第八章
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VIII. The Mildness of the Yellow Press
There is a great deal of protest made from one quarter or another nowadays against the influence of that new journalism which is associated with the names of Sir Alfred Harmsworth and Mr. Pearson. But almost everybody who attacks it attacks on the ground that it is very sensational, very violent and vulgar and startling. I am speaking in no affected contrariety, but in the simplicity of a genuine personal impression, when I say that this journalism offends as being not sensational or violent enough. The real vice is not that it is startling, but that it is quite insupportably tame. The whole object is to keep carefully along a certain level of the expected and the commonplace; it may be low, but it must take care also to be flat. Never by any chance in it is there any of that real plebeian pungency which can be heard from the ordinary cabman in the ordinary street. We have heard of a certain standard of decorum which demands that things should be funny without being vulgar, but the standard of this decorum demands that if things are vulgar they shall be vulgar without being funny. This journalism does not merely fail to exaggerate life—it positively underrates it; and it has to do so because it is intended for the faint and languid recreation of men whom the fierceness of modern life has fatigued. This press is not the yellow press at all; it is the drab press. Sir Alfred Harmsworth must not address to the tired clerk any observation more witty than the tired clerk might be able to address to Sir Alfred Harmsworth. It must not expose anybody (anybody who is powerful, that is), it must not offend anybody, it must not even please anybody, too much. A general vague idea that in spite of all this, our yellow press is sensational, arises from such external accidents as large type or lurid headlines. It is quite true that these editors print everything they possibly can in large capital letters. But they do this, not because it is startling, but because it is soothing. To people wholly weary or partly drunk in a dimly lighted train, it is a simplification and a comfort to have things presented in this vast and obvious manner. The editors use this gigantic alphabet in dealing with their readers, for exactly the same reason that parents and governesses use a similar gigantic alphabet in teaching children to spell. The nursery authorities do not use an A as big as a horseshoe in order to make the child jump; on the contrary, they use it to put the child at his ease, to make things smoother and more evident. Of the same character is the dim and quiet dame school which Sir Alfred Harmsworth and Mr. Pearson keep. All their sentiments are spelling book sentiments—that is to say, they are sentiments with which the pupil is already respectfully familiar. All their wildest posters are leaves torn from a copybook.
VIII 溫和的黃色報章
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在今日的社會，針對與哈姆斯沃斯子爵和皮爾森先生有關聯的新派新聞工作，不斷有抗議的聲浪出現。但幾乎所有攻擊其新聞報導的人，都以該新聞充滿腥羶色為由提出抗議。我不從一個有深刻成見的反對者立場出發，而是單純就個人觀感來說，我認為新聞報導倘若不充滿腥羶色，那就不算新聞報導。新聞工作最大之惡，不在於內容嚇人，而在於報導溫和到令人難以忍受。新聞報導的整個目標，變成維持報導符合某種程度的期待與共識，即使程度很低，也得確保未過份出界（譯註：原文為 “it may be low, but it must take care also to be flat”），千萬不要在其中讀到任何能從尋常街道、市井小民之口聽到的辛辣八卦。我們都聽過有一種禮儀標準，是要求幽默有趣的事物不應粗俗，但卻從未聽過有哪種禮儀守則提到粗俗的事物不應有趣。這類新聞報導不僅未能誇張放大人生，還將人生縮小了，而之所以不得不如此，是因為這些新聞的用途，是要給因現代忙碌生活而疲憊不堪的人們作為昏沈慵懶的消遣。這種新聞全然非同黃色報章（譯註：刊登未經證實八卦與聳動議題的新聞），而是失色報章（翻註：原文為drab press）。哈姆斯沃斯子爵千萬別跟疲累的辦公室員工提起任何比這員工可與他分享的，要更為詼諧的趣聞。報導千萬別披露任何人（精確的說，任何有權勢的人）的秘密，絕不可得罪任何人，甚至不可取悅任何人，讓任何人太高興。除了以上這些特色外，大致而言，我們的黃色報章充滿聲色，得益於周遭發生的意外，得以產生用大寫標題列出的聳動頭條。這些編輯真的只要一有機會就使用大寫字體，但他們之所以這樣做不是因為那文字內容驚人，而是因為內容相當平淡。對那些坐在半昏黃車廂內、累到不行或半醉半醒的人而言，報紙新聞以這樣巨大顯明的方式印出，無異簡單也舒服許多。編輯們採用巨大字母來敷衍讀者的箇中原因，就跟父母與管家用巨大字母教育小朋友拼字的原因相同。幼兒園師長拿著跟馬蹄一般大的字母A，不是要刺激小孩，恰好相反，是要安撫小孩，讓字母對他們簡明易懂。哈姆斯沃斯子爵和皮爾森先生也依循類似的邏輯，來建立他們的昏暗沈靜女子學院。他們的腥羶色僅有英文拼字教科書等級的刺激，學生早就習以為常。他們最辛辣的報導也不過像來自複印書籍的老調重彈。
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Of real sensational journalism, as it exists in France, in Ireland, and in America, we have no trace in this country. When a journalist in Ireland wishes to create a thrill, he creates a thrill worth talking about. He denounces a leading Irish member for corruption, or he charges the whole police system with a wicked and definite conspiracy. When a French journalist desires a frisson there is a frisson; he discovers, let us say, that the President of the Republic has murdered three wives. Our yellow journalists invent quite as unscrupulously as this; their moral condition is, as regards careful veracity, about the same. But it is their mental calibre which happens to be such that they can only invent calm and even reassuring things. The fictitious version of the massacre of the envoys of Pekin was mendacious, but it was not interesting, except to those who had private reasons for terror or sorrow. It was not connected with any bold and suggestive view of the Chinese situation. It revealed only a vague idea that nothing could be impressive except a great deal of blood. Real sensationalism, of which I happen to be very fond, may be either moral or immoral. But even when it is most immoral, it requires moral courage. For it is one of the most dangerous things on earth genuinely to surprise anybody. If you make any sentient creature jump, you render it by no means improbable that it will jump on you. But the leaders of this movement have no moral courage or immoral courage; their whole method consists in saying, with large and elaborate emphasis, the things which everybody else says casually, and without remembering what they have said. When they brace themselves up to attack anything, they never reach the point of attacking anything which is large and real, and would resound with the shock. They do not attack the army as men do in France, or the judges as men do in Ireland, or the democracy itself as men did in England a hundred years ago. They attack something like the War Office—something, that is, which everybody attacks and nobody bothers to defend, something which is an old joke in fourth rate comic papers. just as a man shows he has a weak voice by straining it to shout, so they show the hopelessly unsensational nature of their minds when they really try to be sensational. With the whole world full of big and dubious institutions, with the whole wickedness of civilization staring them in the face, their idea of being bold and bright is to attack the War Office. They might as well start a campaign against the weather, or form a secret society in order to make jokes about mothers-in-law. Nor is it only from the point of view of particular amateurs of the sensational such as myself, that it is permissible to say, in the words of Cowper's Alexander Selkirk, that "their tameness is shocking to me." The whole modern world is pining for a genuinely sensational journalism. This has been discovered by that very able and honest journalist, Mr. Blatchford, who started his campaign against Christianity, warned on all sides, I believe, that it would ruin his paper, but who continued from an honourable sense of intellectual responsibility. He discovered, however, that while he had undoubtedly shocked his readers, he had also greatly advanced his newspaper. It was bought—first, by all the people who agreed with him and wanted to read it; and secondly, by all the people who disagreed with him, and wanted to write him letters. Those letters were voluminous (I helped, I am glad to say, to swell their volume), and they were generally inserted with a generous fulness. Thus was accidentally discovered (like the steam engine) the great journalistic maxim—that if an editor can only make people angry enough, they will write half his newspaper for him for nothing.
法國、愛爾蘭、美國這些國家報導的真正腥羶色、味道十足的新聞，我們這裡卻完全看不到。當愛爾蘭記者想要製造震撼性的話題時，他的確產生出值得大家議論的報導。他揭發愛爾蘭政府官員的貪腐醜聞，或是具體指控警政體系策劃了邪惡的陰謀。當法國記者想激起恐慌時，真實的恐慌就出現，例如，他可能會報導法國總統謀殺了三任的老婆。我們的黃色報章在創造新聞方面也是同等的無恥、不擇手段。在驗證新聞的真實性上，黃色報章的道德水準就跟上述媒體的等級差不多。但是他們的心智能力，卻讓他們只能杜撰出平淡，甚至了無新意的報導。對北京使節屠殺事件的虛構報導，雖然充滿欺騙與謊言，但除了對那些因特殊原因而會感到恐懼與悲傷的人之外，這報導絲毫不有趣。這報導完全沒有對中國的處境提供任何大膽或具啟發性的觀點。道地真實、令我心嚮往的辛辣報導，可能符合道德，也可能不符合道德。但即使不符合道德，仍需要道德勇氣才能產出這樣的報導。因為在這世上，最危險的舉動莫過於提供令人驚訝的新聞。若你能讓任何有感知的生物驚嚇到跳起來，那也無法排除他會直接跳到你身上的可能性。但這運動的領袖既無道德勇氣，也沒有非道德的勇氣。他們的整體報導策略，就是以放大、誇張的口吻，重述每個人隨意出口、毫無記憶的言論。當他們嘗試振振有詞地抨擊某些人事物時，他們從不攻擊那些龐大或真實，令人震驚的問題。他們不會像法國報紙那樣攻擊軍隊，或是像愛爾蘭媒體那樣批評法官，或是像一百年前的英格蘭人那樣抨擊民主體制。他們只會對像是國防部這種機關、事物進行攻擊，這種所有人都攻擊，所有人都懶得出聲辯護的事情，這種在四流喜劇書刊內才找得到的老掉牙笑話。就好像一個人得提高嗓門才能大喊，正好顯示他的聲音何其微弱。他們誠心竭力想製造聳動報導，恰好顯示他們的心智與思維是何等無味。在這個充滿龐大、可疑體制的世界裡，即使這整個人類社會的墮落就展現在他們的眼前，但他們所謂的大膽與機智的報導，竟然只是攻擊國防機關。他們倒不如發動抗議行動，表達對天氣的不滿，或乾脆組織一個秘密社團，專門取笑岳母。不僅是像我這種對聳動辛辣議題有特殊興趣的人有這樣的看法，套句古柏筆下亞歷山大（譯註：古柏William Cowper，英國詩人；亞歷山大Alexander Selkirk，十七世紀末一位蘇格蘭水手，曾漂流到無人煙的荒島獨自居住四年）的話：「他們的溫馴實在令我震驚。」整個現代社會都渴望閱讀真實的聳動報導，而這點被能力好又誠實的記者——布拉其福特先生所發現，他發起了反基督教行動，而此舉受到各方的警告與勸阻，我想他們是認為這會毀掉他的報紙，但他不為所動，執意繼續完成知識份子這神聖的使命。然而他發現，雖然毫無疑問的，他讓他的讀者受到驚嚇，但他的報紙銷量也意外大量成長，因為不僅是與他意見相同、因而想閱讀報導的人購買報紙，那些與他意見相左，想寫信給他表達抗議的人也買了。厚厚一疊的抗議信件中（我很得意的說，我對這信件的量多有貢獻），塞滿了慷慨激昂的言詞與豐厚的訊息。由此我們意外發掘（就好像發現蒸汽引擎一樣）新聞報導的偉大定律——只要報社編輯能激怒讀者到一定程度，讀者會主動、無償協助報社撰寫一半的報導。
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