WeTheMedia/JapaneseIntroduction

About this article

WeTheMediaの日本語訳（の途中）です。
ライセンスなどについては、WeTheMediaを参照してください。

Introduction

We freeze some moments in time. Every culture has its frozen
moments, events so important and personal that they transcend
the normal flow of news.

私達は時間の中でいくつかの瞬間を凍結させる。すべての文化にはそれぞれの凍結された瞬間があるのだ。あまりに重要で個人的な意味を持つために、通常のニュースの流れを超越した瞬間だ。

Americans of a certain age, for example, know precisely
where they were and what they were doing when they learned
that President Franklin D. Roosevelt died. Another generation
has absolute clarity of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. And no
one who was older than a baby on September 11, 2001, will
ever forget hearing about, or seeing, airplanes exploding into
skyscrapers.

たとえば、ある年代のアメリカ人は、フランクリン・D・ルーズベルトが死去したことを知ったときにどこで何をしていたのかはっきり覚えている。別の世代は、ジョン・F・ケネディ暗殺についてきわめてくっきりと記憶している。そして、2001年9月11日にすでに赤ん坊ではなかったすべての人は、飛行機が摩天楼に突っ込んで爆発したのを見たこと、それについて聞いたことを一生忘れないだろう。

In 1945, people gathered around radios for the immediate
news, and stayed with the radio to hear more about their fallen
leader and about the man who took his place. Newspapers
printed extra editions and filled their columns with detail for
days and weeks afterward. Magazines stepped back from the
breaking news and offered perspective.

1945年には、人々は速報ニュースを聞くためにラジオの周りに集まった。そして、彼らの倒れたリーダーと、その後継者についてもっと聞くために、ラジオの周りに居続けた。新聞の号外が発行され、その後何日も何週間も、その詳細を語るコラムで埋められた。雑誌は新しいニュースから一歩ひいて、全体像を提供した。（？）

Something similar happened in 1963, but with a newer
medium. The immediate news of Kennedy’s death came for
most via television; I’m old enough to remember that heartbreaking
moment when Walter Cronkite put on his hornrimmed
glasses to glance at a message from Dallas and then,
blinking back tears, told his viewers that their leader was gone.
As in the earlier time, newspapers and magazines pulled out all
the stops to add detail and context.

1963年も同様だったが、メディアが新しくなっていた。ケネディの死のニュースは、もっぱらテレビによってもたらされた。べっこう縁の眼鏡をかけたウォルター・クロンカイトが、ダラスからのメッセージをちらりと見て、まばたきをして涙をうかべ、視聴者に、彼らのリーダーが死んだのだと伝えた当時、私はすでに、この心がつぶれるような瞬間を覚えていられるくらいの年齢だった。それ以前と同じように、新聞と雑誌はこの事件の詳細や文脈を引き出すために手を尽くした。（？）

September 11, 2001, followed a similarly grim pattern. We
watched—again and again—the awful events. Consumers of
news learned the what about the attacks, thanks to the television
networks that showed the horror so graphically. Then we
learned some of the how and why as print publications and
thoughtful broadcasters worked to bring depth to events that
defied mere words. Journalists did some of their finest work and
made me proud to be one of them.

2001年9月11日も、同じような冷酷なパターンを踏襲した。私達は、恐ろしい出来事を繰り返し見た。ニュースの消費者はこの攻撃が「何」であるか、この恐怖を非常に映像的に伝えるテレビ局によって知った。そして「どうやって」、「なぜ」を印刷メディアと、一言ではとても語りつくせない、この事件の真相を伝えようとする、思慮深いニュースキャスター経由で知った。ジャーナリストは彼らの最良の仕事をなし、その一員である私もそれを誇りに思った。

But something else, something profound, was happening
this time around: news was being produced by regular people
who had something to say and show, and not solely by the
“official” news organizations that had traditionally decided how
the first draft of history would look. This time, the first draft of
history was being written, in part, by the former audience. It
was possible—it was inevitable—because of new publishing
tools available on the Internet.

しかし、何か別の、重大なことが今回は起こっていた。伝統的に歴史の最初の一筆を描いてきていた「公的な」ニュース組織だけではなく、何か言うべきこと、見せるべきことを持つ一般の人々も、ニュースを発信したのだ。今回、歴史の最初の一筆は、部分的には、以前は視聴者であった人たちによって描かれた。それは可能であると同時に避けられないものだった。なぜなら、インターネット上で新しいパブリッシング・ツールが利用可能だったからだ。

Another kind of reporting emerged during those appalling
hours and days. Via emails, mailing lists, chat groups, personal
web journals—all nonstandard news sources—we received
valuable context that the major American media couldn’t, or
wouldn’t, provide.

この恐ろしい時間と日々のうちに、eメール、メーリングリスト、チャット、個人サイトを通じて、もうひとつの種類のリポートは次第に盛んになった。非標準的なニュースソースによって、私たちはたくさんのアメリカの主流メディアが伝えられないこと、あるいは伝えようとしないたくさんの文脈を受け取った。

We were witnessing—and in many cases were part of—the future of news.

私達はニュースの未来の目撃者であり、多くの場合そのニュースの未来の一部でもある。

Six months later came another demonstration of
tomorrow’s journalism. The stakes were far lower this time,
merely a moment of discomfort for a powerful executive. On
March 26, 2002, poor Joe Nacchio got a first-hand taste of the
future; and this time, in a small way, I helped set the table.

6ヵ月後、明日のジャーナリズムを実証するもうひとつの機会が訪れた。今回の賞金はずっと少なく，影響力のある一人の経営者が一瞬不愉快になっただけだった。2002年3月26日、かわいそうなジョー・ナッチオは未来をじかに味わったのだ。今回は、ほんの少し、私が手伝った。

Actually, Nacchio was rolling in wealth that day, when he
appeared at PC Forum, an exclusive executive conference in suburban
Phoenix. He was also, it seemed, swimming in self-pity.

実際のところ、フェニックス郊外で行われた、経営幹部のみの会議であるPCフォーラムにナッチオが出席したとき、彼はたいそう金持ちだった。彼はまた、非常にうぬぼれてもいるように見えた。

In those days Nacchio was the chief executive of regional telephone giant Qwest, a near-monopoly in its multistate marketplace.

そのころ、ナッチオはクエストという巨大な地域電話会社の代表取締役（？）で、この会社は複数の州にわたる市場で、ほとんど独占的な地位を占めていた。

At the PC Forum gathering that particular day, he was
complaining about difficulties in raising capital. Imagine:
whining about the rigors of running a monopoly, especially
when Nacchio’s own management moves had contributed to
some of the difficulties he was facing.

この日行われたPCフォーラムの集まりで、彼は、出資を集めることの難しさについて不満を述べた。想像してみよう：独占企業を経営することの厳しさを愚痴るなんて。とくにナッチオの直面していた難問のいくつかは彼自身の采配が招いたものだったというのに。

I was in the audience, reporting in something close to real
time by publishing frequent conference updates to my weblog,
an online journal of short web postings, via a wireless link the
conference had set up for attendees. So was another journalist
weblogger, Doc Searls, senior editor of Linux Journal, a software
magazine.

私は聴衆の中にいた。自分のウェブログ――ウェブへの短い文章の投稿からなるオンライン文書を、この会議が参加者向けにセットした無線LAN経由で、会議の内容をほとんどリアルタイムにレポートしていた。他のジャーナリストかつウェブログ筆者も同じだった。リナックス・ジャーナルというソフトウェア雑誌の副編集長のドク・サールズだ。

Little did we know that the morning’s events would turn
into a mini-legend in the business community. Little did I know
that the experience would expand my understanding of how
thoroughly the craft of journalism was changing.

私たちはその朝の出来事がビジネスコミュニティ内での小さな伝説になろうとは思いもしなかった。私は、その経験が、自分のジャーナリズムの成り立ちへの理解を徹底的に変えていくことになるとは全く知らなかった。

One of my posts noted Nacchio’s whining, observing that
he’d gotten seriously richer while his company was losing much
of its market value—another example of CEOs raking in the
riches while shareholders, employees, and communities got the
shaft. Seconds later I received an email from Buzz Bruggeman, a
lawyer in Florida, who was following my weblog and Searls’s
from his office in Orlando. “Ain’t America great?” Bruggeman
wrote sarcastically, attaching a hyperlink to a Yahoo! Finance
web page showing that Nacchio had cashed in more than $200
million in stock while his company’s stock price was heading
downhill. This information struck me as relevant to what I was
writing, and I immediately dropped this juicy tidbit into my
weblog, with a cyber-tip of the hat to Bruggeman. (“Thanks,
Buzz, for the link,” I wrote parenthetically.) Doc Searls did
likewise.

私のある投稿は、ナッチオが泣き言を言っているのを記録している。彼は、彼の会社が市場価値を失っているのに、非常に金持ちになっていた。これもまた、株主、従業員、コミュニティがひどいめにあっているのにぼろもうけしているCEOの例だ。
すぐ後、私は、フロリダの弁護士、バズ・ブルージマンからメールを受け取った。彼は私とサールズのウェブログを見て、オーランドにある彼のオフィスから追加情報をくれたのだ。「アメリカってすごくない？」ブルージマンは皮肉っぽく書いていた。そこにはYahoo! Financeのウェブページへのリンクがあり、ナッチオは彼の会社の株価が下がっているときに、2億ドル（？？）相当の株を現金化していた。この情報が、いま私が書いていることと関係あることに気づき、私はすぐにこの面白いニュースを私のウェブログに書いた。ブルージマンには、電子的なチップを渡した（バズ、リンクの紹介をありがとう、と、私は補足的に書いた）。ドク・サールズも同じようなことをした。

“Around that point, the audience turned hostile,” wrote
Esther Dyson, whose company, Edventure Holdings, held the
conference.1 Did Doc and I play a role? Apparently. Many
people in the luxury hotel ballroom—perhaps half of the executives,
financiers, entrepreneurs, and journalists—were also
online that morning. And at least some of them were amusing
themselves by following what Doc and I were writing. During
the remainder of Nacchio’s session, there was a perceptible chill
toward the man. Dyson, an investor and author, said later she
was certain that our weblogs helped create that chill.2 She called
the blogging “a second conference occurring around, through,
and across the first.”

「その瞬間から、聴衆は敵意を持つようになった」この会議を開いた、エドベンチャー・ホールディングスのエスター・ダイソンはそう書いている。ドクと私はそれに関与したのだろうか？明らかにそうだ。贅沢なホテルの会議場で、およそ半分の重役たち、金融業界人、起業家、そしてジャーナリストたちはその朝、オンラインだった。そのうち少なくとも何人かは、ドクと私の書く内容を読んで楽しんでいた。ナッチオの残りの発表時間には、明らかにそれとわかるくらいの彼に対する敵意があった。のちに、作家であり発明家でもあるダイソンは、この敵意にみちた空気を作ったのは、確かに私たちのウェブログだったと言った。彼女はブログを「第一の会議を通り抜けたり、横切ったり、周りで動いている第二の会議」と呼んだ。

Why am I telling this story? This was not an earth-shaking
event, after all. For me, however, it was a tipping point.
Consider the sequence of news flow: a feedback loop that
started in an Arizona conference session, zipped to Orlando,
came back to Arizona and ultimately went global. In a world of
satellite communications and fiber optics, real-time journalism is
routine; but now we journalists had added the expertise of the
audience.

私はなぜこの話をしているのだろうか？結局のところ、これは世界を震撼させる事件というわけではない。しかし私にとっては、最高のきっかけになった。ニュースの流れを考えてみよう。アリゾナの会議場からはじまり、オーランドへ送られ、アリゾナに戻ってきて最終的には世界中へ流れるフィードバックの流れだ。衛星放送を光ファイバーの世界で、リアルタイムのジャーナリズムは日課だ。しかし、私たちジャーナリストは付加価値をつけて視聴者に伝えることができる。

Those forces had lessons for everyone involved, including
the “newsmaker”—Nacchio—who had to deal with new pressures
on the always edgy, sometimes adversarial relationship
between journalists and the people we cover. Nacchio didn’t
lose his job because we poked at his arrogance; he lost it, in the
end, because he did an inadequate job as CEO. But he got a
tiny, if unwelcome, taste of journalism’s future that morning.

これに関わった、「ニュースメーカー」ナッチオを含む、全ての人に教訓が残された。ナッチオはいつもプレッシャーと戦っている。ジャーナリストと私たちが情報を伝える人々との広報関連（？？）
ナッチオは、我々が彼の傲慢さを指摘したあとも職を失いはしなかった。最終的には彼は失職したが、それは彼がCEOにふさわしくないことをしたからだ。しかし彼はその朝、ジャーナリズムの未来を、いやな出来事ではあったろうが、少しだけ味わうことになった。

The person in our little story who tasted journalism’s future
most profoundly, I believe, was neither the professional reporter
nor the newsmaker, but Bruggeman. In an earlier time, before
technology had collided so violently with journalism, he’d been
a member of an audience. Now, he’d received news about an
event without waiting for the traditional coverage to arrive via
newspapers or magazines, or even web sites. And now he’d
become part of the journalistic process himself—a citizen
reporter whose knowledge and quick thinking helped inform my
own journalism in a timely way.

この小さな物語で、ジャーナリズムの未来を一番多く味わったのは、プロのリポーターでもなく、ニュースメーカーでもなく、ブルージマンだった。もっと昔、技術とジャーナリズムがこんな風に荒々しくぶつかる前は、彼は視聴者の一人だった。現在、彼は新聞や雑誌、それどころかウェブサイトのような伝統的な方法で、ニュースを受け取るまで待っている必要はない。そしていまや、彼自身がニュースを生産するプロセスの一部になった。その知識とすばやいアイデアが、私のジャーナリズムをいいタイミングで助けてくれた、市民レポーターとなったのだ。

Bruggeman was no longer just a consumer. He was a producer. He was making the news.

ブルージマンはもはや単なる視聴者ではなかった。彼自身がニュースを生み出していた。

This book is about journalism’s transformation from a 20th
century mass-media structure to something profoundly more
grassroots and democratic. It’s a story, first, of evolutionary
change. Humans have always told each other stories, and each
new era of progress has led to an expansion of storytelling.

これは、20世紀のマスメディアの構造が、根本的に草の根的に、民主的に変わっていくというジャーナリズムの変容についての本だ。これは進化についての話だ。人類はずっと、お互いに物語を語り続けてきたが、時代ごとに物語を

This is also a story of a modern revolution, however,
because technology has given us a communications toolkit that
allows anyone to become a journalist at little cost and, in
theory, with global reach. Nothing like this has ever been
remotely possible before.

In the 20th century, making the news was almost entirely the
province of journalists; the people we covered, or “newsmakers”;
and the legions of public relations and marketing
people who manipulated everyone. The economics of publishing
and broadcasting created large, arrogant institutions—call it Big
Media, though even small-town newspapers and broadcasters
exhibit some of the phenomenon’s worst symptoms.

Big Media, in any event, treated the news as a lecture. We
told you what the news was. You bought it, or you didn’t. You
might write us a letter; we might print it. (If we were television
and you complained, we ignored you entirely unless the complaint
arrived on a libel lawyer’s letterhead.) Or you cancelled
your subscription or stopped watching our shows. It was a
world that bred complacency and arrogance on our part. It was
a gravy train while it lasted, but it was unsustainable.

Tomorrow’s news reporting and production will be more of
a conversation, or a seminar. The lines will blur between producers
and consumers, changing the role of both in ways we’re
only beginning to grasp now. The communication network itself
will be a medium for everyone’s voice, not just the few who can
afford to buy multimillion-dollar printing presses, launch satellites,
or win the government’s permission to squat on the
public’s airwaves.

This evolution—from journalism as lecture to journalism as
a conversation or seminar—will force the various communities
of interest to adapt. Everyone, from journalists to the people we
cover to our sources and the former audience, must change their
ways. The alternative is just more of the same.

We can’t afford more of the same. We can’t afford to treat
the news solely as a commodity, largely controlled by big institutions.
We can’t afford, as a society, to limit our choices. We
can’t even afford it financially, because Wall Street’s demands
on Big Media are dumbing down the product itself.

There are three major constituencies in a world where
anyone can make the news. Once largely distinct, they’re now
blurring into each other.

Journalists

　　We will learn we are part of something new, that our
　　readers/listeners/viewers are becoming part of the process. I
　　take it for granted, for example, that my readers know more
　　than I do—and this is a liberating, not threatening, fact of
　　journalistic life. Every reporter on every beat should
　　embrace this. We will use the tools of grassroots journalism
　　or be consigned to history. Our core values, including accuracy
　　and fairness, will remain important, and we’ll still be
　　gatekeepers in some ways, but our ability to shape larger
　　conversations—and to provide context—will be at least as
　　important as our ability to gather facts and report them.

Newsmakers

　　The rich and powerful are discovering new vulnerabilities,
　　as Nacchio learned. Moreover, when anyone can be a journalist,
　　many talented people will try—and they’ll find things
　　the professionals miss. Politicians and business people are
　　learning this every day. But newsmakers also have new
　　ways to get out their message, using the same technologies
　　the grassroots adopts. Howard Dean’s presidential campaign
　　failed, but his methods will be studied and emulated
　　because of the way his campaign used new tools to engage
　　his supporters in a conversation. The people at the edges of
　　the communications and social networks can be a newsmaker’s
　　harshest, most effective critics. But they can also be
　　the most fervent and valuable allies, offering ideas to each
　　other and to the newsmaker as well.

The former audience

　　Once mere consumers of news, the audience is learning how
　　to get a better, timelier report. It’s also learning how to join
　　the process of journalism, helping to create a massive conversation
　　and, in some cases, doing a better job than the
　　professionals. For example, Glenn Reynolds, a.k.a. “Instapundit,”
　　is not just one of the most popular webloggers; he
　　has amassed considerable influence in the process. Some
　　grassroots journalists will become professionals. In the end,
　　we’ll have more voices and more options.

I’ve been in professional journalism for almost 25 years. I’m
grateful for the opportunities I’ve had, and the position I hold. I
respect and admire my colleagues, and believe that Big Media
does a superb job in many cases. But I’m absolutely certain that
the journalism industry’s modern structure has fostered a dangerous
conservatism—from a business sense more than a political
sense, though both are apparent—that threatens our future.

Our resistance to change, some of it caused by financial concerns,
has wounded the journalism we practice and has made us
nearly blind to tomorrow’s realities.

Our worst enemy may be ourselves. Corporate journalism,
which dominates today, is squeezing quality to boost profits in
the short term. Perversely, such tactics are ultimately likely to
undermine us.

Big Media enjoys high margins. Daily newspapers in typically
quasi-monopoly markets make 25–30 percent or more in
good years. Local TV stations can boast margins north of 50
percent. For Wall Street, however, no margin is sufficiently rich,
and next year’s profits must be higher still. This has led to a hollowing-
out syndrome: newspaper publishers and broadcasting
station managers have realized they can cut the amount and
quality of journalism, at least for a while, in order to raise
profits. In case after case, the demands of Wall Street and the
greed of investors have subsumed the “public trust” part of
journalism. I don’t believe the First Amendment, which gives
journalists valuable leeway to inquire and publish, was designed
with corporate profits in mind. While we haven’t become a
wholly cynical business yet, the trend is scary.

Consolidation makes it even more worrisome. Media companies
are merging to create ever larger information and entertainment
conglomerates. In too many cases, serious journalism—
and the public trust—continue to be victims. All of this
leaves a journalistic opening, and new journalists—especially
citizen journalists—are filling the gap.

Meanwhile, even as greed and consolidation take their toll,
those historically high margins are under attack. Newspapers,
for example, have two main revenue streams. The smaller by far
comes from circulation: readers who pay to have the paper
delivered at home or buy it from a newsstand. The larger is
advertising, from employment classifieds to retail display ads,
and every one of those ad revenue streams is under attack from
competitors like eBay and craigslist, which can happily live on
lower margins (or, as in the case of eBay, the world’s largest
classified-advertising site, establish a new monopoly) and don’t
care at all about journalism.

In the long term, I can easily imagine an unraveling of the
business model that has rewarded me so well, and—despite the
effect of excessive greed in too many executive suites—has managed
to serve the public respectably in vital ways. Who will do
big investigative projects, backed by deep pockets and the ability
to pay expensive lawyers when powerful interests try to punish
those who exposed them, if the business model collapses? Who
would have exposed the Watergate crimes in the absence of powerful
publishers, especially The Washington Post’s Katharine
Graham, who had the financial and moral fortitude to stand up
to Richard Nixon and his henchmen. At a more prosaic level,
who will serve, for better or worse, as a principal voice of a community
or region? Flawed as we may be in the business of journalism,
anarchy in news is not my idea of a solution.

A world of news anarchy would be one in which the big,
credible voices of today were undermined by a combination of
forces, including the financial ones I just described. There would
be no business model to support the institutional journalism
that, for all its problems, does perform a public service. Credibility
matters. People need, and want, trusted sources—and
those sources have been, for the most part, serious journalists.
Instead of journalism organizations with the critical mass to
fight the good fights, we may be left with the equivalent of
countless pamphleteers and people shouting from soapboxes.
We need something better.

Happily, the anarchy scenario doesn’t strike me as probable,
in part because there will always be a demand for credible
news and context. Also possible, though I hope equally unlikely,
is a world of information lockdown. The forces of central control
are not sitting quietly in the face of challenges to their
authority.

In this scenario, we could witness an unholy alliance
between the entertainment industry—what I call the “copyright
cartel”—and government. Governments are very uneasy about
the free flow of information, and allow it only to a point. Legal
clampdowns and technological measures to prevent copyright
infringement could bring a day when we need permission to
publish, or when publishing from the edge feels too risky. The
cartel has targeted some of the essential innovations of
tomorrow’s news, such as the peer-to-peer file sharing that does
make infringement easier but also gives citizen journalists one of
the only affordable ways to distribute what they create. Governments
insist on the right to track everything we do, but more
and more politicians and bureaucrats shut off access to what the
public needs to know—information that increasingly surfaces
through the efforts of nontraditional media.

In short, we cannot just assume that self-publishing from
the edges of our networks—the grassroots journalism we need
so desperately—will survive, much less thrive. We will need to
defend it, with the same vigor we defend other liberties.

Instead of a news anarchy or lockdown, I seek a balance
that simultaneously preserves the best of today’s system and
encourages tomorrow’s emergent, self-assembling journalism. In
the following pages, I hope to make the case that it’s not just
necessary, and perhaps inevitable, but also eminently workable
for all of us.

It won’t be immediately workable for the people who
already get so little attention from Big Media. Today, citizen
journalism is mostly the province of what my friend and former
newspaper editor Tom Stites calls “a rather narrow and very
privileged slice of the polity—those who are educated enough to
take part in the wired conversation, who have the technical
skills, and who are affluent enough to have the time and equipment.”

These are the very same people we’re leaving behind in
our Brave New Economy. They are everyday people, buffeted by
change, and outside the conversation. To our discredit, we have
not listened to them as well as we should.

The rise of the citizen journalist will help us listen. The
ability of anyone to make the news will give new voice to people
who’ve felt voiceless—and whose words we need to hear. They
are showing all of us—citizen, journalist, newsmaker—new
ways of talking, of learning.

In the end, they may help spark a renaissance of the notion,
now threatened, of a truly informed citizenry. Self-government
demands no less, and we’ll all benefit if we do it right.
Let’s have this conversation, for everyone’s sake.