Gone in 60 minutes
Gone in 60 minutes
60分钟内消失
The chaos at CBS is a grim portent for journalism media in the age of consolidation. CBS内部的混乱是媒体整合时代新闻业的一个严峻预兆。
It should have been the final straw. The new power couple of editorial failure — Bari Weiss and Nick Bilton — had fired legendary 60 Minutes journalist Scott Pelley. Why? Because he dared to question the fact that CBS had installed sycophants in its top ranks. Instead of standing in solidarity, correspondents Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim declared in a joint memo to staff that they’d stay on to save the program. “We don’t want to see 60 Minutes die,” they said. The kids in Weekend at Bernie’s held a similar position. 这本应是压死骆驼的最后一根稻草。编辑决策失败的新“权力组合”——Bari Weiss和Nick Bilton——解雇了《60分钟》的传奇记者Scott Pelley。为什么？因为他敢于质疑CBS在其高层安插唯唯诺诺之辈的事实。然而，通讯记者Lesley Stahl、Bill Whitaker和Jon Wertheim并没有团结一致，反而在一份给员工的联合备忘录中宣称，他们将留下来拯救这个节目。“我们不想看到《60分钟》消亡，”他们说。电影《老板度假去》（Weekend at Bernie’s）里的孩子们也持有类似的立场。
The canary in the media coal mine isn’t just sick, it’s a charred skeleton. 媒体煤矿里的金丝雀不仅是病了，它已经变成了一具焦黑的骨架。
The remaining trio of correspondents at 60 Minutes said they were “deeply upset” by recent firings, which you should read in the tone of Maine Sen. Susan Collins saying she’s “deeply concerned” about any given policy fuckery. The correspondents added: “Newsrooms are not supposed to be run like dictatorships.” Well, there’s something we can agree upon. A good newsroom should lift up its reporters on the good days, and defend them on the worst days. Anything else is cowardice and negligence. 《60分钟》剩下的三位记者表示对近期的解雇事件感到“深感不安”，你应该用缅因州参议员Susan Collins对任何政策乱象表示“深感关切”的那种语气来解读这句话。记者们补充道：“新闻编辑室不应该像独裁统治那样运作。”好吧，这一点我们倒是可以达成共识。一个优秀的新闻编辑室应该在顺境时提拔记者，在逆境时捍卫他们。除此之外的一切都是懦弱和失职。
A dictatorial newsroom is exactly what Pelley was protesting when he reportedly challenged management in a staff meeting and claimed that editor-in-chief Bari Weiss was “murdering 60 Minutes.” Weiss has already proved herself to be a blight on journalism, so it was at least generous of her to let new 60 Minutes executive producer Nick Bilton steal some of that spotlight. Pelley在员工会议上挑战管理层并声称主编Bari Weiss正在“谋杀《60分钟》”时，他抗议的正是这种独裁式的新闻编辑室。Weiss已经证明了自己是新闻界的毒瘤，所以她能让《60分钟》的新任执行制片人Nick Bilton分担一些这种“聚光灯”，至少还算大方。
Bilton is probably best known for his book Hatching Twitter. He’s worked for The New York Times and Vanity Fair, and also as a screenwriter. Traditional broadcast journalism had never appeared on his resume until being recruited by Weiss for 60 Minutes. But that lack of experience can’t even explain the utter embarrassment of his now-public termination letter to Pelley. Bilton最出名的作品大概是他的书《孵化Twitter》（Hatching Twitter）。他曾为《纽约时报》和《名利场》工作，也担任过编剧。在被Weiss招募到《60分钟》之前，他的简历中从未出现过传统广播新闻的经历。但这种经验的匮乏甚至无法解释他那封现已公开的、令人尴尬至极的解雇信。
You can’t walk into a room with a title and demand respect, but that’s exactly how Bilton is conducting himself. His missive to Pelley is so cloying and desperate that it made me feel secondhand embarrassment just reading it. He whines about decorum like a classic internet sealion while simultaneously looking like a huge dork — claiming to have been “ambushed” by Pelley with “remarkable incivility and contempt.” Bullshit. If you can’t show up to a newsroom prepared for hard questions from the journalists under your care, you have no fucking business being there. 你不能顶着一个头衔走进房间就要求别人尊重你，但这正是Bilton的行为方式。他给Pelley的信写得如此令人作呕且绝望，以至于我读的时候都感到替他尴尬。他像个典型的网络杠精一样抱怨礼仪，同时又显得像个十足的呆子——声称自己被Pelley以“极其无礼和轻蔑”的方式“伏击”了。胡扯。如果你不能在新闻编辑室里准备好面对下属记者的尖锐提问，那你根本就不该待在那里。
The budding incompetence on the front lines at CBS is definitely a trickle-down situation. If Nick Bilton is a rotten egg, it’s because he ladders up to even bigger ones — like a matryoshka doll of failure whose final form is David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison and CEO of CBS parent Paramount Skydance. (Ellison reportedly signed off on Pelley’s firing.) This family is so bad it makes me wistful about the old-fashioned mendacity of the Murdochs. CBS前线日益增长的无能绝对是一种自上而下的现象。如果Nick Bilton是个烂鸡蛋，那是因为他向上关联着更大的烂鸡蛋——就像一个失败的俄罗斯套娃，其最终形态是David Ellison，Larry Ellison之子，也是CBS母公司派拉蒙Skydance的首席执行官。（据报道，正是Ellison批准了对Pelley的解雇。）这个家族太糟糕了，以至于让我开始怀念默多克家族那种老派的虚伪。
Disclosure: James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch, just bought half of our parent company, Vox Media. Which brings me to the real point — we are in big, big trouble if media continues to be consolidated by an extremely small and powerful group of oligarchs. Especially when they cozy up to an administration that favors loyalty and patronage over things like free speech. ABC and Disney are fighting back, for now, but CBS has totally caved. There’s no good explanation for why the network canned Stephen Colbert, who is one of the kindest and most profitable people in television, unless you consider that his bosses are simply sucking up to Donald Trump. By the way, that’s a very stupid long-term strategy, but maybe these guys are only looking at how much loot they can get in next few years before this empire of incompetence crumbles. Or maybe they just want to get past the Warner Bros. acquisition. 披露：鲁珀特·默多克的儿子詹姆斯·默多克刚刚收购了我们母公司Vox Media的一半股份。这引出了我的核心观点——如果媒体继续被一小撮极其强大的寡头集团所垄断，我们将陷入巨大的麻烦。尤其是当他们向一个比起言论自由更看重忠诚和恩庇的政府献媚时。ABC和迪士尼目前还在反抗，但CBS已经彻底屈服了。对于该电视网为何解雇Stephen Colbert（电视界最友善且最赚钱的人之一），除了他的老板们只是在向唐纳德·特朗普献媚之外，没有更好的解释。顺便说一句，这是一个非常愚蠢的长期策略，但也许这些人只是在盯着在这个无能帝国崩溃前，他们还能捞到多少战利品。又或者，他们只是想熬过华纳兄弟的收购。
Pelley didn’t mince words in a statement he posted after his firing. He claims the new owner of the network is squandering the legacy of 60 Minutes “apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.” Far more damning: Pelley says management instructed him to “inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,” and to “include assertions that are unverified.” Curiously, none of this is addressed in leadership’s memos to CBS staff. Pelley在被解雇后发表的声明中直言不讳。他声称该电视网的新主人正在挥霍《60分钟》的遗产，“显然是为了博取特朗普政府一时的好感。”更令人震惊的是：Pelley称管理层指示他“在政治敏感报道中注入虚假信息和偏见”，并“加入未经核实的主张”。奇怪的是，领导层给CBS员工的备忘录中完全没有提到这些。
This all comes as broadcast media is on life support nationwide. Even local channels are becoming creepy echo chambers for Trumpian propaganda, especially thanks to the Nexstar-Tegna deal — something that was enabled by an FCC that’s completely lost the plot. You know what’s even worse than corporate media consolidation? Government speech regulation. The FCC is now very happy to regulate speech as long as it’s meant to intimidate speakers who aren’t favored by the Trump administration. 这一切发生时，全国的广播媒体正处于生命维持状态。甚至地方频道也正在变成特朗普式宣传的诡异回声室，这尤其要归功于Nexstar-Tegna的交易——而这正是由一个完全失去方向的联邦通信委员会（FCC）所促成的。你知道比企业媒体整合更糟糕的是什么吗？政府对言论的监管。FCC现在非常乐于监管言论，只要其目的是为了恐吓那些不受特朗普政府青睐的发言者。
Institutions like The Late Show and 60 Minutes are no longer untouchable. That should frighten every single American. If scale and profit can’t save our most powerful voices, what happens to the rest of us? 像《深夜秀》和《60分钟》这样的机构已不再是不可触碰的了。这应该让每一位美国人感到恐惧。如果规模和利润都无法拯救我们最有影响力的声音，那我们其他人又会怎样呢？