Paper, Cut: Writers And Editors Reflect on City Paper in Print - WCP

By my count, I’ve had a hand in producing roughly 450 print issues of Washington City Paper since I joined its staff as the City Lights editor in the fall of 2012.

据我统计，自从 2012 年秋季加入《华盛顿城市报》担任《城市之光》编辑以来，我已经参与制作了大约 450 期印刷版。

Several stand out for reasons good and bad—massive Best of D.C. books that had us working around the clock, stories we knew we’d beaten our competitors to, an issue sent to the printer so late that we feared it might not come out.

其中有几本之所以脱颖而出，有好有坏——大量的华盛顿最佳书籍让我们夜以继日地工作，我们知道自己打败了竞争对手的故事，一期印刷得太晚以至于我们担心它可能不会出版。

The rest ebbed back into the ocean after cresting on Wednesday nights.

其余的在周三晚上达到顶峰后又退入海洋。

From a technical standpoint, my generation of City People has a significantly easier time producing print issues than our predecessors did, assembling our issues with trackpads and keyboard commands while they used knives and paste.

从技术角度来看，我们这一代城市人比我们的前辈更容易制作打印期刊，他们使用触控板和键盘命令来组装我们的期刊，而他们则使用刀具和粘贴。

In the paper’s nascent days, when it was still produced in Baltimore, the staff sent pages and materials back and forth on a massive fax machine.

在报纸诞生之初，当它仍在巴尔的摩生产时，工作人员通过一台巨大的传真机来回发送页面和材料。

That was an improvement, former publisher Amy Austin says, over the previous method: On Monday nights, she used to deliver the necessary files to the Greyhound bus station, where they would be ferried north.

前出版商艾米·奥斯汀 (Amy Austin) 表示，与之前的方法相比，这是一个进步：每周一晚上，她会将必要的文件送到灰狗巴士站，然后将文件运送到北方。

Print issues were commodities.

印刷品是商品。

Readers grabbed them from delivery drivers before they could even drop off a stack at a business or a street box.

读者甚至还没来得及把一叠书扔到企业或街头的盒子里，就从送货司机手中抢走了它们。

The need for news, for criticism, for event listings, for classified ads, or a good story was immediate, and the internet has only expanded that pleasure center.

对新闻、批评、活动列表、分类广告或好故事的需求是直接的，而互联网只是扩大了这种快乐中心。

In my time at City Paper , the issues shrunk.

当我在城市纸业工作时，问题就缩小了。

Advertisers moved online and found ways to reach the specific audiences they were looking for.

广告商转向线上并找到了接触他们正在寻找的特定受众的方法。

Competitors arrived on the scene, offering their own irreverent takes on life in the District.

参赛者们纷纷来到现场，表达了他们对特区生活的不敬态度。

Still we pushed forward, filing dispatches on abandoned car parts, shameless developers, and the characters entering and exiting the Wilson Building.

我们仍然继续前进，对废弃的汽车零件、无耻的开发商以及进出威尔逊大厦的人物进行了调度。

Newer annual issues, such as the Answers Issue and the People Issue, still demanded a place on a coffee table or in your hand at a coffee shop.

新的年度期刊，例如《答案》和《人物》，仍然需要在咖啡桌上或在咖啡店的手中占有一席之地。

And then came a novel coronavirus, the enemy of almost everything but especially independent arts venues.

然后出现了一种新型冠状病毒，它是几乎所有事物的敌人，尤其是独立艺术场所。

We muddled through what we hoped was the worst of it, but eventually had to face a harsh reality: Our advertisers and many of our readers are elsewhere.

我们蒙混过关，度过了最糟糕的情况，但最终不得不面对残酷的现实：我们的广告商和许多读者都在别处。

We meet readers in their email inboxes more frequently than we meet them on the street.

我们在电子邮件收件箱中遇到读者的频率比在街上遇到他们的频率更高。

A bar that hosts live music is most focused on paying its staff right now.

举办现场音乐的酒吧目前最关注的是支付员工工资。

So this is the last regular print edition of Washington City Paper you will see.

这是您将看到的最后一份《华盛顿城市报》的常规印刷版。

In the weeks leading up to this issue, I found myself thinking about those departed characters whose shadows hang over the institution.

在本期杂志发布之前的几周里，我发现自己在思考那些给该机构带来阴影的已故人物。

Of Jim Graham, the AIDS advocate and former Ward 1 councilmember who would register his complaints every week without fail but still stop by a holiday party.

艾滋病倡导者、前第一区议员吉姆·格雷厄姆 (Jim Graham) 每周都会毫无例外地提出投诉，但仍会参加节日聚会。

Of Marion Barry, the main character of D.C.’s home rule era and of countless City Paper stories, who transformed the District in so many ways.

马里恩·巴里 (Marion Barry) 是华盛顿特区自治时代的主角，也是无数《城市报》故事的主角，她在很多方面改变了该地区。

Of Michael Mariotte, the punk-rock drummer who decided to kick this whole thing off.

朋克摇滚鼓手迈克尔·马里奥特 (Michael Mariotte) 决定开启这一切。

Of David Carr, the tough but transformational leader whose wisdom on craft and reporting are still being passed down to generation after generation of aspiring writers.

大卫·卡尔是一位强硬但具有变革性的领导者，他在创作和报道方面的智慧至今仍在一代又一代有抱负的作家身上传承。

What would they say?

他们会说什么？

(Carr, I’m guessing, would tell us to keep working.)

（我猜卡尔会告诉我们继续工作。）

In the pages that follow, you’ll read stories from the extended network of people who honed their skills by covering community meetings or entering event listings and forged friendships over cheap beer and Cheez-Its.

在接下来的几页中，您将阅读来自广泛的人们网络的故事，他们通过报道社区会议或进入活动列表来磨练自己的技能，并通过廉价啤酒和 Cheez-Its 建立友谊。

Those relationships and the respect for one another kept City Paper going through 41 years of late nights, periods of financial instability, and fears over getting everything right.

这些关系和对彼此的尊重让城市纸业度过了 41 年的深夜、金融不稳定时期以及对一切顺利的担忧。

“Early on, Jack Shafer laid out the stakes: If you get it wrong and we print it, every person in this place will lose her job,” City Paper alum Katherine Boo tells me.

“杰克·谢弗（Jack Shafer）很早就下了赌注：如果你写错了，而我们把它打印出来，那么这里的每个人都会失去工作，”《城市报》的校友凯瑟琳·布（Katherine Boo）告诉我。

“All the sentences I’ve written since have been informed by that terror.”

“从那以后我写下的所有句子都受到了那种恐惧的影响。”

Washington City Paper will still be around, albeit in digital formats and with a smaller staff.

华盛顿城市报业仍将存在，尽管采用数字格式且员工人数较少。

And we will still do our damnedest to get it right.

我们仍然会尽最大努力把它做好。

It took Neil Drumming all of five minutes to respond to my email asking if he’d like to contribute to our final print issue.

尼尔·鼓明花了五分钟的时间才回复我的电子邮件，询问他是否愿意为我们的最后一期印刷品做出贡献。

He teased “one small, telling anecdote” that illustrated his time at City Paper .

他调侃了“一件小而生动的轶事”，讲述了他在《城市报》的时光。

We spoke on the phone the next day, and that’s where our conversation (edited slightly for length and clarity) starts.

第二天我们通了电话，我们的谈话就是从这里开始的（为了长度和清晰度稍作编辑）。

—Mitch Ryals

——米奇·赖尔斯

Neil Drumming: I’ll be really honest with you, I was a kid, probably 22 or 23, just got out of college.

Neil Drumming：老实说，我还是个孩子，大概 22 或 23 岁，刚刚大学毕业。

I applied for City Paper two or three times—twice in the advertising department, and then I got the City Lights job.

我向城市报业公司申请了两三次——两次是在广告部门，然后我得到了城市之光的工作。

And then slowly I started writing about stuff I would see.

然后慢慢地我开始写我会看到的东西。

I had no experience writing for a newspaper.

我没有为报纸写作的经验。

But the thing I remember most was the listings were done in this corner, and I split the responsibility with someone else who sat in the corner with me.

但我记得最清楚的是，清单是在这个角落完成的，我与坐在角落里的其他人分担了责任。

Ta-Nehisi Coates was working there at the time, and we became friends and he would come and sit on my desk or hang over the cubicle wall and we would shoot the shit all the time.

塔内西斯·科茨当时在那里工作，我们成了朋友，他会过来坐在我的桌子上，或者挂在小隔间的墙上，我们会一直开枪。

Just talk about stuff we cared about, mostly music, but everything really.

只是谈论我们关心的事情，主要是音乐，但一切都是真的。

And one day we were having an argument about the group A Tribe Called Quest, which is seminal to both of us.

有一天，我们就“A Tribe Called Quest”乐队发生了一场争论，这个乐队对我们俩都产生了深远的影响。

I’m from Queens and I used to see Q-Tip at the bus stop.

我来自皇后区，以前经常在公交车站看到 Q-Tip。

I loved Tribe.

我喜欢部落。

We were arguing about whether or not they should break up.

我们在争论要不要分手。

I think this was around the time their fourth album came out.

我想这是他们第四张专辑发行的时候。

There were all these rumors and we were arguing about, ‘Is Tribe dead?

有这么多谣言，我们争论‘部落死了吗？

Is it over?

结束了吗？

Are they gonna still be good?’ And someone came over to the desk and heard us arguing so vehemently and was like, why don’t you guys just write that for an arts feature?

他们还会好吗？’有人走到办公桌前，听到我们如此激烈地争论，然后说，你们为什么不把这个写成艺术专题呢？

And we did!

我们做到了！

Who knows what it meant to anybody, but what it meant to me was that the stuff that I cared about, which was pretty narrow when I was in my early 20s, had a place in the real world, in the bigger world, that this newspaper that to me was a big deal had sanctioned me talking shit about one of my favorite bands.

谁知道这对任何人意味着什么，但这对我来说意味着，我20岁出头时所关心的东西在现实世界中、在更大的世界中占有一席之地，这对我来说是一件大事，它允许我谈论我最喜欢的乐队之一的狗屎。

And it made it feel like it was relevant, and it wasn’t just in my head—that it actually belonged in the world somehow.

这让我感觉它是相关的，而且它不仅仅存在于我的脑海中——它实际上以某种方式属于这个世界。

And in general my experience at City Paper was that.

总的来说，我在城市纸业的经历就是这样。

I had not done culture criticism or arts journalism before, and I just started doing it, and they trusted me.

我以前没有做过文化批评或艺术新闻，我刚刚开始做，他们信任我。

I just had to trust my own sensibilities.

我只需要相信自己的感觉。

That was the gift that City Paper gave me.

这就是城市纸业送给我的礼物。

I’ll tell you one other stupid story.

我再告诉你一个愚蠢的故事。

I got my nose broken for a feature story I wrote.

我因为写一篇专题报道而被打断鼻子。

I found this guy, Abdul, who started a record label called the House of Abdul.

我找到了这个人，阿卜杜勒，他创办了一家名为“阿卜杜勒之家”的唱片公司。

And he put these ads in music magazines looking for a young rapper.

他在音乐杂志上刊登了这些广告，寻找年轻的说唱歌手。

And he found a young rapper, and he signed him.

他找到了一位年轻的说唱歌手，并签下了他。

I remember Abdul put $60,000 of his own money into putting out his first hip-hop album.

我记得阿卜杜勒自己掏了 6 万美元来发行他的第一张嘻哈专辑。

I wanted to write about how hard it is to launch your own record label in D.C. and launch an artist.

我想写一下在华盛顿推出自己的唱片公司并推出一位艺术家是多么困难。

So I followed these guys around and watched them do promotions and go to clubs and give out the white label version of the vinyl.

所以我跟着这些人，看着他们做促销活动，去俱乐部分发白标版本的黑胶唱片。

And I remember the promotion guy, I think his name was Fahim, was like, “It’s really hard to get DJs to play this record because it’s not that great.”

我记得推广人员，我想他的名字是 Fahim，他说，“让 DJ 播放这张唱片真的很难，因为它不是那么好。”

Which for me, that was a great quote!

对我来说，这是一个很棒的引言！

He was the guy they hired.

他是他们雇用的人。

So I wrote up this feature and it had that quote in it.

所以我写了这个功能，里面引用了那句话。

And I remember [then-editor David] Carr being like, “That’s a big step for you.

我记得[当时的编辑大卫]卡尔说，“这对你来说是一大步。

You divorced yourself from it.” So I was really happy.

你已经脱离了它。”所以我真的很高兴。

And then one night me and a bunch of my friends were standing outside the 9:30 Club.

然后有一天晚上，我和我的一群朋友站在 9:30 俱乐部外面。

KRS-One was performing.

KRS-One 正在表演。

And I see a car pull up and the rapper from my story, Millennium, and his manager, Casino—never trust a guy named Casino—get out of the car.

我看到一辆汽车停了下来，我故事中的说唱歌手千禧年和他的经纪人卡西诺（永远不要相信一个叫卡西诺的人）下了车。

This is like three months after the article came out.

距离文章发表已经过去三个月了。

So I know they’re gonna say something about the article, good or bad.

所以我知道他们会对这篇文章发表一些评论，无论好坏。

But they didn’t say anything.

但他们什么也没说。

The kid stood there, and the manager rushed around my friends and just punched me square in the face and knocked me out on the street in front of the 9:30 Club and broke my nose.

那孩子站在那里，经理冲到我的朋友身边，直接打了我的脸，把我打倒在 9:30 俱乐部前面的街上，还打断了我的鼻子。

I remember I blacked out.

我记得我当时就昏过去了。

I think an ambulance came.

我想救护车来了。

And I woke up the next morning with my face black.

然后第二天早上醒来，我的脸就黑了。

It was like I was wearing a mask.

就像我戴着​​面具一样。

I remember Carr called me into his office and called the owner of the label and bitched him out on the phone.

我记得卡尔把我叫到他的办公室，给该品牌的老板打电话，在电话里斥责了他。

But the guy was like, “I’d have done the same thing,” which is crazy for a grown ass man to say that.

但那家伙说，“我也会做同样的事情”，对于一个成年男子来说，这样说是很疯狂的。

But Carr backed me up fully on that, and I felt like the institution was behind me.

但卡尔在这一点上完全支持我，我觉得这个机构在我身后。

It was a little thing, and of course what are you gonna do?

这是一件小事，当然你要做什么？

Let one of your reporters get the shit beat out of them?

让你的一名记者痛骂他们一顿吗？

But I felt supported.

但我感到受到支持。

Those are two of the many ridiculous things that happened to me.

这是发生在我身上的许多可笑的事情中的两件事。

Now you can ask your questions and get something you can actually use.

现在您可以提出问题并获得可以实际使用的东西。

It was probably 1997 to 2000?

大概是1997年到2000年吧？

I don’t remember how the rankings went.

我不记得排名是怎样的。

There was somebody over me, so maybe that was the City Lights editor?

有人在我上方，所以也许那是《城市之光》的编辑？

And I was an assistant editor?

我是助理编辑？

Because I was really into hip-hop and the culture around it and by extension arts.

因为我真的很喜欢嘻哈音乐及其周围的文化以及延伸艺术。

I think Ta-Nehisi remembers this.

我想塔内西斯还记得这一点。

I think this is true.

我认为这是真的。

I used to read his music reviews, and I think he wrote a review of a Nas album, and I remember writing an angry letter to him about it.

我曾经读过他的音乐评论，我认为他写了一篇纳斯专辑的评论，我记得为此给他写了一封愤怒的信。

But it was reading stuff like that.

但它正在阅读类似的东西。

This is why it makes me sort of sad that, not just your paper, but papers like this are decimated.

这就是为什么让我有点难过的是，不仅是你的论文，而且像这样的论文都被大量删除。

The first thing I would do in any city when I visited, and especially when I got to D.C., was to try to figure out how to have a life and what bar to go to and what music to see.

当我访问任何城市时，尤其是当我到达华盛顿时，我要做的第一件事就是尝试弄清楚如何过生活，去什么酒吧以及看什么音乐。

It was the touchstone.

这是试金石。

Of course I wanted to work there.

我当然想在那里工作。

They were the only people in a conservative city like D.C. talking about the things that I cared about and pointing at things that I was interested in.

在像华盛顿这样的保守城市里，他们是唯一谈论我关心的事情并指出我感兴趣的事情的人。

So it would have been the only ideal place really for me to work.

所以这对我来说是唯一理想的工作场所。

I wrote a review of a Maxwell concert.

我写了一篇麦克斯韦音乐会的评论。

Maxwell had sold out seven shows in D.C. in one week—seven shows in a row.

麦克斯韦在华盛顿特区的七场演出门票在一周内全部售空——连续七场演出。

And I went to review his concert.

我还去回顾了他的演唱会。

It was crazy.

太疯狂了。

It was like all the men brought dates, women as dates, and the men just disappeared.

就好像所有的男人都带来了枣子，女人都带来了枣子，而男人们就消失了。

It was just so fun to be at and so weird.

这真是太有趣了，也太奇怪了。

That’s probably my favorite because it was fun to write, and I think it was pretty funny, and I had a good time with it.

这可能是我最喜欢的，因为写起来很有趣，而且我认为这很有趣，而且我玩得很开心。

But after that I went on to write entertainment journalism stuff at Entertainment Weekly .

但之后我继续在《娱乐周刊》撰写娱乐新闻内容。

I don’t think I wrote a single thing at Entertainment Weekly in five or six years that was anything close to what I wrote at City Paper in terms of quality and daring.

我认为五六年来我在《娱乐周刊》写的任何一篇文章在质量和大胆方面都无法与我在《城市报》写的文章相媲美。

Because Entertainment Weekly had a magazine-wide voice.

因为《娱乐周刊》在整个杂志范围内都有影响力。

The opposite was true of City Paper .

城市纸业的情况恰恰相反。

My entire worth there was my personality, my idiosyncrasies, how I thought about the world.

我在那里的全部价值在于我的个性、我的特质以及我对世界的看法。

That was everything to them.

这对他们来说就是一切。

That was what they wanted from me.

这就是他们想要我做的。

There was no quota to fill, it was just, ‘“If you have something to say here, we trust you.”

没有配额可以填补，只是，“如果你在这里有话要说，我们相信你。”

That seems like an incredibly valuable experience for a 20-something to have in a professional setting.

对于一个 20 多岁的年轻人来说，在专业环境中拥有这似乎是一次非常宝贵的经历。

Yeah and I didn’t even know what a professional setting was supposed to be.

是的，我什至不知道专业环境应该是什么。

I mean, I was garbage.

我的意思是，我是垃圾。

I had no discipline—I still don’t have much discipline as a writer—but all I had was a little bit of personality and flair.

我没有自律——作为一名作家，我仍然没有多少自律——但我所拥有的只是一点点个性和天赋。

They gave me enough skills to get jobs.

他们给了我足够的技能来找到工作。

Rolling Ston e and Blaze magazines called me.

《滚石》和《Blaze》杂志给我打电话。

I remember them calling me at the City Lights desk.

我记得他们在城市之光服务台给我打电话。

Like I was a peon.

就像我是一个苦工一样。

I was just doing listings and writing on the side, right?

我只是在一边做清单和写作，对吗？

It wasn’t even my job.

这甚至不是我的工作。

But I got enough licks in writing at City Paper doing 1,600 word reviews—1,600 word reviews, that doesn’t even exist anymore!—I got enough reps in doing that that I got a job in New York at a magazine.

但我在 City Paper 写了 1,600 字的评论，得到了足够的好评——1,600 字的评论，这已经不存在了！——我在这样做中得到了足够的代表，以至于我在纽约的一家杂志社找到了一份工作。

Can you describe how City Paper fit in the local media ecosystem when you were there?

您能描述一下您在当地时城市纸业如何融入当地媒体生态系统吗？

Only in an anecdotal way, which is that you definitely felt the effects.

只是以一种轶事的方式，那就是你确实感受到了影响。

When you would write something, it was like the people that you wrote about would, in the worst-case scenario, punch you in the face, but you knew that it had an effect.

当你写一些东西时，就像你写的人在最坏的情况下会打你的脸，但你知道它有效果。

Did you feel some kind of way about your work appearing in print?

您对自己的作品出版有什么感觉吗？

Oh my god, yeah.

天哪，是的。

Just seeing a big spread, broadsheet of your work and your byline.

只是看到你的作品和署名的大跨页。

Dude, that was incredible.

伙计，这太不可思议了。

That shit was incredible.

那件事太不可思议了。

To just pick it up off the street.

只是从街上捡起来。

Yeah, I wrote that.

是的，我写的。

Being on U Street at a bar and being like, “Yeah, I’m the person who wrote that piece that you’re reading.”

在 U 街的一家酒吧里，我会说：“是的，我就是写你正在读的那篇文章的人。”

For me, I feel the effects of this even in my work.

对我来说，即使在我的工作中我也感受到了这种影响。

When I was at This American Life especially, but any producer at This American Life , is constantly looking for stories.

尤其是当我在《This American Life》时，但《This American Life》的任何制片人都在不断寻找故事。

And for a long time, I was like, I’m just gonna see what Jason Cherkis is writing about.

很长一段时间，我想，我只是想看看杰森·切尔基斯在写什么。

I just thought, this is where the best local stories are being told: at alt-weeklies across America.

我只是想，这就是讲述当地最好故事的地方：美国各地的另类周刊。

I’ll just find them and talk to their writers and see if they want to do radio.

我会找到他们并与他们的作家交谈，看看他们是否想做广播。

I just thought it would be that simple.

我只是以为事情会这么简单。

And those papers just started drying up, literally disappearing while I was looking for them.

当我寻找它们时，这些文件就开始干涸，实际上消失了。

So for me personally, I’m like, who is telling the kind of story that I want to make as a radio producer but also that I like to read as a person?

所以就我个人而言，我想，谁在讲述我作为广播制作人想要制作的故事，同时也是我作为一个人喜欢阅读的故事？

What is going on near me?

我附近发生了什么？

And not just what’s happening, but who’s doing it?

不仅仅是发生了什么，还有谁在做这件事？

The kind of human-driven narrative behind the things that you see in front of you.

你所看到的事物背后的那种以人为驱动的叙事。

That’s what City Paper was for me.

这就是《城市报》对我的意义。

Anybody who still works there and is still writing, you should be proud of that work.

任何仍然在那里工作并仍在写作的人，你都应该为这份工作感到自豪。

The aesthetic and goal of an alt-weekly, the need for that still exists in the world.

另类周刊的审美和目标，世界上仍然存在这种需求。

I’m looking for those stories.

我正在寻找那些故事。

What makes me sad is it’s fun work, and it sounds like it’s not as much fun for you guys.

让我难过的是，这是一项有趣的工作，但听起来对你们来说并没有那么有趣。

With the struggles and everything, it can’t be that much fun.

伴随着斗争和一切，它不会那么有趣。

And that sucks because it should be.

这很糟糕，因为它应该是这样。

The fun of it and the excitement of it and the challenge made good work.

它的乐趣、兴奋和挑战造就了出色的工作。

Before we hang up, Drumming asks if I’ll pass along his greetings to the staffers he worked alongside, including his friend Ta-Nehisi.

在我们挂断电话之前，鼓明问我是否可以向与他一起工作的员工转达他的问候，其中包括他的朋友塔内西西。

I haven’t talked to the dude in a while, but probably the best thing to come out of my time there is a 15-year friendship, and it was one of the best times in my life.

我已经有一段时间没有和这个家伙说话了，但我这段时间里最好的事情可能就是这段 15 年的友谊，那是我一生中最美好的时光之一。

Neil Drumming is the managing editor for Serial Productions , a New York Times company, and a former producer for This American Life.

尼尔·德鲁明 (Neil Drumming) 是《纽约时报》旗下 Serial Productions 的总编辑，也是《This American Life》的前制片人。

He wrote and directed the 2013 film Big Words.

他编写并导演了 2013 年的电影《大话》。

He wrote for City Paper from 1995 to 2000.

1995年至2000年，他为《城市报》撰稿。

Fresh from completing my master’s in journalism at Columbia University, I arrived in D.C. in the summer of 1994 as a young Black woman accustomed to navigating predominantly White spaces.

1994 年夏天，我刚从哥伦比亚大学获得新闻学硕士学位，作为一名习惯于在白人占主导地位的空间里穿梭的年轻黑人女性，来到了华盛顿。

D.C. in the ’90s was a welcome oasis of Black excellence.

90 年代的华盛顿是黑人卓越的一片受欢迎的绿洲。

The city lived up to its Chocolate City moniker.

这座城市名副其实地享有“巧克力城”的称号。

It had a southern-with-hustle vibe, rich local cultures, and warm hospitality.

这里有着南方的喧嚣氛围、丰富的当地文化和热情好客的氛围。

That summer, I fell in with a group of talented poets and writers who frequented open mics along U Street NW.

那年夏天，我结识了一群才华横溢的诗人和作家，他们经常在 U 街西北边的开放式麦克风中活动。

We quickly became close friends, and remain so to this day.

我们很快就成为了亲密的朋友，并且一直保持到今天。

I don’t remember exactly when I wrote my first freelance piece for City Paper , but by 1995 David Carr had become the editor and had secured funding for a new minority fellowship that paid a modest salary.

我不记得自己是什么时候为《城市报》写第一篇自由撰稿文章的，但到了 1995 年，大卫·卡尔 (David Carr) 成为了编辑，并为一项新的少数族裔奖学金获得了资金，该奖学金的薪水并不高。

I also worked a second part-time job as a teaching artist with DC WritersCorps to supplement my income.

我还做了第二份兼职工作，在 DC WritersCorps 担任美术教学，以贴补收入。

In 1996, I wrote what would be my biggest story for the paper, a 4,500-word cover piece titled “Why B.E.T.

1996 年，我为该报写了一篇 4,500 字的封面文章，标题为“Why B.E.T.”，这将是我最大的报道。

Sucks.” This was decades before HBO and Netflix would provide a platform for original programming written by and starring Black creators.

糟透了。”几十年前，HBO 和 Netflix 才为黑人创作者编写并主演的原创节目提供平台。

At that time, Black Entertainment Television was the beginning and the end of Black popular representation on cable.

当时，黑人娱乐电视是黑人在有线电视上流行的代表的开始和结束。

The network, helmed by media mogul Robert Johnson, was headquartered in D.C., so the story and incendiary headline grabbed the local community.

该网络由媒体大亨罗伯特·约翰逊领导，总部位于华盛顿特区，因此这个故事和煽动性的标题引起了当地社区的关注。

For the story, I watched 24 hours of B.E.T., which I did with the help of a VHS recorder and alarms set to change the tapes at odd hours.

为了这个故事，我看了 24 小时的《B.E.T.》，这是在 VHS 录像机的帮助下完成的，并设置了在非正常时间更换磁带的闹钟。

I wrote from a first-person perspective about why I was dissatisfied: endless video vixens, infomercials, and lackluster original programming.

我从第一人称的角度写了我不满意的原因：无休无止的视频泼妇、电视广告和乏善可陈的原创节目。

In true City Paper form, the piece was irreverent and cheeky, but still made serious points.

以真正的城市报纸形式，这篇文章是不敬和厚颜无耻的，但仍然提出了严肃的观点。

It wasn’t enough just to have Black faces in high places.

仅仅让黑人面孔担任高位是不够的。

I questioned how we could advance the narrative.

我质疑我们如何推进叙述。

What does it mean when Black folks traffic in the same tired tropes that White media have for decades?

当黑人使用白人媒体几十年来一直使用的陈词滥调时，这意味着什么？

It was important to me that the criticism of the network come from the perspective of a young, Black person.

对我来说重要的是，对网络的批评来自年轻黑人的角度。

The piece was picked up on the alternative news wire and reprinted in other cities, including LA Weekly.

这篇文章被另类新闻专线转载，并在其他城市转载，包括《洛杉矶周刊》。

It was one of the few times I received hate mail for a piece of writing.

这是我收到针对一篇文章的仇恨邮件的少数几次之一。

Being a staff writer for Washington City Paper legitimized my identity as a young writer at a crucial stage of my creative development and gave me an education in the arts.

作为华盛顿城市报的特约撰稿人，我在创作发展的关键阶段使我作为一名年轻作家的身份合法化，并让我接受了艺术教育。

I had the opportunity to peek behind the veil and meet and interview people I admired, such as the late local DJ Sam “the Man” Burns .

我有机会窥探面纱后面，见到并采访我敬佩的人，例如已故的当地 DJ Sam Burns。

As a multidisciplinary artist, those journalistic skills are a huge part of my artistic practice today.

作为一名多学科艺术家，这些新闻技巧是我今天艺术实践的重要组成部分。

They’ve taught me how to go into a new community and understand what it means to authentically engage and connect and listen to people’s stories and to distill that into a creative experience.

他们教我如何进入一个新社区，了解真正参与、联系和倾听人们的故事意味着什么，并将其提炼成创造性的体验。

For my solo dance performance, “American Woman,” currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery, I used a lot of my journalistic skills to go through archival footage of speeches and interviews about the political and cultural contributions of Black women in America.

对于目前在国家肖像画廊展出的我的独舞表演“美国女人”，我运用了很多新闻技巧来浏览有关美国黑人女性的政治和文化贡献的演讲和采访的档案片段。

I can still recall the anticipation of picking up the latest edition of City Paper on Thursday morning: the thrill of riding the Metro and seeing dozens of people on the train holding a paper with my story on the cover, and the perk of knowing I could get a copy at the office when all of the boxes ran out of papers.

我仍然记得周四早上收到最新一期《城市报纸》的期待：乘坐地铁并看到火车上几十个人拿着封面上有我的故事的报纸的兴奋，以及知道当所有盒子都用完报纸时我可以在办公室得到一份副本的好处。

But it’s been many years since I picked up a physical copy of City Paper .

但我已经很多年没有拿到《城市报纸》的纸质版了。

The same is true for the Washington Post and New York Times , for that matter.

就此而言，《华盛顿邮报》和《纽约时报》也是如此。

I am a part of the cohort of digital-only readers and ultimately part of the reason so many outlets have now put their last print editions to bed.

我是纯数字读者群体中的一员，也是许多媒体现在停止出版最后一本印刷版的最终原因之一。

Some weeks after my story on B.E.T.

几周后我在 B.E.T 上发表了故事。

ran, I received an unusual call.

跑着，我接到了一个不寻常的电话。

“Please hold for Don Cornelius,” a woman’s voice said on the other end of the line.

“请等唐·科尼利厄斯，”电话那头传来一个女人的声音。

As a longtime lover of Soul Train , the show that Cornelius founded and hosted for decades, my first thought was that this must be some elaborate hoax cooked up by a friend.

作为《灵魂列车》的长期爱好者，这部由科尼利厄斯创立并主持了数十年的节目，我的第一个想法是，这一定是朋友精心炮制的骗局。

But moments later, I was talking to the OG Black media innovator—he of the always-clean suits and perfectly shaped ’fro with a voice second only to Barry White in its delicious baritone.

但过了一会儿，我就和这位 OG Black 媒体创新者交谈了——他穿着永远干净的西装，身材完美，声音仅次于巴里·怀特 (Barry White) 的美妙男中音。

Mr. Cornelius had read my article and assumed that I was based in Los Angeles.

科尼利厄斯先生读了我的文章，并假设我住在洛杉矶。

He wanted to meet the young writer who was ballsy enough to confront the current Black media establishment.

他想见见这位有勇气对抗当前黑人媒体机构的年轻作家。

He was looking to expand his team and invited me to interview for a job.

他希望扩大他的团队并邀请我面试一份工作。

Had I been a more savvy or ambitious person, I would have booked a flight to L.A., and crashed on a friend’s couch in order to meet one of my personal heroes.

如果我是一个更精明或更雄心勃勃的人，我会订一张飞往洛杉矶的航班，然后睡在朋友的沙发上，去见我心目中的偶像之一。

But alas, I have always been a good art nerd and a bad networker.

但可惜的是，我一直是一个优秀的艺术迷和一个糟糕的网络人。

As I stood barefoot in my living room, cradling the cordless phone to my ear, Mr. Cornelius gave me one of the best compliments I’ve ever received.

当我赤脚站在客厅里，将无绳电话放在耳边时，科尼利厄斯先生给了我我所收到过的最好的赞美之一。

In his smooth-as-silk voice, he said, “You cool, Holly Bass.

他用丝绸般光滑的声音说道：“你很酷，霍莉·巴斯。

You cool.”

你酷极了。”

Holly Bass is a multidisciplinary artist and the national director of the Turnaround Arts program at the Kennedy Center.

霍莉·巴斯 (Holly Bass) 是一位多学科艺术家，也是肯尼迪中心转型艺术项目的国家总监。

She wrote for City Paper from 1995 to 2001.

1995年至2001年，她为《城市报》撰稿。

When I began writing for the paper in the late ’90s, the whole office operated by the print deadline.

当我在 90 年代末开始为该报撰写文章时，整个办公室都在印刷截止日期之前运作。

Each new issue started with editorial meetings in the conference room on the third floor of a bland building located within sniffing distance of the puke and warm piss wafting from Adams Morgan’s main drag.

每期新刊都以在一座平淡建筑三楼的会议室举行编辑会议开始，该会议室距离亚当斯·摩根的主要街道飘出的呕吐物和温暖的尿液不远。

The small room would fill up to the walls with writers, editors, interns, and sometimes a few freelancers.

这个小房间里挤满了作家、编辑、实习生，有时还有一些自由职业者。

The room overlooked the deck, where the lucky few got to park and the rest of us got to smoke Camel Lights while we waited for sources to call us back.

房间俯瞰着甲板，少数幸运儿可以在那里停车，而我们其他人则可以在等待消息来源给我们回电的同时抽着骆驼灯。

The story meetings were brutal.

故事会很残酷。

If your idea sucked or your pitch was longer than a short paragraph, you could get roughed up.

如果你的想法很糟糕或者你的演讲比一小段话长，你可能会受到粗暴的对待。

My first two years there I barely spoke during these meetings.

我在那里的头两年在这些会议上几乎不说话。

We were all sensitive nerds with snotty exteriors in a newsroom that trained us to worry about every detail.

我们都是新闻编辑室里外表傲慢的敏感书呆子，这训练我们担心每一个细节。

One senior copy editor warned me early on: “It takes brass balls to work here.”

一位高级文案编辑很早就警告我：“在这里工作需要铜球。”

The list of never-accepted pitches ran long: no store openings, no stories that read like tourist trips through a rough part of town, no reporters going undercover, no stories involving even a whiff of a conflict of interest, no hot takes.

从未被接受的提案清单很长：没有新店开业，没有读起来像旅游旅行一样穿越城镇的偏远地区的故事，没有记者卧底，没有涉及哪怕一丝利益冲突的故事，没有热门话题。

If you had made an error the previous week, you had to explain to everyone how you screwed up.

如果你上周犯了错误，你必须向每个人解释你是如何搞砸的。

If you were late to the meeting by a minute, you didn’t even bother showing up.

如果你开会迟到了一分钟，你甚至懒得出席。

Unbelievably, there were always story ideas that made it through.

令人难以置信的是，总有一些故事创意能够成功。

And with those ideas came the next big nightmare: a deadline.

伴随着这些想法而来的是下一个巨大的噩梦：最后期限。

Sometimes you had a few days, sometimes a week, sometimes a month.

有时你有几天，有时一周，有时一个月。

But that deadline was always looming, and I sucked at deadlines.

但最后期限总是迫在眉睫，而我在最后期限上却表现得很糟糕。

Because the paper was printed—and at the time had very little investment in a web presence—everything hinged on writers, photographers, graphic artists, editors, proofreaders, and sources cooperating enough to fill the paper each week.

因为报纸是印刷的——当时在网络上的投资很少——一切都取决于作家、摄影师、图形艺术家、编辑、校对员和消息来源的充分合作，每周都能填满报纸。

In that era, the paper could be as long as an Ian McEwan novel.

在那个时代，报纸可能和伊恩·麦克尤恩的小说一样长。

As far as I remember only one full-time reporter was married with kids.

据我所知，只有一位全职记者已婚并有孩子。

When I started dating someone, an editor expressed disappointment, joking that I now wouldn’t have as much time for work.

当我开始和某人约会时，一位编辑表示失望，开玩笑说我现在没有那么多时间工作了。

I was making $12,000 on a freelance contract.

我通过一份自由职业合同赚了 12,000 美元。

It didn’t matter, marriage or not.

结婚与否并不重要。

The cover stories that filled the paper required obsession and hustle and sometimes writing 3,000 words overnight.

填满报纸的封面故事需要痴迷和忙碌，有时一夜之间写出 3,000 字。

We didn’t deserve our editors, who had the patience of mechanics working on cars with limited Blue Book value.

我们配不上我们的编辑，他们有机械师的耐心，在蓝皮书价值有限的汽车上工作。

Some pieces took weeks and weeks to come together and just as long to fix.

有些作品需要数周的时间才能组装起来，修复起来也同样需要很长的时间。

Editors were always looking for the one thing that would make our stories go.

编辑们总是在寻找能让我们的故事流传下去的一件事。

Some stories never got there.

有些故事从未出现过。

The real anxiety for the entire newsroom would set in on Sunday night and be on blast by Monday afternoon.

整个新闻编辑室的真正焦虑将在周日晚上开始，并在周一下午爆发。

There were never enough news briefs for the City Desk feature.

城市服务台专题的新闻简报永远不够多。

Tuesdays were manic: Loose Lips would need a second item, freelance critics would be late with their picks for the City Lights section, the cover story would need a better kicker.

周二很疯狂：《Loose Lips》需要第二个项目，自由评论家会迟到他们对城市之光部分的选择，封面故事需要更好的踢球者。

The reporter with the cover—which could run 10,000 words—inevitably kept wanting to make changes (this was mostly me).

封面的记者——可以写一万字——不可避免地一直想做出改变（这主要是我）。

Editors had to settle on headlines.

编辑们必须确定头条新闻。

Photographs, taken with a film camera, had to be developed, selected, and given cutlines.

用胶片相机拍摄的照片必须经过冲洗、选择并给出剪切线。

If a story was important enough to warrant a call with the paper’s jovial Midwest libel lawyer, you got the tiniest inkling that your work might be worthwhile.

如果一篇报道足够重要，值得与该报快乐的中西部诽谤律师通电话，那么你就会感觉到你的工作可能是值得的。

Wednesdays were all heartache and stress, right up till the paper shipped to the printer.

星期三充满了心痛和压力，直到纸张被运送到打印机为止。

Reporters and editors kept tinkering, struggling for objective accuracy and a subjective degree of polish and style.

记者和编辑不断修补，努力争取客观的准确性和主观的润色和风格。

Reporters had to fact-check their own stories—relying on stacks of phone books and oversize street atlases, patient librarians, and phone call after phone call with sources.

记者必须对自己的报道进行事实核查——依靠成堆的电话簿和超大的街道地图、耐心的图书管理员以及一个又一个与消息来源的电话。

There were always a thousand other asks, a hundred pleas: I’ll die if this gets cut.

总是有一千个其他的问题，一百个恳求：如果这个被剪掉，我就会死。

Can we get that source on the record?

我们能把这个来源记录在案吗？

Can we go back to that neighborhood one more time?

我们可以再去那个街区一次吗？

Can we fact-check that last bit—the part I just added without telling you?

我们可以对最后一点——我刚刚在没有告诉你的情况下添加的部分进行事实核查吗？

Can we bring back that section on the inmate’s backstory?

我们可以带回有关囚犯背景故事的部分吗？

This last answer was no—and nearly 15 years later, it still hurts.

最后的答案是否定的——近 15 年后，它仍然令人心痛。

Our diligent copy editor, a Deadhead with a near-perfect SAT score and our Wednesday General, read each story.

我们勤奋的文案编辑、一个 SAT 成绩近乎完美的死头和我们的周三将军，阅读了每个故事。

Copy-editing marks were made in pencil on the page.

复制编辑标记是用铅笔在页面上做出的。

If she had questions, she scrawled them in the margins.

如果她有疑问，她会在页边空白处写下。

(The more she wrote, the higher your stress level; it meant your story was a mess.

（她写得越多，你的压力就越大；这意味着你的故事一团糟。

But it also meant your story was about to get a lot better.) My drafts often resembled scrapbooks, with ribbons of new text stapled to pages, names marked as fact-checked, and scribbled answers to the copy editor’s queries above the problem paragraphs.

但这也意味着你的故事将会变得更好。）我的草稿通常类似于剪贴簿，新文本的丝带钉在页面上，名字被标记为经过事实检查，并在问题段落上方潦草地写下了文案编辑询问的答案。

At a critical point in the process, stories made it to “greens”—galleys printed on green paper—and three more people read the piece, including the editor-in-chief (again).

在这个过程的关键时刻，故事变成了“绿色”——印在绿色纸上的厨房——另外三个人阅读了这篇文章，包括主编（再次）。

The churn didn’t let up until you had no choice but to stop.

直到你别无选择只能停止时，这种混乱才停止。

By 6 p.m.

下午 6 点

on Wednesday, the production team pasted corrected galleys, along with illustrations, headlines, and ads, onto camera-ready “boards” in a large, airy space on the third floor.

周三，制作团队将修正后的厨房以及插图、标题和广告粘贴到三楼一个宽敞通风的空间中可供拍照的“板上”。

The tension eased somewhat.

紧张气氛有所缓和。

The room was an oasis of X-ACTO knives and wax, with Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew spinning at low volume on the CD player.

房间里充满了 X-ACTO 刀具和蜡，CD 播放器上低声播放着 Miles Davis 的 Bitches Brew。

Higher-ups hunched over the pages scanning for blemishes or fuckups that needed fixing.

高层俯身在书页上寻找需要修复的瑕疵或混乱之处。

The reporter who had the cover story that week was given $20 for beer and snacks.

那周报道封面故事的记者得到了 20 美元的啤酒和零食。

In a corner of the room, they would assemble a plastic bag of baby carrots, a tub of hummus, and two six-packs.

在房间的一角，他们会组装一袋小胡萝卜、一桶鹰嘴豆泥和两袋六块装。

Reporters would stand around, quietly critiquing the spread and how it lacked salty and sweet.

记者们会站在周围，静静地批评这种酱，以及它如何缺乏咸味和甜味。

The $20 never went far enough.

20 美元永远不够。

But we were underpaid journalists, and that was dinner.

但我们是报酬过低的记者，这就是晚餐。

When the paper was sent off to the printer, the tension transferred to the tireless circulation crew, who would be loaded up and on the road by early Thursday morning.

当报纸被送到印刷厂时，紧张的气氛转移到了不知疲倦的流通人员身上，他们将在周四清晨装好并上路。

There were no more details to cram in, no more edits to make.

没有更多的细节需要填充，也没有更多的编辑需要进行。

Next week was tomorrow’s worry.

下周是明天的担忧。

The copy editor returned to her hot, book-lined cave with photographer Darrow Montgomery and a writer or two.

文案编辑与摄影师达罗·蒙哥马利和一两个作家回到了她炎热的、摆满书籍的洞穴。

Time for a smoke, the rest of the beer, or some Scotch kept in a drawer.

是时候抽根烟，喝剩下的啤酒，或者抽屉里放点苏格兰威士忌了。

You felt the week’s grind in your bones, and you smelled it on your skin, this up-all-night funk some of us wore like cologne.

你感觉到这一周的磨难在你的骨头里，你在你的皮肤上闻到了它的味道，我们中的一些人像古龙水一样穿着这种通宵达旦的恐惧。

The rest of the newsroom was still and quiet, the dog-eared reporter’s notebooks snowed under by drifts of that week’s drafts.

新闻编辑室的其他地方一片寂静，卷角记者的笔记本上堆满了本周的草稿。

In the worst cubicles, the books and papers looked like a heap of springtime slush in a grocery store parking lot, never thawing, growing filthier by the day.

在最差的隔间里，书籍和报纸看起来就像杂货店停车场里的一堆春天的烂泥，从未融化，一天天变得越来越肮脏。

We’d stub our cigarettes in an empty Altoids tin kept on a bookshelf.

我们会把香烟掐灭在书架上的空Altoids罐子里。

The bottom of the tin would warm as it filled with our ashes.

当罐子的底部装满我们的骨灰时，它的底部会变暖。

The next day perhaps you’d get your reward.

第二天也许你就会得到奖励。

You’d spot someone reading the paper on the Red Line.

你会发现有人在红线上读报纸。

You’d watch them skim the bold names in Loose Lips and then flip to the club listings.

你会看到他们浏览《Loose Lips》中大胆的名字，然后翻到俱乐部列表。

You had to hope they were just saving your story for later.

你不得不希望他们只是把你的故事留到以后再说。

By Sunday morning, that week’s paper would have become litter, crab-walking down the sidewalk or wedged into the corner of a subway seat.

到了周日早上，那周的报纸就会变成垃圾，像螃蟹一样走在人行道上，或者塞进地铁座位的角落里。

Within a month, we would barely remember the names of the people in our stories—the exceptions would haunt us forever.

不到一个月，我们就几乎记不起故事中人物的名字了——例外的情况将永远困扰着我们。

Jason Cherkis is a reporter and writer based in D.C. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2016 and is working on a book about suicide.

Jason Cherkis 是一名驻华盛顿特区的记者和作家。他入围了 2016 年普利策奖的决赛，目前正在写一本有关自杀的书。

He wrote for City Paper from 1997 to 2011.

1997年至2011年，他为《城市报》撰稿。

The thing newbies always talked about was the sex workers in the lobby.

新手们最常谈论的就是大厅里的性工作者。

In those days, City Paper was thick with classifieds and personals and ads for “adult services.” Pre-web, buyers would purchase the ads in person, lining up in high heels and tiny skirts at the front counter on Champlain Street NW.

那时，《城市报》上充斥着分类广告、交友广告以及“成人服务”广告。在网络上线之前，买家会亲自穿着高跟鞋和小裙子在尚普兰街西北的前台排队购买广告。

Just another day at an alt-weekly in the time of robust staffs, big circulation, and 180-page print papers every Thursday.

这只是另类周刊的又一天，当时员工队伍强大，发行量大，每周四印刷版报纸都达到 180 页。

In a lot of ways, the writers were the least oddball people in the place.

从很多方面来说，编剧们都是这个地方最不奇怪的人。

In the ’90s, production—that’s the people who paste up the book, kids—was full of creatives and music-scene people, folks who would drop work to go off on tour.

在 20 世纪 90 年代，制作团队（即那些贴书的人，孩子们）充满了创意人员和音乐界人士，这些人会放下工作去巡演。

We editorial types, by contrast, were postcollegiate and conventionally ambitious and really cared about our day jobs.

相比之下，我们这些编辑类型的人都是大学毕业后的人，通常雄心勃勃，并且真正关心我们的日常工作。

And most of us realized that we’d landed at a place where those ambitious could take wing.

我们大多数人都意识到，我们已经到达了一个让那些雄心勃勃的人可以展翅高飞的地方。

When I first started contributing to the paper, there was a murderers’ row of talent around the place: Eddie Dean and David Plotz and Ta-Nehisi Coates and Amanda Ripley and Brad McKee and Jason Cherkis and Stephanie Mencimer and Erik Wemple and a bunch of other people much smarter than me.

当我第一次开始为这篇论文撰稿时，周围有一群杀人犯的天才：埃迪·迪恩、大卫·普洛茨、塔内西斯·科茨、阿曼达·里普利、布拉德·麦基、杰森·切尔基斯、斯蒂芬妮·门西默、埃里克·温普尔以及其他一群比我聪明得多的人。

On Wednesday nights, when we closed the print issue, the cover story author would go out and fetch beer and snacks.

周三晚上，当我们关闭印刷版时，封面故事作者会出去买啤酒和零食。

The next morning, when the papers arrived, the office would be quiet except for the rustling pages.

第二天早上，当文件到达时，办公室里一片安静，只有书页沙沙作响的声音。

I thought, naively, that all journalism jobs were like this: A team of wiseasses dissecting the task of writing, working extra hard because I didn’t want to disappoint them.

我天真地认为，所有的新闻工作都是这样的：一群聪明人剖析写作任务，加倍努力工作，因为我不想让他们失望。

At the center of it all was David Carr, the editor.

这一切的中心人物是编辑大卫·卡尔。

I started writing for the paper not long after he showed up from Minnesota, and he hired me full-time in 1997.

他从明尼苏达州来后不久，我就开始为该报撰稿，并于 1997 年全职雇用了我。

At first, I had a seat right by his office, where the walls were so thin that I could hear him working stories and cajoling sources and pushing back at angry callers.

起初，我坐在他办公室旁边，那里的墙壁很薄，我可以听到他讲故事、哄骗消息来源、回击愤怒的来电者。

It was great eavesdropping: The time a community activist called to complain about being called an “asshole” (after listening to the guy for a while, Carr rang off by saying, “Ya know, Stu, you really are an asshole”).

偷听真是太棒了：有一次，一位社区活动家打电话抱怨自己被称为“混蛋”（卡尔听了一会儿之后，挂断电话说：“你知道，斯图，你真的是一个混蛋”）。

Or the time an overwrought D.C. councilmember called to complain that no one praised all the sacrifices he made for the city (“So quit!” Carr responded).

或者有一次，一位过度紧张的华盛顿特区议员打电话抱怨，没有人赞扬他为这座城市做出的所有牺牲（“所以退出！”卡尔回答）。

Once I made the mistake of filing a story that used the phrase “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” “I am disappointed that you think this is acceptable language for Washington City Paper, ” he said, before changing it to an elaborate metaphor involving Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and the Chicago Fire.

有一次，我在提交一篇报道时犯了一个错误，其中使用了“压垮骆驼的最后一根稻草”这句话。 “我很失望，你认为华盛顿城市报业可以接受这种语言，”他说，然后将其改为涉及奥利里夫人的牛和芝加哥大火的复杂隐喻。

The thing is, the tough-love schtick worked: He made amazing papers.

事实是，这种严厉的爱的伎俩奏效了：他发表了令人惊叹的论文。

“Our job is to restore consequence,” he would say, exhorting watchdog coverage of a dysfunctional government that had just been taken over by a Congressional control board.

“我们的工作是恢复后果，”他会说，并敦促监督机构对刚刚被国会控制委员会接管的功能失调的政府进行报道。

Still, while people feel proudest of accountability coverage, the nice thing about a weekly was that the package had to include other things: Zany headline puns ( “I’m OK.

尽管如此，虽然人们对问责制报道感到最自豪，但每周的好处是该计划必须包括其他内容：滑稽的标题双关语（“我很好。

Eurotrash.” ), goofy comics, unnecessary Shakespearean references in the Loose Lips column, and News of the Weird.

欧洲垃圾。” ）、愚蠢的漫画、“松口气”专栏中不必要的莎士比亚作品以及怪异新闻。

Oh, and downright beautiful pieces of literary journalism: We regularly did cover stories that ran 8,000 words.

哦，还有非常漂亮的文学新闻作品：我们经常做 8,000 字的封面故事。

We needed them to keep the ads apart.

我们需要它们来区分广告。

Eventually, the staff had grown enough that we took over an extra floor of the building.

最终，员工人数已经足够多，我们额外占据了大楼的一层。

I got promoted to be Carr’s deputy.

我被提升为卡尔的副手。

Writers left, new writers came.

作家走了，新作家来了。

Part of Carr’s spiel when hiring was that he couldn’t pay much, but if we were who we said we were, he eventually wouldn’t be able to afford us.

卡尔在招聘时滔滔不绝地说，他付不起太多钱，但如果我们是我们所说的那样，他最终将付不起我们的费用。

That’s what happened with me.

这就是我身上发生的事情。

I left in 2000, and it felt like graduating.

2000年我离开了，感觉就像毕业了。

Ten years later I came back—as editor.

十年后，我作为编辑回来了。

The return was a bit like reencountering an old friend who had aged dramatically.

这次回归有点像重逢一位已显老的老朋友。

The personality was the same, but the body had withered.

性格还是一样，只是身体已经枯萎了。

The intervening years had seen Craigslist decimate classifieds and voicey local blogs collect audiences who might once have been alt-weekly devotees.

在接下来的几年里，Craigslist 大幅减少了分类广告，而声音大的本地博客吸引了曾经是另类周刊爱好者的受众。

If you showed up early to meet a friend at a bar, you could now pull out your phone to pass the time, instead of picking up the paper from one of the racks that used to be ubiquitous at restaurants.

如果你很早就到酒吧与朋友见面，你现在可以拿出手机来打发时间，而不是从过去在餐馆随处可见的架子上拿起报纸。

City Paper had been sold, then gone bankrupt, and was now owned by the investment fund that had fronted the money.

城市纸业被出售，然后破产，现在由提供这笔资金的投资基金拥有。

On Champlain Street, we had long since given up that extra floor.

在尚普兰街，我们早已放弃了那层额外的楼层。

The sex workers, if they bought ads at all, were doing so online.

性工作者如果购买了广告，也是在网上进行的。

The staff was about half the size it had been.

员工人数大约是原来的一半。

The book size my first week back was 72 pages, on smaller paper.

我回来的第一周，书的尺寸是 72 页，纸张较小。

It would soon dwindle further.

很快它就会进一步减少。

But that personality!

但就是那个个性！

Still smart-alecky and ambitious and eager to stir shit up.

仍然自作聪明，雄心勃勃，渴望搅局。

I found myself learning a ton from the rising stars: Alan Suderman, who wrote Loose Lips, Lydia DePillis, who covered real estate, Jon Fischer, who edited arts, and Shani Hilton, who helmed City Desk.

我发现自己从新星身上学到了很多东西：《Loose Lips》的作者艾伦·苏德曼 (Alan Suderman)、房地产报道的莉迪亚·德皮利斯 (Lydia DePillis)、艺术编辑乔恩·费舍尔 (Jon Fischer) 和《城市服务台》(City Desk) 的沙尼·希尔顿 (Shani Hilton)。

As editor, I tried to reestablish some of the print hallmarks, like a big weekly cover story, on the logic that we shouldn’t give up our strongest elements.

作为编辑，我试图重建一些印刷品的标志，比如一个大型的每周封面故事，其逻辑是我们不应该放弃我们最强大的元素。

And in an environment where the rest of legacy local media was also being whupped, I wanted to keep up the energy on city politics—albeit in our own way.

在其他传统当地媒体也受到重创的环境中，我想保持对城市政治的活力——尽管是以我们自己的方式。

I once trudged down to the Wilson Building to be chastised by the then-D.C. Council chairman, who didn’t like the nickname Suderman had given him after reporting on his taxpayer-funded “fully loaded” SUV.

有一次，我艰难地走到威尔逊大厦，受到当时的华盛顿特区政府的严厉批评。委员会主席，他不喜欢苏德曼在报道了他的纳税人资助的“满载”SUV后给他起的绰号。

We kept using the nickname, and not too long after that, the chairman resigned his office and pleaded guilty to (nonautomotive) federal charges.

我们一直使用这个绰号，不久之后，主席辞职并承认了（非汽车）联邦指控。

Another time, we sent Fischer and staff photographer Darrow Montgomery on a cruise featuring a bunch of D.C. music-scene types .

还有一次，我们派费舍尔和专职摄影师达罗·蒙哥马利 (Darrow Montgomery) 参加了一次以华盛顿音乐界人士为特色的巡游。

Because the ship stopped in the Bahamas, that may have made them the first foreign correspondents in City Paper history.

由于该船停靠在巴哈马群岛，这可能使他们成为《城市报》历史上第一位外国记者。

The piece ran with a headline nodding to David Foster Wallace: “A Supposedly Punk Thing I’ll Never Do Again.”

这篇文章的标题是向大卫·福斯特·华莱士致敬：“我再也不会做一件所谓的朋克事情了。”

The paper’s budget was hard to navigate—at one point, we couldn’t even replace Montgomery’s missing camera lens—but it forced us to use some magazine-style innovating.

该报的预算很难掌控——一度我们甚至无法更换蒙哥马利丢失的相机镜头——但这迫使我们采用一些杂志式的创新。

We did a lot of packages and took advantage of our great print designers.

我们做了很多包装，并利用了我们优秀的印刷设计师的优势。

One of those got more attention than anything else that happened in my tenure, and perhaps in the history of City Paper .

其中一件事情比我任期内发生的任何事情都更受关注，也许在城市报业的历史上也是如此。

For years, Dave McKenna’s Cheap Seats column had chronicled the various ignominies of Daniel Snyder and his football team.

多年来，戴夫·麦肯纳的廉价座位专栏记录了丹尼尔·斯奈德和他的橄榄球队的各种耻辱。

I had the bright idea to pull together a guide to the lowlights , aimed at unhappy fans.

我有一个好主意，针对不满的粉丝，整理了一份低光指南。

For the cover, we used a picture of Snyder, but scrawled a mustache and devil horns on his face, the way a fifth grader might deface a yearbook picture of some unpopular teacher.

对于封面，我们使用了斯奈德的照片，但在他的脸上潦草地画着小胡子和魔鬼角，就像五年级学生可能会污损一些不受欢迎的老师的年鉴照片一样。

Snyder was not amused.

斯奈德并没有被逗乐。

He sued.

他提起诉讼。

The tension of nine months of legal back-and-forth stressed every existing fissure in the organization.

九个月来来回的法律争执使该组织中存在的每一个裂痕都变得紧张起来。

The public response was massive; readers kicked in tens of thousands of dollars for legal defense.

公众反响强烈；读者们捐出了数万美元用于法律辩护。

What the suit was really about, we figured, was getting McKenna off the beat.

我们认为，这套衣服的真正目的是让麦肯纳摆脱困境。

To their great credit, no one in ownership ever told me to do that.

值得赞扬的是，没有人告诉我这样做。

It would have been a betrayal, and it would have tanked the brand.

这将是一种背叛，也会让这个品牌陷入困境。

With courts likely to toss the much-ridiculed case, Snyder folded his cards right before the first game of the next season.

由于法庭可能会驳回这个备受嘲笑的案件，斯奈德在下赛季第一场比赛前就放弃了自己的底牌。

In an interview with the New York Times , he admitted not having read the package in the first place.

在接受《纽约时报》采访时，他承认一开始并没有阅读该包裹。

That made him a rarity: Thanks to the suit, it became the most-read story in City Paper history.

这使他成为稀有人物：由于这套诉讼，它成为《城市报》历史上阅读次数最多的故事。

Social media allowed it to travel, but people still came to the office to ask for hard copies for posterity.

社交媒体允许它传播，但人们仍然来到办公室为后代索取硬拷贝。

It’s odd to think the best-remembered incident during my time as editor involved an NFL team.

在我担任编辑期间，最令人难忘的事件涉及一支 NFL 球队，这很奇怪。

Professional sports coverage is one type of journalism that isn’t disappearing.

专业体育报道是一种不会消失的新闻报道。

A lot of the other stuff City Paper published has a less certain future in American journalism: Coverage of relatively obscure local officials, critical appraisals of lost-to-the-ages punk bands, a willingness to go big on stories about nobodies.

《城市报》发表的许多其他内容在美国新闻界的前景不太确定：对相对默默无闻的地方官员的报道、对失落时代朋克乐队的批判性评价、愿意大肆报道有关无名小卒的故事。

None of that goes away with print.

这些都不会随着印刷而消失。

But the ability to put it on the cover of a stack of dead trees in a way that makes a statement is something any editor will miss.

但是，任何编辑都会怀念将其以一种声明的方式放在一堆死树的封面上的能力。

And a lot of readers will too, I suspect.

我怀疑很多读者也会这么做。

Michael Schaffer writes the Capital City column in Politico .

迈克尔·谢弗 (Michael Schaffer) 在《政治》杂志上撰写首都专栏。

He was editor of City Paper from 2010 to 2012 and later editor in chief of Washingtonian .

2010年至2012年，他担任《城市报》的编辑，后来担任《华盛顿报》的主编。

The second-best Wednesday I had at City Paper was the night we closed an investigation on D.C. slumlord Sanford Capital .

我在城市纸业度过的第二好的星期三是我们结束对华盛顿贫民窟大亨桑福德资本的调查的那天晚上。

I was the managing editor at the time, and I did the story with a staff reporter, Andrew Giambrone.

我当时是总编辑，我和一位专职记者安德鲁·吉姆布隆 (Andrew Giambrone) 一起报道了这篇报道。

The weekly print edition created a middle space—12 hours in which the work was done, but not published.

每周印刷版创造了一个中间空间——12个小时，工作完成但不出版。

Over many years, many City Paper staffers took this middle time as an opportunity to drink, and that’s what Andrew and I did that night.

多年来，许多城市纸业的员工都把这个中间时间当作喝酒的机会，那天晚上我和安德鲁就是这么做的。

After the routine drinks with the staff in the office, we went to a bar and got one or two more.

在办公室与员工例行喝酒后，我们去了一家酒吧，又喝了一两杯。

That Wednesday night was particularly sweet.

那个星期三的晚上特别甜蜜。

The information in our story was devastating, but I wanted D.C. to know about it.

我们故事中的信息是毁灭性的，但我想让华盛顿知道这一点。

Plus, I was sure we’d beat the Post , whose reporters were working on the same story.

另外，我确信我们会击败《华盛顿邮报》，因为他们的记者正在报道同样的故事。

(We did.) I was confident in my editor, Liz Garrigan.

（我们做到了。）我对我的编辑 Liz Garrigan 充满信心。

And I was asleep by 10 that night, eager to wake up and go to work the next day.

那天晚上10点我就睡着了，渴望第二天醒来去上班。

There were worse Wednesday nights in my future.

我的未来还会有更糟糕的周三晚上。

A few months later, I became the editor of City Paper , which added a layer of pressure I felt I could never quite manage.

几个月后，我成为《城市报》的编辑，这给我增添了一层我觉得永远无法承受的压力。

There were Wednesdays I went home and edited more stories, late into the night; Wednesdays when I didn’t know if the paper would exist in a month; Wednesdays when the after-work drinks felt like a burden, even if I didn’t partake; Wednesdays when I knew the staff was angry about their working conditions and they’d start howling as soon as I left the office.

每周三我都会回家编辑更多的故事，直到深夜。星期三，我不知道一个月后报纸是否还会存在；周三，下班后喝酒感觉像是一种负担，即使我没有参加；星期三，当我知道员工对他们的工作条件感到愤怒时，我一离开办公室，他们就会开始嚎叫。

The hard times made the wins all the more precious.

艰难的岁月让胜利变得更加珍贵。

I loved knowing we had a good story coming out, and I loved it when the articles and photos fit together like a onetime puzzle—like someone could read from cover to cover and enjoy something on every page.

我喜欢知道我们有一个好故事即将出版，我喜欢文章和照片像一次性拼图一样组合在一起，就像有人可以从头到尾阅读并享受每一页上的东西一样。

But the best night I had at City Paper was one I didn’t see or understand.

但我在《城市报》度过的最美好的夜晚是我没有看到或理解的。

I was in my early 20s and not yet a journalist.

我当时20岁出头，还不是一名记者。

The editor was Erik Wemple, whom I didn’t know.

编辑是埃里克·温普尔（Erik Wemple），我不认识他。

My picture was in the paper that Wednesday night—a cub reporter had interviewed me for his first big City Paper story.

周三晚上，我的照片出现在报纸上——一位年轻的记者为他的第一篇《城市报纸》大型报道采访了我。

When it came out the next day, my friends and colleagues kept calling to say they’d seen me in the paper.

第二天文章出版后，我的朋友和同事不断打电话说他们在报纸上看到了我。

The reporter, Justin Peters, called too.

记者贾斯汀·彼得斯也打来电话。

We were already friends, and he met me with a copy of the paper, and we took a long walk.

我们已经是朋友了，他给我带来了一份报纸，我们走了很长一段路。

Today he’s my best friend—and my husband of more than a decade.

如今，他是我最好的朋友，也是我十多年的丈夫。

When I worked at City Paper , the arts editor, Matt Cohen, had a quip.

当我在《城市报》工作时，艺术编辑马特·科恩说了一句俏皮话。

About once a week, he’d find a way to say: “But isn’t it really about the friends we made along the way?” His words didn’t strike me at the time.

大约每周一次，他都会想办法说：“但这真的不是关于我们一路上结识的朋友吗？”他的话当时并没有引起我的注意。

I hardly even noticed and didn’t laugh—it was just something Matt said.

我几乎没有注意到，也没有笑——这只是马特说的话。

But as I wrote this piece, his words are the ones I remembered most of all.

但当我写这篇文章时，他的话是我最记得的。

Alexa Mills was the managing editor of Washington City Paper from 2016 to 2017 and the editor from 2017 to 2020.

Alexa Mills 于 2016 年至 2017 年担任《华盛顿城市报》的总编辑，并于 2017 年至 2020 年担任编辑。

Considering how many Wednesday afternoons I spent worrying about City Paper ’s print edition, I am a little surprised to realize that my fondest memories of the paper have nothing to do with the painstaking hours of proofing, the drinks and snacks after we were done, or even the supreme delight of finally settling on the perfect cover line (usually thanks to a last-minute bit of brilliance from Darrow Montgomery).

考虑到我花了多少个周三下午担心《城市报纸》的印刷版，我有点惊讶地发现，我对报纸最美好的回忆与校对的辛苦时间、完成后的饮料和零食，甚至最终确定完美封面线的极度喜悦无关（通常感谢达罗·蒙哥马利在最后一刻的出色表现）。

Sure, all of that was a lot of fun—well, OK, the proofing wasn’t always fun, but the rest of it was.

当然，所有这些都很有趣——好吧，校对并不总是很有趣，但其余的却很有趣。

No, when I think about the end of City Paper as a print product, I mostly think of the time long before I worked there.

不，当我想到城市纸业作为印刷产品的终结时，我主要想到的是我在那里工作之前很久的时间。

In high school in Rockville, in the early 1990s, my friends and I would stop at Tower Records every week to pick up a copy.

20 世纪 90 年代初，在罗克维尔上高中时，我和朋友们每周都会去 Tower Records 买一张唱片。

When I moved back to D.C. in 2000, I grabbed one on the way to the Metro after leaving work on Thursdays.

当我 2000 年搬回华盛顿时，我在周四下班后去地铁的路上买了一张。

If I was out meeting friends somewhere back in the pre-smartphone days, I’d read and reread the week’s paper before they got there, the way you’d scroll Twitter or Instagram now to kill time and/or learn something.

在智能手机出现之前，如果我出去和朋友见面，我会在他们到达那里之前阅读并重读本周的报纸，就像你现在滚动 Twitter 或 Instagram 来消磨时间和/或学习一些东西一样。

I used to keep Best of D.C. issues around for months in my living room; I don’t know how often I ever bothered to refer back to them, necessarily, but I liked having the option.

我过去常常把《华盛顿特区精选》杂志放在客厅里好几个月。我不知道我有多少次费心去参考它们，但我喜欢有这个选择。

I picked the paper up for the carefully reported, artfully written cover stories, but also for the columns, and the Straight Dope and Savage Love, and to laugh or gawk at the missed connections classified ads.

我拿起这份报纸是为了仔细报道、精心撰写的封面故事，也是为了专栏、《直白》和《野蛮的爱》，以及对错过的分类广告大笑或呆呆。

It was always more than a week’s worth of entertainment, and there it was, week in, week out, free for whoever wanted one.

娱乐活动的时间总是超过一周，而且一周又一周，任何想要的人都可以免费享受。

I hope City Paper finds nothing but success in its new online-only mode, and I realize the print edition probably hasn’t made much business sense for years.

我希望城市纸业在其新的纯在线模式中取得成功，但我意识到印刷版多年来可能没有多大商业意义。

Clicking “publish” on a great story when I worked there was a thrill, too.

当我在那里工作时，点击“发布”一个精彩的故事也是一种兴奋。

But I’ll still miss the paper as I first knew and loved it.

但我仍然会怀念我第一次知道并喜欢它时的报纸。

Mike Madden was the managing editor of Washington City Paper from 2010 to 2012 and the editor from 2012 to 2015 .

迈克·马登 (Mike Madden) 于 2010 年至 2012 年担任《华盛顿城市报》的总编辑，并于 2012 年至 2015 年担任编辑。

Natalie Hopkinson and Reginold Royston worked as interns at City Paper in the mid-’90s.

娜塔莉·霍普金森 (Natalie Hopkinson) 和雷金诺德·罗伊斯顿 (Reginold Royston) 于 20 世纪 90 年代中期在 City Paper 担任实习生。

They became good friends and now both work in academia: Hopkinson as a professor at Howard University, and Royston as a professor of African studies and information studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

他们成为了好朋友，现在都在学术界工作：霍普金森担任霍华德大学教授，罗伊斯顿担任威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校非洲研究和信息研究教授。

The two asked to be interviewed together, and shared a byline on a story about interracial relationships, “Love Knows Color,” in 1997.

两人要求一起接受采访，并分享了 1997 年有关跨种族关系的故事《爱知道颜色》的署名。

That’s where our conversation starts.

这就是我们的谈话开始的地方。

It’s been edited for length and clarity .

为了篇幅和清晰度，对其进行了编辑。

—Mitch Ryals

——米奇·赖尔斯

It was a place where you learned the takedown.

这是一个你学会击倒的地方。

Sometimes you just need to take people down.

有时你只需要打倒别人。

That’s the kind of thing you learn at City Paper : Some people become so powerful and have abused their power in such a way that you really do have to just …

这就是你在《城市报》学到的东西：有些人变得如此强大，并以这样的方式滥用他们的权力，以至于你真的必须……

I’m so fond of our time at City Paper and the lessons I learned there and writing about politics, culture, and everything.

我非常喜欢在《城市报》的时光，以及在那里学到的经验教训，以及撰写有关政治、文化和一切的文章。

I wonder, Reggie, what’s your take on where the alt-weeklies go?

我想知道，雷吉，你对另类周刊的走向有何看法？

Most people can’t afford to do that, but if you were of a certain social class—Reggie and I, middle class; Ta-Nehisi middle class—you have a certain kind of access that comes with being in a certain social class.

大多数人都负担不起这样做，但如果你属于某个社会阶层——雷吉和我，中产阶级；塔内西中产阶级——你拥有特定社会阶层所带来的某种接触机会。

Reggie, what did it mean to work for City Paper when you did as a young person?

雷吉，当你年轻时在城市纸业工作意味着什么？

I suppose you can get that by the immediacy of commenting and blogs, but our attention span moves way too quickly now.

我想你可以通过评论和博客的即时性来实现这一点，但我们的注意力现在转移得太快了。

And we move through news way too quickly.

我们浏览新闻的速度太快了。

And with something that sits around and demands your attention with something that’s tangible, with these great images, photographs, that’s what we’ve lost.

那些周围存在并需要你注意的有形的东西，这些伟大的图像、照片，这就是我们失去的东西。

We’ve lost the ability to have a common conversation in one space and there being an object of that conversation.

我们已经失去了在一个空间中进行共同对话的能力，并且该对话有一个对象。

Now, we are in a conversation, which is probably more interesting because of the diversity of voices, but everything is overwhelming us.

现在，我们正在进行对话，由于声音的多样性，这可能更有趣，但一切都让我们不知所措。

Jack Shafer was the editor of Washington City Paper from 1985 until 1995.

杰克·谢弗 (Jack Shafer) 于 1985 年至 1995 年间担任《华盛顿城市报》的编辑。

He asked that I include a preemptive apology to those former staffers he neglects to mention but who were integral to the paper’s success.

他要求我先向那些他没有提及的前工作人员致歉，但他们对报纸的成功至关重要。

Our hour-long conversation has been edited for length and clarity .

为了长度和清晰度，我们对长达一小时的谈话进行了编辑。

—Mitch Ryals

——米奇·赖尔斯

Jack Shafer: I was a longtime enthusiast for long-form journalism and had spent a lot of time reading alt-weeklies, both the Chicago Reader and LA Weekly and LA Reader .

杰克·谢弗：我长期以来一直热衷于长篇新闻，并花了很多时间阅读另类周刊，包括《芝加哥读者》、《洛杉矶周刊》和《洛杉矶读者》。

And at the same time I was enamored with the kind of journalism you’d see in Rolling Stone and Esquire and in the mid ’70s, a slick magazine called New Times , which nobody remembers but should.

与此同时，我也着迷于《滚石》、《时尚先生》以及 70 年代中期一本名为《新时代》的华而不实的杂志，没有人记得但应该记住。

I thought there was an opportunity at City Paper to shape a publication that was about the city in which we lived.

我认为城市纸业有机会制作一本关于我们所居住的城市的出版物。

There really wasn’t anything that reported consistently, peer to peer, about what it was like to live in this city.

关于这座城市的生活，确实没有任何一致的、同行的报道。

We gave primacy to covering the D.C. Council, which the Post didn’t spend as much resources on as it should.

我们把报道华盛顿特区议会作为首要任务，但《华盛顿邮报》并没有在其上投入应有的资源。

Ken Cummins was very strong in covering the circus that was the D.C. Council then and Mayor Barry of course.

肯·康明斯（Ken Cummins）非常擅长报道当时的华盛顿特区议会和巴里市长的马戏团。

And I’ve always been interested in culture and was lucky enough to inherit Joel Siegel as a film critic and then bring Mark Jenkins in as the resident polymath.

我一直对文化很感兴趣，并且很幸运能够继承乔尔·西格尔（Joel Siegel）作为电影评论家，然后聘请马克·詹金斯（Mark Jenkins）作为常驻博学者。

And if I’m tossing out credit, I could have never made it through those early years without Jon Cohen.

如果我放弃荣誉的话，如果没有乔恩·科恩，我可能永远无法度过早年的岁月。

He was essentially my copilot.

他本质上是我的副驾驶。

Alona Wartofsky was there before I was there.

阿罗娜·沃托夫斯基（Alona Wartofsky）在我到达之前就已经在那里了。

She knew the city really well and gave the paper its broad stance in the arts.

她非常了解这座城市，并赋予该报在艺术领域广泛的地位。

And I really owe a great debt of gratitude to Mike Dolan.

我真的非常感谢迈克·多兰。

As a freelancer, he contributed more cover stories than anybody.

作为一名自由职业者，他贡献的封面故事比任何人都多。

At a certain point, I think at 10 years, you’ve basically done every story you set out to do.

在某个时刻，我认为在 10 年后，你基本上已经完成了你打算做的每个故事。

Staffers started to propose stories and I’d say, “Oh we did that in ’91.” That was fine for me.

工作人员开始提出故事，我会说，“哦，我们在 91 年就这么做了。”这对我来说很好。

I didn’t want to repeat myself, but I began to think it was a little unfair of people who didn’t know the city, hadn’t had the benefit of editing the paper for 10 years.

我不想重复自己的话，但我开始觉得这对那些不了解这座城市、十年来没有享受过编辑报纸的好处的人来说有点不公平。

And it was a wise decision because David Carr came in and to my surprise ran lots of the stories that I had bounced.

这是一个明智的决定，因为大卫·卡尔进来了，令我惊讶的是，他刊登了很多我退回的故事。

And they really did quite well.

他们确实做得很好。

Right, right.

对，对。

There were never political litmus tests for a City Paper story.

《城市报》的报道从来没有经过政治试金石。

I ran a lot of stories whose premises I didn’t agree with, but I thought they were argued and reported really well.

我发表了很多故事，其前提我并不同意，但我认为它们的争论和报道都非常好。

So the key was that the paper was really writer driven.

所以关键是这篇论文确实是由作者驱动的。

What was your vision for the paper?

您对该论文的愿景是什么？

How did you shape it?

你是如何塑造它的？

Could you talk about how it changed over those 10 years?

您能谈谈这10年来发生了怎样的变化吗？

My vision was to get the paper pasted up and straight and out the door by Wednesday at 6 o’clock so it could be printed.

我的愿景是在周三下午 6 点之前将纸张粘贴好并直接送出，以便可以打印。

In the early days we were producing the paper out of Baltimore, so I would drive up there on Wednesday and supervise the layout and proofreading and the final touches.

早期，我们在巴尔的摩制作报纸，所以我会在周三开车去那里，监督布局、校对和最后的润色。

Very time consuming and awkward not having production in your back room.

如果不在你的密室进行制作，非常耗时且尴尬。

So in the beginning the vision might have been to create a paper that was about the city, but fuck vision, I had to get the paper out the door, and that was the most pressing thing.

所以一开始的愿景可能是创建一份关于这座城市的报纸，但是操他妈的愿景，我必须把报纸推出去，这是最紧迫的事情。

When the paper goes out the door, the clock starts again, and you have another seven days, not so much to fulfill the vision but to get another paper out the door.

当报纸出版时，时钟又开始计时，你还有另外 7 天的时间，不是为了实现愿景，而是为了再出版一份报纸。

What did the paper mean to its readers and how did you know?

这篇论文对读者意味着什么？您是怎么知道的？

I think it depends from reader to reader.

我认为这取决于读者。

The very first piece of mail I got after my first issue was an anonymous letter that I pinned up over my desk and kept for years.

第一期后我收到的第一封邮件是一封匿名信，我把它钉在桌子上并保存了多年。

It said, “Your paper sucks shit out of a dead dog’s asshole.” And I thought that’s the reader that I’m looking for.

上面写着：“你的报纸是从死狗屁眼里吸出来的屎。”我想这就是我正在寻找的读者。

A reader who’s discerning, who has a way with words, who isn’t afraid to be vulgar to make their point.

一个有洞察力的读者，一个善于用词的读者，一个不害怕用粗俗来表达自己观点的读者。

And I think the goal every week was to make the paper a little less shitty.

我认为每周的目标都是让报纸不那么糟糕。

I never heard back from that gentleman or gentlelady.

我再也没有收到那位先生或女士的回复。

But it would really depend on who you saw.

但这实际上取决于你看到的是谁。

I never fooled myself that Washington was waiting with baited breath to read our cover story or reading Joel Siegel on film.

我从来没有欺骗自己，华盛顿正在屏住呼吸等待阅读我们的封面故事或阅读电影中的乔尔·西格尔。

I think that a lot of people picked up the paper for the listings, for the advertisements, the classifieds, and in the long tradition of newspapering, to kill time.

我认为很多人拿起报纸是为了列表、广告、分类广告，并且按照报纸的悠久传统，是为了消磨时间。

This was before you could carry around a super computer in the palm of your hand where you can dial up great works of literature, the latest news, pornography.

那是在你可以随身携带一台超级计算机在手掌上之前，你可以通过它拨打伟大的文学作品、最新新闻、色情内容。

You don’t even have to get your fingers dirty paging through the newspaper.

您甚至不必用脏手翻阅报纸。

I heard a story that you once found a terrified reporter sleeping under their desk.

我听说过一个故事，你曾经发现一个惊恐的记者睡在他们的桌子下面。

It was probably me.

可能是我。

I slept a lot of times at the paper.

我在报纸上睡了很多次。

I’m sure that it happened.

我确信它发生了。

A nap at the paper is a long wonderful tradition.

在报纸上小睡是一个悠久而美好的传统。

You’re a media columnist now.

你现在是一名媒体专栏作家。

If you were to write something about the print death of this newspaper, what would you write?

如果你要写一些关于这份报纸印刷死亡的文章，你会写什么？

I guess I’ve been waiting for this to happen for a long time because so many of the other papers in the country have fallen.

我想我已经等待这件事发生很长时间了，因为这个国家的许多其他报纸都已经倒闭了。

Mortality seems to have been built into these papers, and they have expired as both a cultural and as a business force.

死亡似乎已经融入到这些报纸中，它们作为文化和商业力量都已经过时了。

You have to be careful about not being too overly sentimental about preserving the things that shaped you.

你必须小心，不要在保留塑造你的事物时过于感伤。

I’m sure that people were really upset when horse and buggies departed, and I think this was an inevitable end.

我确信当马匹和马车离开时，人们真的很沮丧，我认为这是不可避免的结局。

I remember when City Paper was doing matches ads long before the Washington Post got there, and we were doing same sex matching ads, and the Post would do only opposite sex ads.

我记得早在《华盛顿邮报》出现之前，《城市报》就在做匹配广告，我们做的是同性匹配广告，而《华盛顿邮报》只会做异性广告。

I don’t know when it was, but it was cultural breakthrough when Post started running same sex ads.

我不知道是什么时候，但当波斯特开始投放同性广告时，这是文化上的突破。

The paper benefited by how conventional and straitlaced and out of the loop of city life that the Post was.

该报受益于《华盛顿邮报》的传统、拘谨和脱离城市生活。

I don’t think you get a reflection of the flavor and variety and the conflict that’s going on in the city and we were able to do that.

我认为你无法反映城市中正在发生的风味、多样性和冲突，而我们能够做到这一点。

For me, not being able to pick up a City Paper is like coming home after a hard day of work and you go to your refrigerator because you know you have one beer left, and it’s gone.

对我来说，买不到一份《城市报纸》就像辛苦工作了一天回到家，你走到冰箱前，因为你知道还剩一瓶啤酒，但它已经不见了。

That feeling of loss and depression that you’re not going to have the comfort of the bottle and the cold brew going down your throat.

那种失落和沮丧的感觉，因为你无法享受瓶子带来的舒适感，也无法让冷萃咖啡流进你的喉咙。

I think it’s going to be really hard.

我认为这会非常困难。

The unique thing about City Paper was that it stood out.

城市纸业的独特之处在于它脱颖而出。

It was visible everywhere, and people referred to it, and people kept it in their houses to figure out where to go at night, what shows to go see.

它随处可见，人们会参考它，人们将它放在家里，以了解晚上去哪里，看什么节目。

I think the problem with an online publication is it’s hard to maintain that good visibility.

我认为在线出版物的问题在于很难保持良好的知名度。

The paper has an uphill climb and has had an uphill climb as circulation has fallen and there are fewer distribution points.

随着发行量的下降和发行点的减少，该报纸已经经历了一个艰难的攀登。

And I think COVID kicked the shit out of it too.

我认为新冠疫情也让这一切变得糟糕。

After our interview, Shafer messaged to give his version of a common theme running through some of our conversations with former staffers.

采访结束后，谢弗发信息说，他对我们与前员工的一些谈话中贯穿的一个共同主题给出了他的看法。

While the work is about telling human-centered stories, at least some of the reward is the humans we meet along the way.

虽然这部作品是在讲述以人为中心的故事，但至少部分奖励是我们一路上遇到的人类。

“I forgot to say that I eventually got a wife out of City Paper ,” Shafer said.

“我忘了说，我最终从城市纸业找到了一个妻子，”谢弗说。

“I married my last arts editor, Nicole Arthur, six years after I left the paper.”

“在我离开报纸六年后，我与我的最后一位艺术编辑妮可·阿瑟结婚了。”

I have no recall of the first time a copy of the Washington City Paper found its way into my hands, just as I no longer remember when I first became aware of the ubiquitous street boxes that served as its chief distribution point, but I am almost certain that I read that issue from back to front.

我不记得《华盛顿城市报》第一次到达我手中是什么时候，就像我不再记得我第一次意识到作为其主要分发点的无处不在的街头信箱是什么时候一样，但我几乎可以肯定我是从后到前阅读那期报纸的。

At least half of the pages in those days were crammed with a seemingly inexhaustible bounty of classified ads, the sustenance that made the paper’s mission of chronicling the people, the personalities, the cumulative eccentricities of the nation’s capital possible.

当时至少有一半的版面充斥着看似取之不尽用之不竭的分类广告，正是这些广告使报纸得以实现记录国家首都的人民、个性和累积的怪癖的使命。

Drum instruction, guitar lessons, model/actress wanted, redecorate your home, hypnosis, and spiritualist healing.

架子鼓教学、吉他课程、模特/演员招募、重新装修你的家、催眠和招魂术治疗。

Find what you need or simply find out what others have needed.

找到您需要的东西或只是找出其他人需要的东西。

In the years before algorithms came to catalog our every curiosity, those pages were a micro-font index of human need: the commercial, “DON’T LEASE ANOTHER BEEPER UNTIL YOU CALL MESSAGE WORLD,” the personal, “Clayton, be nicer to your chimp or I’ll report you to the ASPCA,” the transactional, “Uncontested Divorce $175” the mad volume of sexual miscellany, “Miss those spankings your dad used to deliver?

在算法对我们的每一个好奇心进行分类之前的几年里，这些页面是人类需求的微字体索引：商业广告“不要再租一个传呼机，直到您呼叫消息世界”，个人广告“克莱顿，对你的黑猩猩好一点，否则我会向美国防止虐待动物协会举报你”，交易广告“无争议离婚 175 美元”，疯狂的性杂货卷，“想念那些”你爸爸过去常打屁股吗？

Trim, attractive WM will fulfill your needs.

简洁、有吸引力的 WM 将满足您的需求。

No strings” or “Ladies, double your pleasure, two SWMs seeking 1-2 s/mwf for fun and games.”

没有任何条件”或“女士们，双倍快乐，两个 SWM 寻求 1-2 s/mwf 的乐趣和游戏。”

The editors and journalists at the City Paper scoured D.C., crafting weekly installments covering the mundane, the absurd, the outrageous (had the paper itself been categorized as a genre it would have been a dramedy).

《城市报》的编辑和记者走遍了华盛顿特区，每周制作一篇报道，报道平凡的、荒唐的、令人发指的事情（如果报纸本身被归类为一种类型，那它就是一部喜剧）。

Yet for all the work that went into creating the front of the book, all that reportage might not have been more revelatory than what was happening in the back of it.

然而，尽管为本书的正面所做的所有工作，所有的报告文学可能并不比背面发生的事情更具启发性。

Some future anthropologist seeking to understand life in the nation’s capital during those days would comb through the sundry postings, the furtive inquiries the sum of happenings there.

一些未来的人类学家想要了解当时国家首都的生活，他们会梳理各种各样的帖子，偷偷地询问那里发生的事情的总和。

Not everything that appeared there was intentional.

并非所有出现在那里的东西都是故意的。

In the early ’90s, at a point at which the paper had become a staple in my life, a coworker from the old Crown Books between P Street and New Hampshire Avenue was cutting across Dupont Circle when a photographer stopped him saying he was shooting portraits of Washingtonians.

20世纪90年代初，当报纸成为我生活中的主要内容时，P街和新罕布什尔大道之间的旧皇冠图书公司的一位同事正抄近路穿过杜邦圆环，一名摄影师拦住了他，说他正在拍摄华盛顿人的肖像。

This was at a point when the Circle was still overrun with rats and scams and on any given day either of the two might predominate.

当时，圈子仍然充斥着老鼠和骗局，在任何一天，两者中的任何一个都可能占主导地位。

My friend sat for the impromptu photo shoot, signed a release, and was shocked a few weeks later when his picture showed up in a listing for vaguely worded “massage services.” Lesson learned.

我的朋友坐下来进行即兴拍摄，签署了一份授权书，几周后，当他的照片出现在措辞含糊的“按摩服务”列表中时，他感到震惊。吸取教训。

The yield of those libidinous posts was WCP ’s trademark long-form explorations of the D.C. life.

这些色情帖子的产出是 WCP 对华盛顿生活的标志性长期探索。

Six-thousand words on a subject, now all but unheard of, was the standard.

一个主题的六千字是标准，现在几乎闻所未闻。

A job listing for the publication back in the day listed the preferred level of experience and job requirements along with the capped declaration that applicants must be able to handle long-form .

当天该出版物的职位列表列出了首选的经验水平和职位要求，以及申请人必须能够处理长格式的上限声明。

So strange then that those advertisements for the unbridled world that the District back then might dwindle and then all but disappear, taking with them a vital part of the media landscape.

如此奇怪的是，当时该地区的那些无拘无束的世界的广告可能会减少，然后几乎消失，并带走媒体景观的重要组成部分。

The logic of the alt-weeklies, dating all the way back to the founding of the Village Voice , held that a city could sustain multiples narratives—the one typically chronicled in the solemn, official prose of what we now call legacy newspapers and another, less staid, stream of observation about those same locales.

另类周刊的逻辑可以追溯到《乡村之声》的创立，它认为一座城市可以维持多种叙事——一种通常记录在我们现在所谓的传统报纸的庄严、官方散文中，另一种不那么拘谨的对同一地点的观察流。

These outlets were not defined simply by their relationship to the larger newspapers they existed alongside but rather by the entire style of journalism they practiced: arch, irreverent, occasionally profane.

这些媒体的定义不仅仅在于它们与与之并存的较大报纸的关系，还在于它们所实行的整个新闻风格：古板、不敬，偶尔还有亵渎。

Dispatches from Washingtonians to and for Washingtonians, as local as your corner bar.

从华盛顿人到华盛顿人以及为华盛顿人发送的包裹，就像您街角酒吧一样本地化。

Any institution that exists for as long as WCP contains multitudes—eras so rich with anecdotes, spectacles both small and grand, foibles and fuckups that could be the basis of a book of their own.

只要 WCP 存在，任何机构都包含着众多的时代——充满了轶事、大大小小的奇观、缺陷和混乱的时代，这些都可以成为他们自己的书的基础。

Mine was the David Carr era, when D.C. was still regaled as Chocolate City and the paper’s skeptical-to-cynical coverage of Marion Barry’s leadership was shot through with race politics of the day.

我的时代是大卫·卡尔时代，当时华盛顿特区仍被誉为巧克力城，报纸对马里昂·巴里领导力的怀疑甚至愤世嫉俗的报道充斥着当时的种族政治。

Black Washington regarded the City Paper with suspicion, which was not unrelated to the fact that the mostly Black city was being covered by paper’s mostly White staff.

黑人华盛顿对《城市报》持怀疑态度，这与这个以黑人为主的城市被报纸以白人为主的工作人员所报道的事实不无关系。

Carr entered this equation as editor in chief in 1995 and, with an almost stereotypically Midwestern degree of practicality set out to diversify the paper’s ranks.

卡尔于 1995 年以主编的身份进入了这个方程式，并以几乎典型的中西部实用性程度开始使报纸的队伍多样化。

His initial class of recruits included Holly Bass, Neil Drumming, myself, and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

他的第一批新兵包括霍莉·巴斯、尼尔·德鲁明、我和塔内西斯·科茨。

This was not a panacea, but it was a difference.

这不是万能药，但它是有区别的。

One time an irate Black reader called into the office screaming about a piece I’d written that touched upon several racial themes.

有一次，一位愤怒的黑人读者打电话到办公室，对我写的一篇涉及几个种族主题的文章大喊大叫。

The caller stopped his tirade mid-sentence and said, “Wait, are you Black?” When I indicated I was, he said “Oh, never mind,” and hung up.

打电话的人停止了他的长篇大论，问道：“等等，你是黑人吗？”当我表示愿意时，他说“哦，没关系”，然后挂断了电话。

We joined a staff that included Glenn Dixon as arts editor, Eddie Dean, Mike Schaffer, Erik Wemple, and Stephanie Mencimer as staff writers, and James Lockhart as an editor.

我们加入的团队包括格伦·迪克森（Glenn Dixon）担任艺术编辑，埃迪·迪恩（Eddie Dean）、迈克·谢弗（Mike Schaffer）、埃里克·温普尔（Erik Wemple）和斯蒂芬妮·门西默（Stephanie Mencimer）担任专职撰稿人，詹姆斯·洛克哈特（James Lockhart）担任编辑。

Jake Tapper, then a frequent freelancer, wrote a still-memorable (and in some corners infamous) first-person piece about going on a blind date with a pre-White House Monica Lewinsky.

当时经常从事自由职业的杰克·塔珀 (Jake Tapper) 写了一篇至今仍令人难忘（在某些方面还臭名昭著）的第一人称文章，内容是关于与入主白宫的莫妮卡·莱温斯基 (Monica Lewinsky) 相亲的故事。

What I could not have known at the time was how integral City Paper would become to everything else I wanted to do later.

当时我无法知道城市纸业将如何成为我以后想做的其他事情的不可或缺的一部分。

We learned the metabolism of the weekly publication, from pitch to closing, the particulars of reporting, the imperatives of meeting deadlines, the double and triple checking of salient facts.

我们了解了周刊的新陈代谢，从宣传到结束，报道的细节，按时完成任务的必要性，对重要事实的双重和三重检查。

The alt-weekly system served as a farm league where writers and editors could perfect their crafts, find their professional voices, and learn from the inevitable mistakes.

另类周刊系统就像一个农场联盟，作家和编辑可以在这里完善他们的手艺，找到他们的专业声音，并从不可避免的错误中学习。

The current struggles of local papers of all sorts but particularly the alt-weeklies has a compound effect of not only squeezing the many talented people doing this work right now, but also making it that much more difficult for tomorrow’s writers and critics to find a foothold in the arena.

当前各种地方报纸（特别是另类周刊）的困境产生了复合效应，不仅挤压了目前从事这项工作的许多人才，而且也使明天的作家和评论家更难在这个舞台上找到立足点。

The Washington of that era no longer exists.

那个时代的华盛顿已经不复存在。

In its place stands a cleaner, newer iteration of the capital city, one whose very functionality can remind you that grit makes more good news days.

取而代之的是一座更干净、更新的首都，它的功能本身就能提醒你，坚韧会带来更多好消息。

The city is less familiar to me these days.

这些天我对这座城市不太熟悉了。

My mental geography of D.C. is marked as much by my recollection of what once stood at a particular corner or down a specific alley as any knowledge of what currently exists there.

我对华盛顿特区的心理地理的印象与我对曾经站在某个特定角落或某个特定小巷的东西的记忆一样，与对那里目前存在的任何知识的了解一样多。

The disappearance of the once-ubiquitous City Paper boxes will render the city that much less familiar to the old heads of my era.

曾经随处可见的城市纸箱的消失将使这座城市对于我们这个时代的老头脑来说变得更加陌生。

A reminder of the great ambivalence of progress, a reminder to take note of what is because it invariably becomes what once was.

它提醒我们进步的巨大矛盾，提醒我们注意现状，因为它总是会变成曾经的样子。

Lesson learned.

吸取教训。

Jelani Cobb is a staff writer for the New Yorker and a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

杰拉尼·科布是《纽约客》的特约撰稿人，也是哥伦比亚大学新闻研究生院的教授。

He wrote for City Paper from 1995 to 2001.

1995年至2001年，他为《城市报》撰稿。

City Paper consumed me with the drama, passion, and madness of a first love.

《城市报》让我沉浸在初恋的戏剧性、激情和疯狂之中。

It was a yeasty place in the late ’80s, filled with astonishing writers, editors, photographers, and artists; the limitations were my own ambitions and visions.

在 80 年代末，这里是一个充满活力的地方，充满了令人惊叹的作家、编辑、摄影师和艺术家。限制是我自己的抱负和愿景。

We were a small, overworked crew led by Jack Shafer and his vacuum cleaner mind, crazy high batting average, and blunt, unsparing judgment of words, ideas, and people.

我们是一个小而劳累过度的团队，由杰克·谢弗领导，他的头脑像吸尘器一样，击球率高得惊人，对言语、想法和人的判断直率、不留情面。

The place had a sitcom vibe with a constant stream of freelancers, musicians, wacko wannabes, theater people, intellectuals, fakes, drunk illustrators, and outright scammers coming through the door.

这个地方有一种情景喜剧的氛围，自由职业者、音乐家、疯狂崇拜者、戏剧人、知识分子、冒牌货、喝醉的插画家和彻头彻尾的骗子源源不断地从门口进来。

I wrote about dying broke and an old potter’s field, Marion Barry’s arrest, the Finders cult, polio and AIDS vaccines, wife beaters, my brother being run over by a truck, prison architects, drug rehab at Lorton Prison, Blacks in the USSR, taking TB meds to a TB patient handcuffed to his hospital bed, the wacky ER at DC General during crack, the making of a Smithsonian show on the Great Migration, squatters, guerrilla art, and Elvis’ FBI files.

我写过身无分文、老陶工的田地、马里昂·巴里的被捕、发现者邪教、小儿麻痹症和艾滋病疫苗、殴打妻子、我的兄弟被卡车碾过、监狱建筑师、洛顿监狱的戒毒所、苏联的黑人、给被铐在病床上的结核病患者服用结核病药物、华盛顿特区总医院的古怪急诊室、史密森尼大剧院的演出的制作移民、占屋者、游击艺术和埃尔维斯的联邦调查局档案。

We had loud fights and louder parties, mixing with journalists from all stripes at Dan’s Cafe (airplane bottle alcohol) on Thursday nights.

周四晚上，我们在丹咖啡馆（飞机瓶装酒精饮料）里进行了激烈的争吵和更喧闹的聚会，与来自各行各业的记者混在一起。

I made friends for life.

我结识了终生的朋友。

I cannot imagine a better way to have spent those five years.

我无法想象还有什么更好的方式来度过这五年。

But I also was relieved to leave, first love and all that.

但离开后我也松了一口气，初恋等等。

—Jon Cohen

——乔恩·科恩

“Do you look that way because everything you touch is turning to shit?”

“你这样看是因为你碰过的所有东西都变成了屎吗？”

David Carr was right.

大卫·卡尔是对的。

I had the forlorn look of a young man who turned everything he touched to shit.

我的表情就像是一个年轻人，他把自己碰过的一切都变成了屎。

It was 1995 and I was 20 years old and had come to City Paper as part of Carr’s first batch of interns—he’d taken over the reins only a couple months before.

那是 1995 年，我 20 岁，作为卡尔的第一批实习生来到城市纸业——几个月前他刚刚接手公司。

He wanted me to take big chances.

他希望我抓住大机会。

So I did.

所以我做到了。

And I kept missing.

而我却一直失踪。

Badly.

糟糕的是。

But now, Carr said, he was confident in my “dead guy.” This was a man named Jim Hill, a former typesetter and Navy veteran who sat in the D.C. morgue for nine months.

但现在，卡尔说，他对我的“死人”充满信心。这个人名叫吉姆·希尔（Jim Hill），曾是一名排字工和海军退伍军人，在华盛顿太平间呆了九个月。

From the start I had little interest in the D.C. government angle, but more interest in Hill.

从一开始我对华盛顿政府的角度就没什么兴趣，但对希尔更感兴趣。

He had walked away from that suburban life so many people chased after, for one of desolation—dying alone, going unclaimed.

他离开了那么多人追逐的郊区生活，走向一种荒凉——孤独地死去，无人认领。

I just wanted to tell his story.

我只是想讲他的故事。

In truth, I didn’t really know where it would lead.

事实上，我真的不知道它会走向何方。

It meant hanging out with his old friends and getting yelled at by his relatives, spending nights at the racetrack and going to the room where he died.

这意味着和他的老朋友一起出去玩，被亲戚吼叫，在赛马场过夜，然后去他去世的房间。

Eddie Dean at one point said, “Jesus!

埃迪·迪恩（Eddie Dean）有一次说道：“天哪！

You’re Jim Rockford!”

你是吉姆·罗克福德！”

When “Goner” appeared—the last week of my internship—it marked my only cover at City Paper .

当《Goner》出现时——我实习的最后一周——它标志着我在城市纸业的唯一封面。

Years later, when my dad and I were having dinner with the Carrs, Carr said this was possibly his favorite piece of my career.

多年后，当我和父亲与卡尔一家共进晚餐时，卡尔说这可能是我职业生涯中他最喜欢的作品。

“What a way to come out swinging,” he said, turning to me.

“这是一种多么摇摆的方式啊，”他转向我说道。

“You haven’t come close since.” —Sridhar Pappu

“从那以后你就再没有靠近过。” ——斯里达尔·帕普

The camaraderie and the cussing.

友情和咒骂。

The laughter and the tears.

有欢笑，也有泪水。

The agony and the ecstasy.

痛苦和狂喜。

The love and the hate—especially the hate mail.

爱与恨——尤其是仇恨邮件。

The staff of Washington City Paper in the ’90s: An odd group of contrarians and misfits, exiled from the corridors of power and shunned by polite society, who banded together despite high levels of dysfunction and low wages “to put out a goddamn paper,” in the mantra of editor David Carr.

20世纪90年代华盛顿城市报的员工：一群奇怪的逆向者和格格不入的人，被驱逐出权力的走廊，被上流社会所回避，尽管他们的功能严重失调，工资很低，但用编辑大卫·卡尔的口号来说，他们团结在一起“推出了一份该死的报纸”。

The weekly mission: to explore the dimensions of conflict wherever it leads, from the streets and alleys of the nation’s capital to the darkest recesses of the human heart.

每周任务：探索冲突的各个层面，从国家首都的大街小巷到人类内心最黑暗的深处。

“What all good stories have in common is conflict,” in the credo of Carr’s predecessor, Jack Shafer.

“所有好故事的共同点就是冲突，”这是卡尔的前任杰克·谢弗的信条。

A highlight/job perk, among many: Cigarette breaks on the parking deck with film and music critic/iconoclast Joel E.

其中一个亮点/工作福利是：在停车场与电影和音乐评论家/反传统人士 Joel E. 一起抽烟。

Siegel as he exhaled clouds of mentholated wisdom, riffing on his favorite culture warriors (Val Lewton, Mildred Bailey, Billie Holiday, Jean Vigo, Shirley Horn, et al.) and castigating slick frauds like Michael Feinstein.

西格尔吐露着薄荷般的智慧，反复嘲笑他最喜欢的文化斗士（瓦尔·卢顿、米尔德里德·贝利、比莉·哈乐黛、让·维果、雪莉·霍恩等人），并严厉斥责迈克尔·范斯坦等狡猾的骗子。

The sheer pulpy heft of a 144-page, every-Thursday edition of Washington City Paper from its print-only heyday could make for sustaining, if unwieldy, reading fodder on a crowded Metro.

《华盛顿城市报》每周四出版 144 页，从纯印刷版的全盛时期开始，其厚重的纸质内容可以成为在拥挤的地铁上维持阅读的素材，尽管笨重。

That heft, as well as its status as a free weekly in the service of Free Speech and including an f-bomb when somebody in a story said one, was made possible by display ads from the likes of Atlantic Futons, Bigg Wolf Movie Discounters, and Royce’s Video Outlet, among many now-defunct advertisers and defenders of the First Amendment in the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar.

它之所以能有这样的影响力，以及它作为为言论自由服务的免费周刊的地位，以及当故事中的某人说某事时包括一句脏话，都是通过大西洋蒲团、大狼电影折扣店和罗伊斯视频商店等公司的展示广告成为可能的，其中还有许多现已解散的广告商和第一修正案的捍卫者，以追求全能的美元。

We will miss the once-ubiquitous, often obnoxious rustle of CP ’s unruly, ink-bleeding pages getting pawed and read to tatters in public places.

我们会怀念曾经无处不在、常常令人讨厌的《CP》不守规矩的、墨水渗出的书页在公共场所被人用爪子抓破、读成碎片时发出的沙沙声。

It has been replaced with the quiet antiseptic scrolling and pervasive “mechanized hum of another world,” first described by the doomed protagonist of Steely Dan’s “Don’t Take Me Alive” from The Royal Scam , which featured the lyrics—of course—printed on the inner sleeve.

取而代之的是安静、抗菌的滚动和无处不在的“另一个世界的机械化嗡嗡声”，最早是由《皇家骗局》中斯蒂利·丹的《别带我活着》中注定失败的主角描述的，歌词当然印在了内袖上。

Good night, sweet print.

晚安，甜蜜的印刷品。

You were a blast while it lasted.

当它持续的时候，你是一个爆炸。

—Eddie Dean

——埃迪·迪恩

The only meetings I never hated were led by Erik Wemple.

唯一我从不讨厌的会议是埃里克·温普尔（Erik Wemple）主持的。

I especially loved Fitness Tips and Food Talk for five minutes before the one-hour story meetings commenced (and loved how they never went longer.

我特别喜欢在一小时的故事会议开始之前的五分钟健身秘诀和美食谈话（并且喜欢它们从来没有更长的时间）。

And also that he’d lock out latecomers [Jason Cherkis]).

而且他还会把迟到者拒之门外 [Jason Cherkis]）。

My favorite meetings were for the cover heds, where anyone in the building with a pulse was welcome.

我最喜欢的会议是在隐蔽处举行的，那里欢迎大楼里任何有脉搏的人。

Darrow Montgomery often came up with the winner because he’s really a word guy disguised as one of the world’s best photographers.

达罗·蒙哥马利经常选出获胜者，因为他确实是一个伪装成世界上最好的摄影师之一的文字达人。

I don’t know if he came up with “Hot for Creature” for a story about a teacher obsessed with sasquatch.

我不知道他是否为一个关于一位老师痴迷于大脚野人的故事想出了“Hot for Creature”。

But he could have.

但他本来可以。

—Jule Gardner Banville

——朱尔·加德纳·班维尔

In September 2012, I was a week or two into my new job as the Housing Complex reporter, and I went to a community meeting in Anacostia or Congress Heights.

2012 年 9 月，我担任住房综合体记者的新工作一两周后，我参加了阿纳科斯蒂亚或国会高地的社区会议。

I can’t even remember what the meeting was about, but I distinctly remember that just a few minutes in, an elderly man stood up and started waving the latest issue of Washington City Paper , which had Alan Suderman’s story about the broken Certified Business Enterprise program on the cover.

我什至不记得会议的内容，但我清楚地记得几分钟后，一位老人站起来，开始挥舞最新一期的《华盛顿城市报》，封面上有艾伦·苏德曼关于失败的认证企业计划的故事。

He railed about the corruption in city government and shouted, “You have to read the City Paper !”

他痛斥市政府的腐败，并喊道：“你一定要读读《城市报》！”

That’s when it kind of hit me that the work we were doing really mattered.

就在那时，我突然意识到我们所做的工作确实很重要。

There’s sometimes a sense—inside City Paper and outside—that it’s a bunch of overeducated, underpaid nerds riffing on basement bands from the ’90s and $15 cocktails.

有时，无论是在《城市报》内部还是外部，都会有这样一种感觉：这是一群受过高等教育、收入过低的书呆子，他们演奏着 90 年代的地下室乐队和 15 美元的鸡尾酒。

But in the paper’s best days, which spanned decades, politicians feared us, community members needed us, and no one could beat us on the kinds of stories we pursued.

但在该报长达数十年的鼎盛时期，政客们害怕我们，社区成员需要我们，而且在我们所追求的各种故事上，没有人能打败我们。

I always got a little thrill on Thursdays when I’d watch people reach into our black-and-orange boxes to see what was on the cover.

每周四，当我看到人们伸手进入我们的黑橙色盒子看封面上的内容时，我总是感到有点兴奋。

I’ll miss that terribly.

我会非常想念那个。

—Aaron Wiener

——亚伦·维纳

I worked at City Paper during the height of Black Bart mania (IYKYK) on F St. NW.

我在 F St. NW 的 Black Bart 狂热 (IYKYK) 高峰时期在 City Paper 工作。

I took over the receptionist position, later passing it to Nicole Arthur before it was passed like a torch to members of Unrest, Velocity Girl, and Black Tambourine.

我接手了接待员的职位，后来把它传给了 Nicole Arthur，然后又像火炬一样传给了 Unrest、Velocity Girl 和 Black Tambourine 的成员。

I met pimps and hos face to face (the term sex worker wasn’t around yet) while taking adult services ads at reception and over the phone.

我在接待处和电话中拍摄成人服务广告时，面对面遇到了皮条客和妓女（当时还没有性工作者这个词）。

At one point there were four office couples and you would often trip over them canoodling in the stairwell!

曾经有四对办公室情侣，你经常会被他们在楼梯间亲热时绊倒！

Next stop was the scintillating world of classified advertising, doing data entry and seeing responses and photographs for personal ads.

下一站是分类广告的精彩世界，进行数据输入并查看个人广告的回复和照片。

Amy Austin, the greatest boss ever, valued my work ethic so she helped me move into production, where Mark Jenkins tried to teach me to do text wraps on ancient (pre-Mac) computers.

艾米·奥斯汀 (Amy Austin)，有史以来最伟大的老板，很看重我的职业道德，所以她帮助我进入生产阶段，马克·詹金斯 (Mark Jenkins) 试图教我在古老的（Mac 之前的）计算机上进行文本换行。

I eventually learned how to use a Mac and QuarkXpress, and I already knew how to cut galleys with an X-ACTO knife, wax them and paste them to the blue lines with a roller.

我最终学会了如何使用 Mac 和 QuarkXpress，并且已经知道如何使用 X-ACTO 刀切割厨房、打蜡并使用滚筒将其粘贴到蓝线上。

Tuesdays were frantic in production: We put on the Shaft soundtrack while we prepared the display ads and the issue for press.

周二的制作非常忙碌：我们一边播放《Shaft》原声带，一边准备展示广告和媒体专刊。

(My proofreading skills and Mac savvy were enough to get me design jobs and eventually jobs in NYC at SPIN , Time Out NY , and Entertainment Weekly .) Alona Wartofsky and Jack Shafer helped me become a better writer with tough love and opportunities to write Clubland, Artifacts, and local news.

（我的校对技巧和对 Mac 的精通足以让我找到设计工作，并最终在纽约的 SPIN、Time Out NY 和 Entertainment Weekly 找到工作。）Alona Wartofsky 和 ​​Jack Shafer 帮助我成为一名更好的作家，他们给予我严厉的爱，并提供撰写 Clubland、Artifacts 和当地新闻的机会。

We once scooped Sassy magazine by outing Ian Svenonius as the “Sassiest Boy in America” before they announced it.

我们曾经抢先报道《Sassy》杂志，在他们宣布之前，我们就将伊恩·斯维诺尼斯 (Ian Svenonius) 称为“美国最时髦的男孩”。

I’ll never forget writing about the Arlington couple who got divorced and she got the tiki bar so he opened a competing tiki bar across the road; I felt like Geraldo!

我永远不会忘记写到阿灵顿夫妇离婚了，她得到了提基酒吧，所以他在马路对面开了一家竞争提基酒吧；我感觉就像杰拉尔多！

But it was a good learning experience for real life.

但这对于现实生活来说是一次很好的学习经历。

Writing about local music was challenging because you often ran into the people you wrote about later, and they never forgot what you wrote.

写当地音乐是很有挑战性的，因为你经常会遇到你后来写的人，而他们永远不会忘记你写的东西。

In addition to many magical memories and great people I met there, I met my BFF, legendary indie-pop singer Pam Berry, at City Paper , and all our skills helped us do a print zine together, chickfactor .

除了在那里遇到的许多神奇回忆和伟大的人之外，我还在 City Paper 遇到了我的好朋友、传奇独立流行歌手 Pam Berry，我们所有的技能帮助我们一起制作了一本印刷杂志，chickfactor。

It’s currently printing its 30th-anniversary issue.

该杂志目前正在印刷 30 周年纪念刊。

—Gail O’Hara

——盖尔·奥哈拉