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Business
商業
Private-equity and the press -- Culture vultures
私募股權與報刊——文化禿鷹
Buyout firms are snapping up America's newspapers
收購公司正在搶購美國的報紙
America's local newspapers have been struggling to stay afloat for years.
多年來，美國地方報紙一直在掙扎著維持生存。
Since 2005 roughly 2,200 of them have folded.
自2005年以來，大約有2200家報紙停止發行。
Private-equity firms, which often swoop on businesses in distress, have descended on the industry.
私募股權公司經常對陷入困境的企業發起猛攻，現在它們來到了這個行業。
The share of American newspapers owned by private-equity groups increased from 5% to 23% between 2001 and 2019.
2001年至2019年間，私募股權集團擁有的美國報紙份額從5%上升到23%。
The Covid-19 pandemic has presented new opportunities for buy-outs of troubled media companies.
新冠肺炎疫情為收購陷入困境的媒體公司提供了新的機會。
That has led many of those who read the papers, or write for them, to fear that buy-out barons' readiness to slash costs and seek out new sources of revenue will be bad for newsrooms.
這令許多報紙讀者和撰稿人擔心，收購巨頭準備大幅削減成本并尋找新的收入來源，這會對新聞編輯部門不利。
New evidence suggests that things are not quite that simple.
新的證據表明，事情并沒有那么簡單。
In a new working paper, researchers at the California Institute of Technology and New York University compare how newspapers that were purchased by private-equity firms have fared relative to those that were not.
在一份新的研究報告中，加州理工學院和紐約大學的研究人員比較了被私募股權公司收購的報紙和未被其收購的報紙的發展情況。
Some of the findings seem to confirm the fear of those newspaper readers and writers who see private-equity types as heartless vulture capitalists unconcerned about democracy.
一些調查結果似乎證實了那些報紙讀者和撰稿人的擔心，他們認為這類私募股權公司是不關心民主的、無情的貪婪資本家。
After private-equity buy-outs, for example, newspapers laid off more reporters and editors.
例如，在被私募股權收購之后，報紙解雇了更多的記者和編輯。
Across a sample of 766 American publications (accounting for around 45% of total circulation), payrolls were about 7% lower after a couple of years at those with new private-equity capital relative to those without such capital.
在對766家美國出版物（約占總發行量的45%）的抽樣調查中發現，幾年后，被新的私募股權資方收購的出版物的工資總額比未被私募股權資方收購的出版物低7%左右。
The researchers also identified a 16.7% relative decline in the number of articles written within five years of the buy-outs.
研究人員還發現，在被收購之后的五年內，撰文數量相對下降了16.7%。
And the focus of coverage shifted from local to national news: the share of articles on local politics dropped by about a tenth.
報道的焦點也從地方新聞轉向了全國新聞：關于地方政治的文章份額下降了大約10%。
That looks worrying in the context of a study published last year, by researchers at Colorado State University, Louisiana State University and Texas A&M University, which concluded that when readers consume national news their views become more polarised.
從去年科羅拉多州立大學、路易斯安那州立大學和德州農工大學的研究人員發表的一項研究來看，這一狀況令人擔憂。該研究得出的結論是，讀者在閱讀全國性新聞時觀點會變得更加兩極化。
Poor local coverage is also associated with less competitive mayoral elections, and newsroom staff shortages are linked to lower voter turnout.
地方新聞報道不足還與缺乏競爭力的市長選舉有關，而新聞編輯部人員短缺又與選民投票率低有關。
Local news may, though, be a losing battle from the business perspective.
然而，從商業角度來看，報道地方新聞可能是在打一場敗仗。
Local reporting is expensive, because it requires journalists on the ground and cannot be syndicated.
本地報道的成本很高，因為它需要有記者在現場，而且不能一稿多投。
Moreover, readers appear increasingly apathetic towards local news -- a survey in 2018 by the Pew Research Centre, a think-tank, found that only 14% of respondents paid for local papers that year -- and instead seek out national online media.
此外，讀者似乎對地方新聞越來越冷漠——智庫皮尤研究中心2018年的一項調查發現，只有14%的受訪者在那一年付費購買了地方報紙——轉而尋找全國性的網絡媒體。
As for the size of newsrooms, things could have been much worse were it not for private equity.
至于新聞編輯部的規模，如果沒有私募股權，情況可能會更糟。
For the study also found that newspapers which had been bought out were 75% less likely to shut down than if they hadn't been.
因為該研究還發現，被收購的報紙倒閉的可能性比沒有被收購的報紙低75%。
Dailies were also 60% less likely to become weeklies -- a common downgrade for many a suffering rag.
從日報變成周報的可能性也降低了60%——這是許多苦苦掙扎的小報進行的一種普遍降級。
The study's authors caution that they cannot estimate the general causal effect of private-equity buy-outs on the press, but only the observed effect on the newspapers in their sample.
該研究的作者提醒稱，他們無法判斷私募股權收購對新聞界的總體因果影響，只能評估他們在樣本中所觀察到的對報紙的影響。
Private-equity firms do not purchase newspapers randomly.
私募股權公司不會隨意收購報紙。
They target failing newsrooms with potential for turnaround; papers with low circulation but high advertising rates (the price charged to advertisers per square inch) were likelier to be bought.
他們瞄準的是有潛力扭虧為盈的新聞編輯部；低發行量但高廣告費（每平方英寸向廣告商收取的價格）的報紙更有可能被收購。
But for the newspapers studied, the buy-outs may have been what allowed them to survive.
但對于被研究的這些報紙來說，收購可能是它們得以生存下來的原因。
The accompanying weakening of newsrooms and nationalisation of news may be the lesser of two evils.
隨之而來的削弱新聞編輯部和國有化新聞也許是兩害相權取其輕。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
