440.经济学人-Bad news-1

In the early 17th century the best place to gather news in London was the old cathedral of St Paul’s, a place that buzzed with gossip on politics and was described—unusually for a house of worship—as “the ear’s brothel”.

Some of the informants were entrepreneurs; they had recently started writing “letters of news” which they sold to subscribers at a hefty price.

Some 400 years later, the original newspaper business model is finally making a comeback.

The reason it has taken so long to resurface is that, for almost two centuries, newspapers have been on a journey into the mass market which gave them scale, prestige and profit but which has now reached its end.

They mostly abandoned dependence on subscriptions and instead sold below what they cost to produce as a way to attract legions of readers to sell to advertisers.

The aphorism today applied to users of technology platforms—“If you are not paying, you are the product”—rang almost as true of newspaper readers in the heyday of print advertising.

这是《经济学人》2020年10月刊的一篇文章'Bad news'第1段，共6句。

0、

'Bad news'是整篇文章的标题，译作：坏消息

1、

{'cathedral':'大教堂'}

{'buzzed':'嗡嗡的'}

{'gossip':'小道消息'}

{'brothel':'妓院'}

17世纪早期，在伦敦获取新闻最好的地方就是旧圣彼得堡大教堂，这个通常作为礼拜堂的地方充斥着关于政治的流言蜚语，亦被描述成“耳朵的天堂”。

圣保罗大教堂(St.Paul's Cathedral)是世界著名的宗教圣地，世界第五大教堂，英国第一大教堂，教堂也是世界第二大圆顶教堂，位列世界五大教堂之列。

2、

{'hefty':'数额巨大的'}

其中一些信息的散布者是企业家们；他们近期已经开始手写“新闻稿”，并将这些稿件以高价出售给订阅者。

3、

大约400年以后，最初的商业报纸模式最终又卷土重来了。

4、

{'prestige':'声望'}

花了这么长的时间才重新出现的原因就是，在将近两个世纪，报纸已经深入大众市场，曾经带来了规模、声望以及利润，但是如今他已经走到尽头了

5、

{'legions':'大量'}

他们大多数放弃了对于订阅的依赖，取而代之的是制作低于成本的产品出售，以此吸引大量的读者然后向广告商出售。

6、

{'aphorism':'格言'}

{'heyday':'全盛时期'}

这句格言适用于今天科技平台的所有用户-“如果你没有支付、那你就是产品本身”-这与广告印刷全盛时期的报纸读者基本上是一样的。

--总结--

【词汇部分】

{'cathedral':'大教堂'}

{'buzzed':'嗡嗡的'}

{'gossip':'小道消息'}

{'brothel':'妓院'}

{'hefty':'数额巨大的'}

{'prestige':'声望'}

{'legions':'大量'}

{'aphorism':'格言'}

{'heyday':'全胜时期'}