【Part 5】尾巴

JOANNE: Got it. All right, we’ve got a couple of minutes for questions from the audience. Right over here?
JOANNE:嗯，我知道了。现在，我们这里有一些时间留给观众提问。右边那一位？

QUESTION FROM THE AUDIENCE: Hi, Jim Jarvis. Mr. Zell, first, I may speak for others here when I say I wish you would do this more often and talk publicly more often. It’s great fun. I’m a journalist, and I got attacked in Salon this morning…or Slate this morning—I get them confused—for holding journalists responsible for the fate of journalists. Is it possible, do you think, to change the culture of journalism? What’s the major changes that need to be made? Are you making any progress in changing that culture, and, if so, how?
观众提问：嗨，我是Jim Jarvis。Zell先生，首先请允许我代表在场的其他人以及我自己说，希望你能够经常做一些公众对话。这非常棒。我是一名记者，今早我在沙龙或者 Slate受到了攻击——我让他们很困惑——因为我坚持新闻从业者要对新闻业的未来命运负责。你认为改变新闻业的文化是否可能？新闻业所需要的主要变革是 什么？你是否有在试图改变新闻业的文化？如果有的话，你是如何来改变的？

SAM: I’m on the record as saying that, you know, I think that part of the problems with the newspaper industry revolve around the fact that the newsrooms have basically never recovered from Watergate, and everybody wants to be Woodward and Bernstein, and that’s the definition of success. Obviously, the newspaper business must be a great deal more than that. So I think we are making progress. I think we are changing the paradigms, many of which were just unwritten rules that we don’t put ads on the front page. “Why not?” “Well, because we’ve never put ads on the front page.” “Well, that’s a good reason not to.” You know, “Well, what do you mean you want to put a spadia on the newspaper?” ‘Well, somebody is willing to pay us $100,000 for one day for a spadia on the newspaper.” “I know, but it will destroy the integrity of the front page.” I said, “For $100,000, you know, who’s kidding who? What business are we in?”
要知道，我现在说的都被记录在案哈，我认为报业的部分问题还纠结于这样一个事实——编辑部还沉浸在水门事件的晕眩中没有恢复过来，每一个人都想成为伍德沃 德（Woodward） 和伯恩斯（Bernstein），而这就是对所谓成功的定义。显然，报业所涵盖的应该要比这多得多。所以我认为我们正在进步，我们正在改变一些范例，其中 很多是不成文的规定，譬如说我们从不再头版登广告。“为什么不呢？”“呃，因为我
们从来没有在头版登过广告。”“呃，那时一个很好的理由。”你知道，“呃，你想在报纸上登一个spadia折页广告，你什么意思？”【laohuang 注：spadia，一种折页广告，是不完整的半页版面,部分包裹在一叠报纸的折页处。】“嗯，有人想花十万美元在我们报纸上登一次spadia折页广告。 ”“我知道，但是这会破坏报纸头版的完整性。”我说，“为了十万美元，你知道，谁在诱拐谁呢？我们在做一桩什么样的生意啊？”

I remember one of the first things that I noticed when I took over the Tribune was that, in effect, ChicagoTribune.com, which was our website, was in gray lettering, with the hope, maybe, that nobody would notice it. I scratched my head and I said,”This is supposed to be the future. It needs to be on the front page of the newspaper in bright-red letters because you want everybody in the world to connect to the concept of it and go from there.”
我还记得刚收购Tribune后，发生有这么一件事情。我们在报纸上印了我们网站的地址ChicagoTribune.com，用的全是灰色字体，也许是 希望没有人能注意到它？我看后后搔搔头皮说，“网站是我们未来的指望，它需要在报纸头版用大红的字体标注出来，因为你得让全世界每一个人都对它有印象，脑 子有有这样一个概念，并去访问它。”

And the last thing I’d say to you, which is a much bigger question—86 percent of the cost of the newspaper business is print, paper, distribution, and promotion. That’s untenable long-term and…short-term. And I think when it’s all said and done, the future must attack this inherent problem, which, among other things, if you attack the problem and solve it, you then make newspapers a much more economic advertising venue. Right now, that infrastructure sets the floor. That makes newspapers uncompetitive.
最后我还想跟你说一件事，这涉及到一个大得多的问题哈！报纸86%的开支都被用于印刷、纸张、发行和推广，这样是无法长期支持下去…..短期。当所有人都 在讨论并着手解决报纸难题的时候，必须得击中报纸这一与生俱来的要害，一旦你着手处理并解决了它，那么你将使报纸成为一个更经济的广告载体。眼下，报纸的 这一基本结构把自己死死地钉在了地上，使得它缺乏竞争力。

JOANNE: I think we have time for one more question…in the back there.
JOANNE:我们还有一个问题的时间，好，后面那一位。

QUESTION FROM THE AUDIENCE: Richard Bilotti, GSO Capital. I would submit that today the Tribune is truly a television company that happens to sell newspapers. Your television assets probably significantly…in any environment will be significantly worth more than your newspaper assets for the next couple of years. What are the essential changes that you need to make to the television business that you own, if any, given that we’re in the beginnings of a very severe downturn in advertising there, as well?
观众提问：我是来自GSO公司的Richard Bilotti。我认为Tribune公司其实是一家电视公司，顺便也出报纸而已。你们的电视资产很引人瞩目……在接下来几年里，无论情势如何发展，都会 比你们的报纸资产要更值钱。假如说我们正处在一个非常严峻的广告下滑时期，你需要给旗下电视做哪些实质性的调整？

SAM: Well, in the case of the Tribune, you’re right that we have 23 TV stations and one superstation and one radio station.Whenever you talk about TV as it relates to the Tribune you have to start with the superstation. We have one of two superstations. Our superstation earns $80 million a year. The other superstation earns $480 million a year. We hit 75 million homes. I think they hit 90. So, obviously, this is a dormant asset that needs desperately to be addressed, which is, frankly,the first place we went to work.
就Tribune目前的状况而言，你所言极是。我们拥有23家电视台和1家特大功率电台和一个广播台。无论何时何地谈及Tribune的电视业务，这个特 大功率电台都是不得不首先提到的话题。我们是两大特大功率电台之一。我们这个电台每年收入约8000万美元，而另一家则是4.8亿美元。我们收入中的 750万美元来自国内。我认为它们可以达到900万。所以，显然这是一个有待开掘的沉睡资产。坦白地说，这也是我们开始行动的第一步。

We also basically doubled the amount of news that all of our TV stations do, because that news is 100 percent owned by the local station, is an enormously successful revenue producer, and is very local targeted. So that’s two.
同时我们所有的电视台都把播出的新闻总数翻了一倍，因为这些新闻百分百归本地电视台所有，直接面对本土传播，这是一个非常成功、非常了不起的收入制造者。这是我要说的两点。

And then, of course, we also put all the salesmen on commission and did other irrational things like that.
然后，我们所有的销售人员也开始有所动作。当然，我们还有一些其他类似的非同寻常的举措。

But net-net, we’re very, very aware of the TV role, and we’re very aware of what we need to make it better, and we’ve brought in a lot of extraordinary people, who are beginning to make a measurable difference.
但是作为网对网传播，我们也非常清楚电视的角色，清楚我们需要做得更好，我们引进了许多特别的人才，他们正在做一些看得见的改变。

JOANNE: That’s all we have time for. I want to thank Sam Zell.
JOANNE：由于时间的关系，今天我们到此为止，谢谢Sam Zell。

SAM: Thank you. Glad to.
SAM: 谢谢你。今儿个很高兴。

（完）

【Party 4 】继续业务探讨时间

JOANNE: And a lot of the products that you’re talking about come as a result of focus grouping, and you’ve talked a lot about how you’ve done a lot of focus groups, and readers tell you they want short stories, and they want graphics, and they want big pictures. I find it curious that you are embracing focus groups because…and maybe this word has been tarnished now, butyou’ve always been a maverick. Right? I mean, if you ran your business according to how focus groups told you you should run your business, you wouldn’t be up here today.
JOANNE:你刚谈到的产品大多是来自于焦点座谈会的结果，而且你也提到你们做了一系列的焦点座谈会，读者告诉你们 他们想要短小的故事、图表和更大幅的图片。我发现很有意思的一点是，你们正在拥抱焦点座谈会……也许这个单词现在已经过时了，但是你们一直都是这么特立独 行，对不对？我的意思是，如果你只是根据焦点座谈所反馈的信息来经营报纸，那么今天你就不会来到这里。

SAM: Yeah, but the answer is you are acting like a journalist—okay?—because you grabbed the word focus group and, in effect, turned it from one element that’s relevant in a hundred elements to somehow or another we’re going to take one focus group and implement everything that they said, which is silly. One of the benefits of focus groups is you get a chance to listen to your customer. And all I’m saying is that there isn’t a successful business out there that doesn’t listen to their customer.
Sam：是的，但答案是你正在以新闻从业人员的身份行事——好不好？——因为你抓住了焦点座谈会上蹦出的词汇，有效地 将它这一个元素从一百个相关的元素中抽离出来。我们举行一个焦点座谈会，并执行他们所提的每一个意见，那才是愚蠢。焦点座谈会的一个好处是，你有机会得以 直接聆听你客户的心声。我想要说的全部就是，世界上没有哪一个成功的生意是完全不听取顾客意见的。

JOANNE: And the kind of journalism that…as you know, you’ve become a popular topic of conversation among journalists.
JOANNE: 这种新闻事业….正如你所知，你们已经成为了新闻业界的一个热门话题。

SAM: Really? No shit.
Sam：真的？别开我玩笑呢。

JOANNE: Maybe you read some of the blogs about yourself.
JOANNE: 或许你也读过一些关于你自己的博客？

SAM: No, never.
Sam：没，我还从没读过。

JOANNE: But I think the question really is, journalists believe that there is a reader service and a public service, that there’s a public good…
JOANNE: 但我认为真正的问题是，新闻人认为新闻业同时存在读者服务和公共服务职能，存在一种对公众有益的….

SAM: And journalists are more than willing to tell you what they think you need to know. And to some extent, that’s a valid position, but I certainly don’t think it is the answer. And to the extent that you have journalists who are unwilling to listen and only want to talk, they really should give up journalism and become college professors.
Sam:而且，新闻人更想要告诉你一些他们认为你需要知道的事情。在某种程度上，这是一种很正当的想法，但是我不认为应该如此。就这个范畴来说，还存在一种新闻人并不想去倾听而只想着不停地说，他们真不应该做新闻人而该去大学当教授。

JOANNE: It takes a lot of resources to pour into investigative reporting…and this is not just “How much did Sarah Palin spend on her wardrobe?” but serious investigative reporting that takes…could take months at a time that could take you down some dark alleyways that are not going to pay off. Is there a place for that? Is there a way to fund that, or are newspapers not the place for funding that any longer?
JOANNE: 调查性报道需要投入大量的人力物力资源…..这不是指像“莎拉·佩林花了多少钱置装？”这类的调查报道，而是指那些严肃类调查性报道，有时候它让你花上好 几个月时间最后却走进了一条黑胡同，所获了了。这些报道是否还有空间？有没有一种方式来资助这类报道，或者报纸不再适合于承载它？

SAM: Well, you know, you were just talking to me a minute ago about the precipitous decline in advertising revenue. So the answer is that every piece of a newspaper has to be economically evaluated, because, in the end, we’re not an eleemosynary institution, even though most of the newspapers have been run as one. I mean, how would I not challenge every cost, every decision, and basically look at the cost benefit, just like our government is supposed to do when it raises our taxes? I got to look at the cost benefit and say, “What’s the benefit? What’s the cost? Does this make sense?”
Sam：要知道，一分钟前你还在跟我讨论报纸广告下滑的问题。报纸的每一个版面都必须接受经济评估，尽管所有的报纸一 直以来都尽量如此运作，但最终我们毕竟不是慈善机构。换言之，就跟在政府提高我们税收的时候一样，叫我如何不去计较每一项花销、每一个决策，并将每一项活 动都从根本上着眼于成本收益呢？我不得不去考虑成本收益，并且问自己，“收益是什么？支出是什么？这样做有没有意义？”

JOANNE: So at the L.A. Times, for example, which under a previous editor before you owned it won quite a few Pulitzer Prizes and really put a lot of effort into pieces that may or may not pay off, does that no longer make sense in the business model that we’re talking about?
JOANNE: 譬如我们拿洛杉矶时报来说，在你收购之前他们曾获得为数不少的普利策新闻奖，而且有些新闻的努力真是付诸东流，或者是根本没有获得相应的回报，而在我们刚刚所谈到的新商业模式下，这些是否还有价值？

SAM: I haven’t figured out how to cash in a Pulitzer Prize. There was a day when a newspaper put “Winner of Pulitzer Prize” on the front page, and people flocked to read the Pulitzer Prize story. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that that’s the case today But I also think that there are scale issues. In other words, I think that if the goal is a Pulitzer, it’s in the wrong place. In other words, we’re not in the business of, in effect, underwriting writers for the future. We’re a business that, in effect, has a bottom line. So as far as we’re concerned, I think Pulitzers are terrific, but Pulitzers should be the cream on the top of the coffee. They shouldn’t be the grounds. And I think there are a lot of scenarios in the newspaper industry where the entire focus is on Pulitzers. The entire focus is on becoming an international correspondent. I mean, I know that because our newspaper sent somebody to Kabul to cover the “Afghan Idol Show.” Now, I know Idol is the No. 1 TV program in the world, but do my readers really want a firsthand report on what this broad looked like who won the “Afghan Idol” Show”? Is that news?
Sam：我到现在还没有弄明白如何去衡量普利策奖的价值。某天，一家报纸把“普利策奖得主名单”放在头版，然后一大群 人聚集过来读普利策奖获奖新闻。不幸的是，我不确定今天的情况是否仍然如此，但我也承认确实存在一定的衡量标准。换言之，我认为如果报纸的目标就是为了得 普利策奖，那就是摆错了位置。也就是说，实际上，我们不是在给作者承诺未来。事实上，我们是在做一桩买卖，是有底线的。就目前我们所讨论的，我认为普利策 奖真可怕，但它应该是一杯咖啡之上的那团奶油，而不是一切的基础。恐怕报业内部有不少人是在把全部的精力都投在普利策奖上，一心想要做成一个国际化的通讯 机构。我知道因为我们的报纸派了记者去喀布尔报道“阿富汗偶像秀”（Afghan Idol Show），现在，我知道了它是世界第一号的电视节目，但是我们的读者真的想要诸如“阿富汗偶像秀”等这么宽泛的第一手报道吗？这是新闻吗？

JOANNE: The “Afghan Idol Show”…I’d like to know what the broad looked like.
JOANNE: 阿富汗偶像秀…..我倒是想看看这个报道宽泛到什么样。

SAM: I’ll send you a picture, okay? I mean, really, it’s not a problem.
Sam：稍后我给你发张照片好了。我的意思是，真的，这不是问题所在。

JOANNE: But you’re talking about two different things here, though.
JOANNE: 但是，你在谈论两件全然不同的事情。

SAM: Why am I talking about two different…?
Sam：为什么我实在谈论两件不同的…..?

JOANNE: Because I think the essential question, what the Pulitzers get at, would be that…the way that newspapers had seen themselves, and I spent many years on a newspaper, was as a public trust. And, you’re right, their finances were not put first. So I guess you’re saying that that age is over and we need to be…
JOANNE: 因为我认为最实质性的问题，普利策奖带来的将是…..报纸评判自己的方式，我在报纸工作了多年，我认为最重要的是公众信任。对，你是对的，商业没有放在报纸的第一位。所以我猜你要说的是这样的时代要终结了，我们需要成为……

SAM: My question is real simple. As of last night, the entire market cap of the New York Times [Co.] was $1.2 billion. And my question to Arthur, who I think is out here someplace, is if you want to be a charitable trust, be a charitable trust. If you

don’t want to be a charitable trust, then you’ve got to focus on producing a return for investors’ capital, and it’s just that simple. It worked in the old days because you could be a public trust and you could do well for your shareholders because you had a monopoly, and monopolies are wonderful. I mean, I think competition is terrific, particularly for all those guys out there. Me? I like monopolies. I’m just sorry I waited 60 years to get into the newspaper industry because the 40 I missed were great.
Sam :我的问题非常简单。到昨晚为止，纽约时报公司的整个市值大约是12亿美元。我想问亚瑟的是——我想他今天不 在这里啊——如果你想成为一个公益信托，那就索性做一个公益信托好了。如果你不想成为公益信托，那么最好是致力于让投资人有所回报，就这么简单。在过去这 很管用，你既可以做公益信托，同时还可以很好地对股东负责，因为那时候你占据了垄断位置，垄断是个好东西。我是指，我认为竞争很可怕，特别是所有人都参与 竞争的时候。我？我喜欢垄断。我只是感到非常遗憾，我等了60年才进入报业，因为我错过的前40年非常美妙。

JOANNE: I think the audience is going to have some good ones for you. Just broadly, if you could speak to the industry as a whole…first of all, are we in a recession or are we in a depression?
JOANNE: 我想，受众将会给你带来一些好消息的。就大行业而言，首先，你认为目前这个行业是处在衰退期还是萧条期？

SAM: I think we’re in a recession. I think that government action, both past and future, will more than likely make it a recession and nothing worse. In my opinion, the comparables to the ’30s are not comparable. It’s just almost 180 degrees different. I mean, we had a recession in 1930 that government policy turned into a depression. I don’t think we’re going to see that happen at this point.
Sam：我认为是衰退。我想政府在过去和未来的一些举措，都将把它推往衰退，再也没有比这更糟糕的了。在我看来，这和 上个世纪30年代的大萧条没有可比性，这是一个180度的大转弯。在1930年代我们也面临着衰退，但是政府把它扭转成为了一次大萧条。但是我想这次历史 不会重演了。

JOANNE: So…and the second question would be in terms of advertising, the advertising industry. We’ve seen it fall off a cliff, as you said. When does it bottom out, and where do you think it bottoms out? Would it be in…next year, 2009, or is it going to go beyond 2009?
JOANNE: 那么….第二个问题是关于广的。正如你所说，我们已经看到了广告掉下了悬崖，什么时候见底？你认为底在哪里？会是……明年，2009年，或者在2009年以后？

SAM: I’d answer your question by saying that I think advertising will return as the economy returns. I think the question for the media industry really revolves around are we in the middle of a, quote, economic reduction in advertising, or are we seeing structural change? Are we seeing advertisers challenging the assumptions as to what works for them and what doesn’t work for them. So I think to some extent part of the advertising reduction is very much connected to the advertisers trying to see if there’s a different blueprint that produces higher bang for the buck.
Sam：我的回答是，我认为随着经济的恢复，广告也会相应地回升。我认为对传媒业来说，问题在于我们是身处因广告下滑而带来的经济缩水期，还是我们正在经历结构性变化？所以，我认为从某种程度上说，广告的缩减与广告主试图寻找另一种不同的直击目标人群的广告投放蓝图。

JOANNE: So are you betting on secular versus cyclical changes?
JOANNE:所以，你在赌这一长期而又相对周期性的变革？

SAM: Well, I mean, the question is what’s the percentage? In other words, there’s no question in my mind that there’s been a secular change. The question is what’s the percentage, and what can we as media companies and newspapers, in particular, do to respond to it and to find different avenues? Our high-school newspaper is a perfect example of finding a different methodology to, in effect, attract advertising dollars and serve the public at the same time.
Sam：呃，我指的是，问题在于这个百分比会是多少？换言之，在我看来长期的变化是必然的。问题在于，作为媒体公司和 报纸，我们能占到的百分比是多少？特别是我们如何去对这一变化做出回应，并开辟出不一样的道路来？事实上，在寻找不同方法来获得广告收入同时还服务公众方 面，我们的中学报就是一个很好的例子。

JOANNE: But a year from now when the Tribune earnings come out, will we still be seeing declining numbers in advertising revenue, or will those numbers start to shift?
JOANNE:但是，一年后Tribune公司的收入出来后，我们将看到的是广告收入的下降还是上升呢？

SAM: I, of course, don’t know, but if I were guessing, I would think that we will start coming out of the current recession in the third quarter of next year.
Sam：这个问题我也不知道，但我推测明年第三季度开始，我们将从当前的颓势中走出来。

JOANNE: All right.
JOANNE: 嗯，好。

SAM: And I think it will be a slow recovery, much more an “L” than a “V.” The No. 1 issue for everybody is going to be inflation, because you can’t stimulate at the level of which we’ve stimulated and not have that risk. And so, in effect, it’s going to be a redo of where Greenspan was in 2001 and 2002. Bernanke is going to have to deal with the question of “When do I take the punch bowl away?”
SAM: 我认为这是一个缓慢的恢复过程，更像是一个L型而不是V型。每个人都必须经历的第一个问题是通胀，因为你不可能在原来激励的水平上受到激励，不会再冒一次 险。所以，接下来是格林斯潘在2001-2002年所做的那些提振经济的举措再重来一遍，伯南克将要处理“何时将盛满的酒杯拿开”的问题。

【Part 3】新模式，新尝试

JOANNE: So you raise a couple of questions there. I mean, one is simply the staffing issue. And it’s interesting, when you came in a year ago, the L.A. Times, you went to the L.A. Times and said, “I have no intention of being the captain of the Titanic,” and you also said that you didn’t believe in kind of cutting your way to success. You, more than the other of your competitive set, have really made very, very deep cuts and particularly among the journalists. So how does that gel with providing the reader more and building on the papers to create a model of success?
Joanne：于是，你在那里引爆了一系列的问题，其中之一就是精简人员。很有意思的是，一年前你刚到洛杉矶时报的时 候说，“我来此无意成为泰坦尼克号船长”，同时你也说自己不相信裁员是通往成功之道。而今你比你的其他竞争对手们都要裁得更厉害，尤其是采编人员。那么这 样如何能将为读者提供更多的内容和为报纸开创新的盈利模式结合起来？

SAM: Like everything else, we’re dealing with process, we’re dealing with changing methodologies of the way things were done before. If this gentleman over here is a reporter and he calls in and says, “I’ve got a story and you want to put it up on the Web,” he talks to one copywriter, they put it all together, it’s on the Web in 10 minutes. But if that same story with the same facts is going in the newspaper, then it goes to the copywriter, the section editor, the page editor, I mean, it goes to everybody. Okay? And you wonder why the newspapers can’t financially compete.
Sam：这没什么特别的，我们正在有步骤地处理，我们正在改变以往的做事方法。假设这位先生是一名记者，他走过来 说，“我有一个新闻，想要把它在网上发布”，他与一名撰写人交流，然后两人一道完成了它，十分钟后这条新闻出现在网页上。但同样的情形下，如果想要在报纸 刊载，它必须经过撰写人、区域编辑、版面编辑等一道道流程，我的意思是，它几乎要经过每一个人之手后才能出来。好了，这下你就明白报纸为何竞争不过其他媒 体了。

JOANNE: But the newspaper is supposed to be giving you something more than the instant news that you get on the Web. Would you argue that your newspapers—after the year of cutting and attempting to fix the model—would you argue that the journalism is improved from when you purchased your newspapers?
Joanne：但是，人们总是期望报纸能够提供网络即时新闻之外的一些东西。经过一年的裁员和尝试修复商业模式之后，你认为目前你的报纸的新闻业务比起一年前刚收购它们的时候有所提升？

SAM: Interestingly enough, my customers say yes. My customers say yes.
Sam：有趣多了，我的客户这么说。按客户的说法是肯定的。

JOANNE: By what measure is that?
Joanne：但这一衡量尺度是什么呢？

SAM: I’ve reformatted all eight newspapers—they’re much louder; they’ve got more pictures; they have more color; they have easier navigation. I mean, simple things. I ride my motorcycle to work every morning…
Sam :我已经重新规划了旗下八家报纸——他们变得更加大气，有了更多图片，更多色彩，更简明的导读。这些都是很简单的事情。每个早晨我骑着摩托车去上班…..

JOANNE: Good for you.
JOANNE：这对你有好处。

SAM: I say goodbye to my wife as I walk out the door, and I used to ask her, “What’s the temperature?” Because if it’s bitter cold, there’s a problem. And then I would see her go, “Argh!” as she tried to find where the weather is in the newspapers. And in the reformatted Chicago Tribune in the bottom left-hand corner it says, “64 today, 75 tomorrow, 83 the next day,” in
one quarter of an inch in the lower left-hand corner. Isn’t that information that everybody wants?
Sam：出门的时候我跟妻子说再见，我习惯性地问她，“今天几度？”因为如果天气太冷，会出问题。然后我就看到她转身 去查温度，“噢！”她开始在报纸上找天气预报的消息，改版后的芝加哥论坛报左下角印着，“今天64度，明天75度，后天83度。”就在左下角四分之一英寸 的位置。这难道不是每一个人都想获得的信息吗？

JOANNE: But that customer…there’s a couple of customers that you have. You’re talking reader service. Another customer,obviously, is the advertiser, and your advertising has declined at a more rapid clip than some of your competitors, more so than he Times and USA Today…
JOANNE：但是，这类客户是你们的客户群体之一。你刚刚谈到的是读者服务这一块。显然，另一群客户是广告主。你们广告下滑的速度比其他竞争对手都要快，比如时代、今日美国…..

SAM: Well, I think that’s comparing leprosy to cancer. I mean, I beg to disagree with you, and I think Arthur Sulzberger is out here someplace, and I’m sure he would vie that his has gone down more than mine. [Editors note: In the third quarter of 2008, New York Times Co. ad revenue fell 14.4 percent, while Tribune Co. ad revenue fell 19 percent.] But the answer is everybody’s advertising is dramatically down. We’ve seen literally the destruction of classified advertising. You know, not just in our paper, but in all the papers. There’s somebody here, Mr. Craig, from Craigslist, who is responsible for that.
Sam：我认为，这是在拿麻风病和癌症在做比较。我想与你达成的一点共识是，我认为如果亚瑟·苏兹贝格也在现场的话， 他肯定会认为自家下降的速度比我的更多。（编者按：在2008年第三季度财务报表中，纽约时报公司的广告收入下滑了14.4%，Tribune下滑了 19%。）而答案却是，每一家报纸的广告都在急剧下降。我们已经看到了报纸分类广告的分崩离析。你要知道，不仅仅是我们报纸，其他报纸也一样。今天来自 Craigslist【laohuang注：美国第一大在线分类广告网站】的葛雷克先生也在现场，他对这事负有主要责任。

I think the answer is that we have to come up with a product that our customers want. In Chicago, we launched a product called RedEye. RedEye, which is delivered to the train stations and the bus stations every afternoon, is aimed to the 25-to-40-year-old. It’s given away free. It has a higher circulation than the Tribune, and makes a profit. We launched a new paper in Chicago called Mash. It’s delivered to 50,000 high schools free once a week, underwritten by Verizon and Nike, to reach perhaps the hardest demographic there is to reach. So these are paper products. They are successful.
我想问题的解决之道是，我们必须拿出客户想要的产品来。在芝加哥，我们发行了一份叫做番茄酱（RedEye）的印刷品，每天下午向火车站和公交车站免费派 送，主要针对25-40岁年龄段的群体。现在它的发行量已经超过了芝加哥论坛报，并已经实现盈利。我们在芝加哥还发行了一份叫做Mash的报纸，每周向5 万所中学派送，由Verizon【laohuang注：美国最大的本地电话运营商】和耐克赞助，直抵最精准的人口统计学特征人群。这些纸媒都很成功。

(未完待续)