紐時賞析／時代的眼淚！ MTV新聞停播

How MTV Broke News for a Generation

時代的眼淚！ MTV新聞停播

A little over a year into his first term, President Bill Clinton made good on a promise to return to MTV if young voters sent him to the White House.

進入他的第一個任期一年多一點的時候，柯林頓總統兌現了承諾，只要年輕選民送他進白宮，就會重返MTV。

Now, a generation after MTV News bridged the gap between news and pop culture, Paramount, the network’s parent company, announced last week that it was shuttering the news service.

如今，MTV News彌合新聞與流行文化隔閡的一個世代後，電視網的母公司派拉蒙上周宣布要關閉新聞服務。

The end of MTV’s news operation is part of a 25% reduction in Paramount’s staff, Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks, said in an email to staff that was shared with The New York Times.

Showtime/MTV娛樂工作室與派拉蒙媒體網總裁兼執行長麥卡錫，在一封被分享給紐約時報的致工作人員電郵表示，MTV News結束營運是派拉蒙裁員25%的一部分。

MTV News and its cadre of anchors and video journalists were the ones to tell young people about the suicide of Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and the killings of the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. They brought viewers on the presidential campaign trail. They also embraced the messy chaos of 1990s and early 2000s celebrity. They always put music first.

MTV News跟它的主播與影像記者，告知年輕人「超脫」合唱團主唱寇特．柯本輕生及饒舌歌手「聲名狼藉先生」和吐派克命案。他們將觀眾帶到總統競選活動，他們也接受1990年代與2000年代早期名人的放浪形骸。他們始終把音樂放在第一位。

Through it all, MTV News never strayed from its core mission of centering the conversation around young people.

一路走來，MTV News從來沒有背離它讓對話圍繞著年輕人的核心使命。

MTV News broke up the television news environment “in terms of young versus old, hip versus square,” rather than the conservative-versus-liberal approach of many cable news networks today, said Robert Thompson, a professor of television and pop culture at Syracuse University. Its influence can be seen in the work of Vice News, the brash digital-media disrupter, and in the hand-held camcorder style of reporting that some CNN journalists have embraced.

雪城大學電視與流行文化教授湯普森說，MTV News「在年輕對年老、時尚對守舊方面」打破了電視新聞環境，而非今日許多有線電視網的保守派對自由派態度。其影響力可見於特立獨行的數位媒體顛覆者Vice News作業，以及一些CNN記者採納的手持攝影機報導風格。

The Music Television network debuted in 1981 like a “fuse that lit the cable revolution,” Thompson said. Six years later, MTV News came on air under the deep, sure-footed voice of Kurt Loder, a former Rolling Stone editor, who co-hosted a weekly news program called “The Week in Rock.”

湯普森說，MTV電視網在1981年首播，就像「點燃有線電視革命的導火線」。6年後，在庫特．洛德深沉、踏實聲音下，MTV News開始播送。洛德是「滾石」雜誌前總編輯，共同主持名為「搖滾一周」的每周新聞節目。

But it was his interrupting-regular-programming announcement of Cobain’s death in 1994 that cemented Loder as “the poet laureate of Gen X,” Thompson said.

湯普森說，洛德在1994年中斷日常節目宣布了柯本死訊，鞏固他做為「X世代桂冠詩人」的地位。

MTV News tried to set itself apart from other cable news operations in a number of ways, Loder said. MTV News anchors and correspondents did not wear suits. They also weren’t “self-righteous” and tried “not to talk down to the audience,” he said.

洛德說，MTV News試著用若干方式，使其與其他有線電視新聞不同。他說，MTV News主播跟記者不穿西裝，也不會「自以為是」，並試圖「不以高人一等態度對觀眾說話」。

文／Remy Tumin　譯／周辰陽