few, anyway (the University of Iowa, in a study of one of the Internet’s biggest sites, Yahoo Finance, found that 50% of all comments came from just 3% of the commenters—and 75% came from just 11% of them.)

????Clearly, if you are in a completely untenable situation you are going to have no choice but to apologize. But that is less often the case than we often suppose.

????Lauten probably would have been better off if she had refused to back down. Instead, for example, she might have pointed out that president carter’s daughter Amy was widely criticized in the media many years ago for reading a book at a white house dinner, when she was only nine years old. (and yes, there was a big media uproar at the time). Lauten could have attacked others in the media for giving teenagers a green light to turn up to their parents’ business functions in cargo pants, t-shirts, and shorts.

????Maybe this wouldn’t have worked. What we do know is that Lauten followed conventional wisdom, and it got her absolutely nothing.