In China
Press, Best Coverage Cash Can Buy
纽约时报
SHANGHAI — China is notorious for censoring politically delicate news coverage. But
it is more than willing to let flattering news about Western and
Asian businesses appear in print and broadcast media — if the price
is right.
上海 -
中国以新闻报道的政治审查细微而臭名昭著,但是如果价格合适的话,它是更愿意让关于西方和亚洲企业的奉承新闻出现在印刷和广播媒体。
“Corruption has become a
lifestyle,” in China said Sun Xupei, a journalism fellow who writes
about ethics.
在中国腐败已经成为一种生活方式,评论记者孙徐沛说。
Want a profile of your chief executive to appear
in the Chinese version of Esquire? That will be about $20,000 a
page, according to the advertising department of the magazine,
which has a licensing agreement with the Hearst Corporation in the
United States.
想让你的行政长官的个人资料出现在中国版的《时尚先生》吗?根据该杂志的广告部门,这大约需要约20,000美元一页,这与在美国的赫斯特公司有一个许可协议。
Need to get your top executive on a news program
by state-run China Central Television? Pay $4,000 a minute, says a
network consultant who arranges such appearances.
你的高层管理人员需要在由国营的中国中央电视台新闻节目亮相,支付4,000美元一分钟,一位负责网络安排亮相顾问说。
A flattering article about your company in
Workers’ Daily, the Communist Party’s propaganda newspaper? About
$1 per Chinese character, the paper’s advertising agent
said.
该报纸的广告代理说,如果想要在工人日报,这个宣传共产党的报纸中出现奉承贵公司的文章,价位是中国汉字一字1美元左右。
Though Chinese laws and regulations ban paid
promotional material that is not labeled as such, the practice is
so widespread that many publications and broadcasters even have
rate cards listing news-for-sale prices.
尽管中国的法律法规禁止发布刊登未标明的有偿宣传性报道,但实际上这种形式的宣传却相当广泛,以至于许多出版物及广播电台甚至还有标明新闻发售价格的价目牌。
And while Western companies and many Chinese
journalists are loath to discuss the subject, public relations and
advertising firms are sometimes surprisingly candid about their
roles as brokers in buying flattering coverage, referred to here as
“soft news” or “paid news.”
然而西方国家的公司和许多中国记者都不愿意讨论这个问题,公共关系和广告公司却有时令人惊讶的坦率承认他们作为购买奉承新闻的经纪人的角色,这里被称为“软新闻”或有偿新闻。
Ogilvy & Mather, one of the
world’s biggest public relations and advertising agencies,
acknowledged that it pays Chinese media outlets for client coverage
in some categories.
奥美,世界上最大的公共关系和广告公司之一,承认它在一些方面的客户覆盖上使用了给中国媒体付钱的方式。
“Our policy is to advise our clients to not
participate in such activities,” the agency’s Beijing office wrote
in an e-mail, in response to a reporter’s questions. “However, in
some industries, such as luxury, the practice of soft news
placements is very common so this is something that we have also
done before.”
“我们公司的政策是不建议客户参与到这些有偿报道的活动中去,”针对本文作者的提问,奥美公司北京办公室的电子邮件回应到。“然而,在某些行业,如奢侈品,有偿报道的做法是很常见的,所以这我们也做过的”
A Chinese account manager for another American
public relations firm was strikingly frank about paying for
coverage, although she spoke only on condition of anonymity to
avoid riling her industry colleagues and her employer.
另一家美国公关公司的一个中国客户经理惊人坦率地谈起有偿报道,以避免激怒她的业界同仁和她的雇主,她不愿透露姓名。
“If you want more media coverage, that’s easy to
do — we have plenty of channels to get your company shown on
television, and in top magazines and newspapers,” she said in a
telephone interview.
“如果你想更多的媒体报道,这很容易做到 -
我们有足够的渠道让贵公司在电视上出现,在顶级杂志和报纸,”她在接受电话采访时说。
Media specialists, and Chinese journalists intent
on playing by ethical rules, deplore the paid placements they say
are all too common in the nation’s media.
媒体专家和那些想要按照行业道德规范行事的中国记者们,对国内普遍的付费报道行为很是厌恶。
“Corruption has become a
lifestyle in today’s China,” said Sun Xupei, a journalism fellow at
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. “But when it
happens in journalism it’s even worse than other fields, because
people feel there’s nothing they can really trust.”
“腐败已经成为一种生活方式在今天的中国,”在北京中国社会科学科学院的新闻研究员孙徐沛说。
“但是,当它发生在新闻届比其他领域更严重,因为人们觉得没有什么是他们可以真正信任的了。
Executives at the Chinese language version of
Esquire magazine say they regularly publish soft news features that
are essentially ads masquerading as news.
中文版《时尚先生》杂志的管理人员承认,他们经常登载软文,也就是将一些本质上是广告的内容做成新闻特写类的文章。
One example was a feature about a European audio
company, Bang & Olufsen, that supplies equipment to
Audi, the automaker. Nothing in the magazine indicated that the
Chinese Esquire had been paid to run it.
一个例子就是为欧洲的一个音响公司,汽车制造商奥迪提供的设备的Bang&Olufsen做广告,但是在杂志上没有任何迹象表明中国时尚先生已收费。
But the magazine received at least $10,000 a page
for the five-page feature, according to the publication’s
executives, who e-mailed images of it as an example of the paid
genre. They, and others who helped produce the article, said Audi
was involved in the payment. A spokesman in China for Audi declined
to comment. Cheryl Sim, a Bang & Olufsen
spokeswoman in the company’s Singapore office, said it was not the
company’s practice to pay for news coverage. “We certainly did not
pay in this Esquire case,” she said. “But we’ll look into the
matter.” The Hearst Corporation declined to comment.
该杂志的管理人员将这篇报道的图片发给我们作为付费报道的一个样板,指出这则长达五页纸的特写文章收费至少每页1万美元。他们,以及其他一些促成这则报道的中间人,都说奥迪公司支付了这笔费用。奥迪公司的一位中国发言人拒绝对此置评。Bang&Olufsen公司新加坡办公室的女发言人Cheryl
Sim则表示付费报道不是他们的公司行为。“我们肯定没有为这篇《时尚先生》的报道付费,”她说。“不过我们会对此进行调查。”赫斯特国际集团也拒绝置评。
Not all business and company profiles in Chinese
media are planted and paid for, of course. But even when they are
not, Chinese media organizations often have much laxer rules than
many mainstream Western journalists for accepting payments from
sources for news coverage.
并非所有业务在中国的媒体和公司广告植入和付费报道,即这样,中国传媒机构往往在接受新闻来源付费的事情上比其他西方的媒体要宽松很多。
The highly regarded Chinese newspaper, 21st
Century Business Herald, which is better known for its
investigative reporting, recently ran an interview with Christophe
Navarre, chief executive of the French wine and spirits maker Moët
Hennessy.
评价颇高的报纸,《21世纪经济报道》擅长做调查报告新闻,最近记者采访了法国葡萄酒和烈酒生产商酩悦轩尼诗的首席执行官克里斯托夫。
The article appeared after the company, with the
help of Ruder Finn, an American public relations firm, agreed to
pay the airfare, lodging and food costs for nine journalists,
including one from the 21st Century paper, to visit Moët Hennessy’s
chateau in western China. Of the media organizations that rode
along, only the international news agency Reuters paid its own
travel and other costs, Ruder Finn said.
报道文章出现之后,,酩悦·轩尼诗在美国公关公司罗德(Ruder
Finn)的帮助之下,同意支付九名记者的飞机票、住宿和饮食费用,安排他们去公司在中国西部的庄园参观,这其中就包括一位《21世纪经济报道》的记者。罗德公司说,同行的多家媒体机构之中,只有国际新闻社路透社自己支付了差旅和其他费用。
Moët Hennessy and Ruder Finn, however, insist
they did not make any other payments to entice coverage. “Although
we know it’s a normal practice in China, we never pay the media,”
said Jean-Michel Dumont, chairman of Ruder Finn Asia.
然而,酩悦轩尼诗和罗德坚持他们没有做出任何支付以吸引媒体,“虽然我们知道这是一个正常的做法在中国,但是从来不付钱的媒体,”罗德公关亚洲区主席让
- 米歇尔·杜蒙说。
China is not alone in bending boundaries. Media
outlets in Europe, Japan, the Philippines, Latin America and even
the United States may venture into various gray areas, encouraging
companies to pay for journalists’ travel or underwriting favorable
reporting or agreeing to take out advertising packages in exchange
for coverage. (Mainstream American journalism ethics, including the
ground rules of The New York Times, prohibit such
practices.)
中国并不是唯一媒体底线可以去妥协的地方。欧洲、日本、菲律宾、拉丁美洲,甚至美国的一些媒体机构都可能涉足一些灰色地带:鼓励商业公司支付记者的差旅费,对正面报道待价而沽,或者用广告合同来交换报道版面等。(主流美国媒体的道德规范中,包括《纽约时报》自身的基本规则,是禁止这些行为的。)
But media specialists say nowhere are such quid
pro quos as common and as aggressively pursued as in China — to the
frustration of Chinese business executives.
不过,媒体专家们说,没有一个国家象中国这样,如此普遍如此热衷于有偿报道。这让中国的商业管理者们非常沮丧。
“If one of my companies came up with a cure for
cancer, I still couldn’t get any journalists to come to the press
conference without promising them a huge envelope filled with
cash,” said one Shanghai-based private
equity investor, insisting that he not
to be named because he feared journalists would boycott covering
his companies altogether.
“假定我旗下的某家公司发现了治愈癌症的方法,如果我不给记者准备一个装满现金的大红包的话,我都不可能找到愿意来参加新闻发布会的人,”一位在上海的私募投资人说。他坚持要求匿名引用,因为担心记者们会集体抵制报道他的公司。
Six big American companies that operate in China,
including Ford and General Motors, declined to comment for this
article about the Chinese practice of paying for coverage. So did
the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, which represents many
of the biggest United States companies operating in China. None of
the six companies have been accused of making the
payments.
写作本文时,有六家在中国运营的大型美国企业拒绝针对中国媒体的有偿报道行为进行评论,其中包括福特(Ford)和通用汽车(General
Motors)。上海美国商会(American Chamber of Commerce in
Shanghai)亦不予置评,他们代表了很多在华运营的最大型的美国企业。上述六家公司都没有因付费新闻而被指控过。
If American multinationals made off-the-books
payments directly to Chinese reporters, editors or producers,
rather than simply buying space or air time through media agencies,
the American companies could be at risk of violating the United
States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The law prohibits people
working for American companies that operate abroad from paying
bribes or making corrupt payments to foreign officials to obtain or
keep business or obtain other business advantages.
如果美国的跨国企业通过账外的方式付钱给中国的记者、编辑或出版商,而不是直接通过媒体代理机构购买报章杂志版面或广播电视时段,这些美国企业就可能面临违反《美国反海外腐败法》(United
States Foreign Corrupt Practices
Act)的风险。该法案禁止海外经营的美国公司的员工对外国官员行贿或为其支付腐败款项,以获得或保全业务,或者获取其他商业利益。
It is unclear whether any Americans have been
prosecuted on suspicion of paying journalists in China or
elsewhere.
是否有美国人因为在中国或其他地区支付款项给记者的嫌疑而依照该法被起诉?这一点尚不明朗。
“Journalists are considered government officials
because generally all the press is government-controlled in China,”
said Lesli Ligorner, a Shanghai-based lawyer at Simmons
& Simmons, an international law firm. “So making an
illicit payment to a journalist would be an F.C.P.A.
violation.”
“在中国,记者被认为是政府官员,因为基本上所有媒体都是政府主管的,”在国际律师事务所西蒙斯(Simmons
& Simmons)上海办公室执业的律师Lesli
Ligorner说。“所以非法支付给记者应该是违反了《反海外腐败法》的。”
Such payments also violate Chinese law. China’s
propaganda authorities prohibit news outlets and journalists from
accepting payments to cover news conferences or to publish news.
Accepting secret payments can also be prosecuted under the nation’s
laws against bribery, and some cases have been. Convictions can
result in prison sentences.
这种付款也违反了中国法律。中国的宣传部门禁止新闻媒体和记者,从接受付款,包括新闻发布会或发布新闻。接受秘密付款,也可根据国家的法律起诉反对行贿,某些情况下已经。信念会导致在监狱服刑。
But so much money is sloshing around, analysts
say, that enforcement is rare in China. Instead, the government
occasionally issues general warnings, which go widely
ignored.
不过,分析人员指出,有太多的钱满天飞,而中国的执法并不力。政府偶尔出台一些一般性的警告,通常都被忽略。
Newspaper and magazine advertising departments
continue to openly discuss their rates — even when a researcher
making inquiries identifies herself as working for The New York
Times.
报纸杂志的广告部门继续公开谈论他们有偿新闻的费率,即便本文的一位研究人员咨询的时候表明了自己为《纽约时报》工作的身份。
“If your company’s boss wants
to be shown twice, in an audience seat, for a total of five
seconds, the average price is $5,000 on some popular news
programs,” said Wang Limin, an account manager at Yashi Media, a
Beijing agency that helps companies obtain coverage in print and
broadcast media.
“如果你们公司老板,想在受欢迎的新闻节目里露两次脸,坐观众席,总共五秒钟,那么平均费用是5000美元,”Yashi
Media的客户经理王利民(音)说。这家北京的机构帮助商业公司获取纸媒和电视的报道版面。
“If your boss wants to comment on something brief
and we shoot him in a news program for 15 seconds, it would be
$9,000. And if your boss wants an exclusive interview for 10
minutes, the rate is much higher.”
“如果老板想发表简短评论的话,我们给他在新闻里露脸15秒,价格是9000美元。如果老板想来个10分钟的独家访问,价格就高多了。
据财新网
(宋晓凯对此文亦有贡献)
高价发“软文” 收取“车马费”
用批评报道换广告

《纽约时报》网站截图
《纽约时报》4月4日刊登的一篇并不复杂的报道,在大洋彼岸的中国激起了感情复杂的关注。
报道中最受瞩目的,是一串“指名道姓”的媒体报价:在中国,想在某时尚杂志上刊登公司高层的个人特辑,价格是每个页面20000美元;想让公司高层出现在某大型电视台,要价是4000美元一分钟;而如果让某国家级媒体刊登宣传文章,他们的广告部会按每个汉字一美元的价格收费……总之,正如这篇报道标题所言,“在中国,现金可以买报道”。
“在如今的中国,腐败已经成为了一种生活方式。”报道中援引一位中国社会科学研究院新闻研究员的话说。
《纽约时报》形容说,“没有哪个地方,像中国这样如此普遍、如此积极地进行有偿报道”
报道成为如此明码标价的买卖,对于将新闻视为“第四种权力”的西方社会而言,是相当严重的“腐败”问题。
美国一家专门讨论公关运作的网站PRWeek上,就有作者评论说,这篇报道涉及的那些机构中,只有奥美公司——世界最大的公关和广告公司之一,直率地承认他们会支付费用,以换取中国媒体对他们公司客户的报道,“你可以形容说这是一种勇敢,但也许就是幼稚”。
《纽约时报》这篇报道列举了一系列新闻媒体的“腐败”事例。登载“软文”是其中的一项。报道中提到了另一位并不愿透露姓名的美国公关公司在中国的客户经理,她的话颇为直接:“如果想要媒体来报道你,那非常简单。我们有许多渠道让你的公司出现在电视、顶级杂志和报纸上。”
例如某时尚杂志中文版上一篇关于某欧洲影音公司的特稿,据称每一页的收费最少一万美元,而杂志上没有任何标识说明这是付费刊登的报道。
此外,给记者提供红包的行为也很普遍,以至于一位坚持要求匿名的在上海的私募投资人,向《纽约时报》表示,他相信即便旗下有公司发现了治愈癌症的方法,如果不准备好红包,也别指望能找到愿意去参加新闻发布会的记者。
《纽约时报》对此形容说,“没有哪个地方,像中国这样如此普遍、如此积极地进行有偿报道。”
另一点备受争议的,则是中国媒体在报道中接受的各种由新闻来源方提供的好处,比如差旅费,或是一份广告合同。这些影响新闻独立的手段并非中国独有,但《纽约时报》的报道行文至此,特意指出说,“至少对美国主流新闻媒体而言,这些行为是被禁止的。”
美国公关网站上的评论文章也证实了这一点。虽然这位作者是带着微微有些调侃的口气,评价该国主流媒体那种老古董似的自诩:“这倒是非常真实的,可怜的《时代》周刊记者连一顿免费午餐或者饮料都不能接受。”
《金融时报》注意到,中国传媒业从未严格禁止记者收钱,在一定程度上是出于压低记者薪资的需要,在印度和印尼等其他发展中经济体,也有类似情况
《纽约时报》并非第一个关注这些问题的西方媒体。早在2007年,英国《金融时报》就发表过一篇讨论中国记者职业伦理的报道。
与《纽约时报》不同,这篇报道主要集中于中国记者收受的“车马费”,而且报道中还提到了中国媒体另一种更主动的“腐败”方式——一家地产杂志刊登了关于某物业公司的批评报道,然后要求该公司以广告来交换不发表第二篇批评报道的机会。
这些西方媒体也试图在报道中,厘清这个新闻伦理问题中的法律责任:在中国,为新闻发布会或报道收取费用是违法的。一名律师也告诉《纽约时报》,由于在中国许多记者有着“干部”的身份,根据美国法律,这些机构在中国付款给记者的行为,违反了《反海外腐败法》。
但当这些法规面对中国现实,似乎都没起到什么作用。即便面对公开了身份的《纽约时报》记者,北京一家传媒公司的客户经理还是直白地讨论着价格:“如果你们老板想在受欢迎的电视节目上露两次脸,5秒钟,平均价格是5000美元……15秒的价格是9000美元,10分钟的独家专访,就更贵了。”
《金融时报》记者注意到,中国传媒业从未严格禁止记者收钱,在一定程度上是出于压低记者薪资的需要,在印度和印度尼西亚等其他发展中经济体,也有类似情况。
他们并非惟一意识到美国标准与中国国情之间差距的媒体人。PRWeek网站上的那篇评论,主要就是持这样的观点:即便是在美国这样成熟和发达的市场上,类似记者能接受多少来自新闻源好处的公关问题,也一样处在迷局中。美国也在呼唤一种管理媒体的新方式,更别说像中国这样的发展中国家了。
事实上,这篇在评论中调侃《时代》周刊记者的作者,并非想对其致敬。正相反,他自述从《纽约时报》的这篇报道中,感受到了“些微的虚伪与自命不凡”。
他说,没错,美国主流媒体不会堂而皇之地做付费报道,但是,可不要忘了去年夏天在新闻集团的电话窃听丑闻爆发时,同属默多克集团的《华尔街日报》是如何发表大量辩护社论的。
报道刊发后,引发中国媒体从业人员在微博上进行各种讨论
西方媒体并非只曝光在中国发生的有悖新闻伦理的行为,《金融时报》在2010年曾发表一篇长篇报道,讨论西方媒体的潜规则:关于西方媒体是如何被公关公司影响的。
那篇报道中讨论的主要问题是,公关公司有时会捏造一些有意思的调查数据或是投票统计,吸引媒体上钩。比如报道全国人民最喜欢的圣诞午餐,其实是为消费者调查公司做宣传;报道全国人民最喜欢看的书,实际上起到了为书商宣传的作用;老年人拥有的存款越来越少的新闻,实则在为银行做宣传……报道批评说,媒体常引用一些研究机构的数据,却很少注意其背后的资金来源,使得公关公司有机会创造新闻。
显然,西方媒体的标准,要比中国同行严格得多。
因此,不出意外地,当《纽约时报》这样的西方媒体,用一种复杂心情看着中国新闻界时,这个古老东方国度里的新闻同行们,也在用着类似的情感与其对视。
《纽约时报》报道发布后不久,时尚界与出版界名人洪晃便在微博上引用了这篇报道,并评论说,给《纽约时报》写东西“费劲死了”,要出处,要核实。
曾任谷歌中国区总裁的李开复则注意到,这篇报道中举出的,都是外国公司来到中国后“入境随俗”的例子。
关于这篇报道的微博也在媒体人中广泛流传,引发各种讨论。有许多记者对曾收过的红包表达了后悔或者反思,《南方都市报》的一位记者则认为,“车马费”是否改变报道立场,才是关键。
许多人在讨论中,提及同属中国的香港媒体在从事报道活动时的自律表现:他们不收红包。而在此前有关广东乌坎的报道时,香港《明报》与《南华早报》是按照每天50~100元的标准,付费给招待他们食宿的村民。
也有媒体从业人员指出,《纽约时报》报道中不愿具名投资人“即便发现了治愈癌症的方法,也不能找到愿意来参加新闻发布会的记者”的说法,过于夸张,他相信国内新闻人尚有对新闻价值的基本判断。
但中山大学传媒学院副教授张志安的微博,或许是这些讨论中对未来最存希望的声音了:在引用了《纽约时报》的报道之后,他发了一条《新闻界自净具体倡议》,号召媒体避免广告新闻,拒绝现金馈赠。“充分了解现实之残酷,但仍存改变现实的希望。”他在微博中这样说道。
《 青年参考
》(2012年04月11日 28 版)