報業危機，教授打理

報紙真的要消亡了嗎?大概你我都不想看到這一天的到來。那該如何振興報業呢?思來想去，還是讓我們把這個重任交給學識淵博的大學教授吧。教授們給報紙供稿，既可以實現自身的學術價值，又能提升報紙質量，物盡其用，人盡其才，何樂而不為呢?

The American newspaper is dead. Long live the American newspaper!

OK， so reports of the demise2) of daily journalism are a bit premature3). But you can’t open up the newspapers today without reading bad news about the papers.

Declining circulation and advertising revenues have forced newsrooms to trim their staffs， which means less real reporting. A few city papers have closed， while others fill their pages with fluff4) pieces or wire service5) stories. Put simply， it’s getting too expensive to gather news.

So here’s a novel idea: Let’s get university professors to do it. For real. And， best of all， free of charge.

Remember， most professors aren’t paid for what they write now. When I publish an article in an academic journal， I don’t earn a cent. But I also don’t engage more than a handful of readers， mainly fellow specialists in my own field.

It wasn’t always that way. A hundred years ago， many of the leading lights in the social sciences and the humanities wrote for the popular press. If we want to revive the press—as well as our own struggling disciplines—we might look to their example.

Consider Robert E. Park6)， founder of the “Chicago School” of sociology and one of the most prominent intellectuals of the early 20th century. After earning his Ph.D. in 1904 from the University of Heidelberg， in Germany， Park became secretary and press agent of the Congo Reform Association. Park’s muckraking7) magazine articles exposed Belgium’s vicious atrocities8) in the Congo， helping to turn world opinion against the colonial regime of King Leopold9).

Park returned to academia in 1914， when he was hired by the University of Chicago. But he never saw a bright line between his new professorial duties and his old journalistic ones. Indeed， Park insisted， a sociologist should be “a kind of super reporter” who covers “long-term trends” rather than “what， on the surface， merely seems to be going on.”

In my own field， history， top scholars also cultivated lay10) audiences: most notably， the husband-and-wife team of Charles and Mary Beard11) who produced bestselling textbooks alongside a broad sheaf of magazine and newspaper articles. Ditto12) for the new discipline of anthropology， where Franz Boas13) and his students—especially Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead—wrote regularly for the popular press.

Today， with the press itself in peril， we need to do the same. Economists could report on the recession， of course， providing on-the-ground14) analyses of bank failures， housing foreclosures15)， and more. Biologists could cover climate change and other environmental issues， English professors could write about the book and film industries， and anthropologists16) could send dispatches from faraway lands.

At the professional schools， news-gathering opportunities would be even greater. Law professors could cover knotty questions before the Supreme Court， ranging from the detention of suspected terrorists to church-state separation. Medical school professors could describe the latest advances in patient treatment， architecture scholars could write about design， and professors of education could report on school reform.

So what would be in it for them? Right now， nothing. The way you get ahead in academia is to write for other academics， period17). But we can change that， too.

Suppose that 30 or 40 prominent research universities issued a joint statement， urging their faculty to publish in popular venues—and promising to consider such articles in promotion and salary decisions. Believe me， you’d see more and more professors writing for the newspaper.

To be sure， some faculty would continue to turn up their noses at18) it. As the historian Patricia Limerick has quipped19)， these professors resemble the people nobody wanted to dance with in high school; as a defense mechanism， they pretend that they never wanted to dance in the first place.

But I think plenty of academicians would want to dance， if the academy rewarded it. And it would be good for their disciplines， too. These are tough times for the social sciences and humanities， especially， which need to justify their budgets to already-strapped state legislatures and donors. What better way to prove your worth to the public than to write for it?

Professors won’t be a panacea20) for newspapers， of course. Many of us don’t know how to write for lay readers， first of all， so we’ll have to learn. But we have a lot to teach， too， about nearly every subject that a paper might cover. And did I mention that we’ll work for free?

美國報紙已死。美國報紙萬歲!

的確，關于日常新聞報道已死的說法有點為時過早。但只要你打開報紙，到處都會看到有關報業的壞消息。

發行量下降，廣告收入減少，這使得編輯部不得不裁員，而裁員就意味著實際報道的減少。有些都市報紙已經倒閉，剩下來的那些，版面上也都充斥著垃圾文章或者從電訊社得來的報道。簡單地說吧，搜集新聞的代價已變得過于昂貴。

其實，我倒是有一個新鮮的想法:何不讓大學教授們來搞搞新聞呢?我是說真的。而且，還不用花一分錢，多好啊。

不要忘了，現在大多數教授寫東西都是沒有報酬的。我在學術雜志上發表文章時，就沒有拿到一分錢。不過我的讀者也少得可憐，他們主要是我這個領域內的同行專家。

但情況可并不總是這樣的。一百年以前，社會和人文科學方面的很多領軍人物都為通俗刊物寫稿。如果我們要振興報業——同時也振興我們自己那垂死掙扎的學科——或許我們該向前人學習。

就拿羅伯特·E·帕克來說，他是社會學芝加哥學派的奠基人，也是20世紀初最杰出的知識分子之一。他在1904年獲得德國海德堡大學的博士學位之后，成為剛果改革協會的秘書和宣傳員。帕克在雜志上發表了一系列揭發黑幕的文章，揭露了比利時政府在剛果犯下的令人發指的暴行，使得世界輿論紛紛指責比利時國王利奧波德二世的殖民政權。

帕克于1914年回到了學術界，受雇于芝加哥大學。雖則如此，他卻從來沒有在他的新職責和過去從事的新聞業之間劃出嚴格的界限。事實上，帕克堅持認為，一位社會學家應該同時也是一位“超級記者”，要進行“長遠趨勢分析”，而不僅僅停留于“某處似乎發生了什么事之類的表面性報道”。

在我自己的研究領域——歷史方面，也有一些頂尖學者致力于為外行讀者掃盲，尤其是查爾斯和瑪麗·比爾德這對夫妻搭檔，他們除了在許多報紙和雜志上發表文章之外，還寫了一些暢銷教科書。同樣，在新興的人類學科方面，弗朗茨·博厄斯和他的學生——尤其是露絲·本尼迪克特和瑪格麗特·米德——都經常為通俗刊物寫文章。

今天，在報刊業朝不保夕的情勢下，我們也需要這么做。經濟學家當然可以寫寫經濟衰退，對銀行倒閉、房屋止贖權等問題進行實事求是的分析。生物學家可以寫寫氣候變化及其他環境問題;英語教授可以寫寫圖書出版業和電影業的狀況;而人類學家，即使身處遙遠之地，也可以寫些電訊稿發過來。

在專業學院，搜集新聞的機會甚至更多。搞法律的教授可以寫寫高等法院面臨的棘手問題，從對恐怖活動嫌疑犯的拘留到政教分離等內容皆可涉及。醫學院教授可以描述一下疾病治療方面的新進展，建筑學者可以寫寫設計，教育學教授則可以報道一下學校改革的情況。

那么對他們來說，這樣做有什么利可圖呢?就目前來說，無利可圖。如果你想在學術界取得成功，就得為其他學者寫文章，就是這么回事。但是，我們也可以改變一下這個現狀。

假如有30或40所知名的研究型大學發表一個聯合聲明，敦促其教師在通俗報刊上發表文章——并承諾將這些文章和晉職晉級、提升薪酬相掛鉤。那么，相信我，你將會看到越來越多的教授為報紙撰寫文章。

當然，還會有一些教授對此嗤之以鼻。正如歷史學家帕特里夏·利默里克不無諷刺地指出的那樣，這些教授就像中學里找不到舞伴的那些可憐蟲，為了保住自己的面子，他們假裝自己根本就不喜歡跳舞。

但我認為大多數的學者還是愿意跳舞的，假如學術界給以獎勵的話。這對他們的學科發展也是有好處的。現在，社會和人文學科的日子很不好過，尤其是在州立法委員會和捐贈者的資金已經捉襟見肘的情況下，他們得證明自己的科研預算合乎情理。要向公眾證明自己的價值，最好是給他們寫文章，還有什么比這更好的辦法嗎?

當然，教授們并不是解決報業問題的萬能藥。首先一條，很多教授都不知道怎樣為外行人寫作，所以我們還需要學習。但是，我們可以講授的東西也很多:一篇論文所能涵蓋的所有課題幾乎我們都能教。何況，我說沒說過，我們是不要稿費的?