Longreads Best of 2019: Business Writing
Whitney JoinerArticles editor, The Washington Post Magazine
惠特尼·乔伊纳《华盛顿邮报》杂志文章编辑
## The State With the Highest Suicide Rate Desperately Needs Shrinks (Monte Reel, Bloomberg Businessweek)
## 自杀率最高的州迫切需要缩小规模（Monte Reel，彭博商业周刊）
This isn’t a traditional business piece — in the sense that it’s not a profile of a kooky founder or a growing industry, or an investigation into corporate wrongdoing, or a capitalist reckoning.
这不是一篇传统的商业文章——从某种意义上说，它不是对一个古怪的创始人或一个正在成长的行业的简介，也不是对企业不当行为的调查，也不是资本主义的清算。
It’s a wrenching read about what happens when a job market/industry (in this case, mental health) slowly folds in on itself while demand for that industry’s services and providers grows dramatically.
这是一本令人痛苦的书，讲述了当就业市场/行业（在本例中为心理健康）慢慢自我折叠而对该行业的服务和提供商的需求急剧增长时会发生什么。
Monte Reel’s profile of the one psychiatrist in eastern Montana (Joan “Mutt” Dickson, whose grit will stick with you) covers so many other pressing American problems: addiction, guns, depression, anxiety, burnout.
蒙特里尔对蒙大拿州东部一位精神科医生（琼·“穆特”·迪克森，她的勇气会与你同在）的简介涵盖了许多其他紧迫的美国问题：成瘾、枪支、抑郁、焦虑、倦怠。
Reel’s portrait of Dickson’s work — and his mastery of the background forces at play — is a grim-but-captivating look at what the dearth of mental health resources in the rural and mountain West means.
里尔对迪克森作品的描述——以及他对起作用的背景力量的掌握——是对西部农村和山区心理健康资源匮乏意味着什么的冷酷但迷人的审视。
João MedeirosFeatures Director at WIRED Magazine, curator at WIRED Health, and author of the book, Game Changers: How a Team of Underdogs and Scientists Discovered What it Takes to Win.
João Medeiros 是《连线》杂志的总监、《连线健康》的策展人，也是《游戏规则改变者：一支由失败者和科学家组成的团队如何发现获胜之道》一书的作者。
## WeFail: How the doomed Masa Son-Adam Neumann relationship set WeWork on the road to disaster (Katrina Brooker, Fast Company)
## WeFail：注定失败的 Masa Son 与 Adam Neumann 关系如何让 WeWork 走上灾难之路（Katrina Brooker，Fast Company）
The debacle of WeWork, a company that rents out office space but portrays itself as a new breed of technology company, is one of the business stories of the year, possessing many dramatic elements of the quintessential Silicon Valley drama: a tech bro CEO (Adam Neumann) with a grandiose sense of self-entitlement, outlandish corporate shenanigans, and an IPO fiasco.
WeWork 是一家出租办公空间、却把自己描绘成新型科技公司的公司，它的惨败是今年的商业故事之一，它拥有典型硅谷戏剧的许多戏剧性元素：一位科技兄弟首席执行官（亚当·诺伊曼饰）有着浮夸的自我权利意识、古怪的企业恶作剧和 IPO 惨败。
And yet, WeWork is but a mere chapter in the bigger narrative of Softbank, the Japanese conglomerate led by Masayoshi Son, a charismatic leader with a grand 300-year vision of the future and a $100 billion fund to realise it.
然而，WeWork 只是软银更大故事中的一个章节。软银是一家由孙正义领导的日本企业集团，孙正义是一位富有魅力的领导者，对未来有着 300 年的宏伟愿景，并拥有 1000 亿美元的基金来实现这一目标。
This compelling feature story recounts the relationship between Son and Neumann, whose character arc from prodigal son to pariah is propelled by his flawed instinct that he was born for this.
这部引人入胜的故事讲述了孙正义和诺伊曼之间的关系，他的性格从浪子到贱民的角色是由他生来就有缺陷的本能推动的。
Bryce CovertIndependent journalist writing about the economy and contributing op-ed writer at The New York Times.
布莱斯·科弗特（Bryce Covert）是《纽约时报》的独立记者，撰写有关经济的文章和特约专栏作家。
## Life, Death and Insulin (Tiffany Stanley, The Washington Post Magazine)
## 生命、死亡和胰岛素（蒂芙尼·斯坦利，《华盛顿邮报》杂志）
The story behind the bloated price of insulin is one of economic concentration, government regulation, and corporate greed.
胰岛素价格上涨背后的原因之一是经济集中、政府监管和企业贪婪。
But it’s also a human story with a body count.
但这也是一个有死亡人数的人类故事。
This article deftly weaves the history and data behind the soaring cost of insulin, an exemplar of rising prescription drug costs generally, with a moving story of one family devastated by these larger forces.
本文巧妙地编织了胰岛素成本飙升背后的历史和数据，这是处方药成本普遍上涨的一个例子，并讲述了一个家庭被这些更大的力量摧毁的感人故事。
And it makes the damning case that as pharmaceutical companies keep raising drug prices, people are dying and leaving ripples of grief in their wake.
这证明了一个令人震惊的事实：随着制药公司不断提高药品价格，人们正在死亡，并留下悲伤的涟漪。
## Can a $1,300 baby bed make me a better mom?
## 一张 1,300 美元的婴儿床能让我成为更好的妈妈吗？
(Alissa Walker, Curbed)
（艾丽莎·沃克，《遏制》）
If you become a new parent, you will very soon hear people talk about the Snoo, the celebrity-backed, venture capital-funded $1,300 smart bassinette that supposedly cracks the biggest of all parenting codes: getting infants to sleep.
如果你成为新手父母，你很快就会听到人们谈论 Snoo，这是一款由名人支持、风险投资资助的智能摇篮，售价 1,300 美元，据称它破解了所有育儿密码中最重要的一个：让婴儿入睡。
But in what purports to be a look at this particular consumer product ends up being a thoughtful examination of how the structures we exist within, particularly in the United States, make sleeping, working, and keeping a baby healthy and alive all incompatible with each other.
但看似对这种特殊消费品的审视，最终却是对我们存在的结构（尤其是在美国）的深思熟虑，如何使睡眠、工作和保持婴儿健康和活力彼此不相容。
While this dilemma creates a consumer market of desperate parents, there is no product that alone can fix it.
虽然这种困境造成了绝望父母的消费市场，但没有任何产品可以单独解决这个问题。
Iva DixitAssociate editor, The New York Times Magazine
Iva Dixit《纽约时报杂志》副编辑
## Pimple patches are everywhere, but do they work?
## 痘痘贴无处不在，但它们有效吗？
(Cheryl Wischhover, The Goods by Vox)
（Cheryl Wischhover，Vox 的《The Goods》）
This story about pimple patches combines several of my personal obsessions and locates it within a larger market/consumer phenomenon so marvelously, I’m left grinning in awe (and a little healthy envy, let’s be frank).
这个关于痘痘贴片的故事结合了我个人的一些痴迷，并将其置于一个更大的市场/消费者现象中，如此奇妙，我留下敬畏的笑容（坦率地说，还有一点健康的嫉妒）。
At its core this is a story about why a simple war wound first-aid technology is all of a sudden being sold as a skincare treatment, but it also illustrates the darker tendencies of unchecked profiteering, and how corporations know exactly what hollow buzzwords to deploy (“skin positivity”) to convince frustrated shoppers into spending $30 for a sheet of novelty silicone stickers.
从本质上讲，这个故事讲述了为什么一种简单的战伤急救技术突然被作为一种护肤疗法出售，但它也说明了不受控制的暴利的黑暗倾向，以及企业如何准确地知道该使用哪些空洞的流行语（“皮肤积极性”）来说服沮丧的购物者花 30 美元购买一张新奇的硅胶贴纸。
All I ask for is that someone pierce the seething, bubbling mass of unscientific nonsense that is perpetrated in the free-for-all grift economy of the beauty market, and Cheryl regularly does it, while also managing to bring great humor and delight to it.
我所要求的只是有人能戳穿美容市场中肆意的贿赂经济中所犯下的那些沸腾的、冒泡的不科学的废话，谢丽尔经常这样做，同时还设法给它带来巨大的幽默和快乐。
Catherine CusickLongreads Head of Audience and host of The Longreads Podcast
Catherine Cusick Longreads 观众主管兼 Longreads 播客主持人
## The Adults in the Room (Megan Greenwell, Deadspin)
## 房间里的成年人（梅根·格林威尔，Deadspin）
Before dozens of staffers walked out right behind her, Deadspin’s former Editor in Chief Megan Greenwell conducted her own exit interview after resigning from her position in August 2019.
在数十名员工紧随其后离开之前，Deadspin 的前主编梅根·格林威尔 (Megan Greenwell) 在 2019 年 8 月辞职后进行了自己的离职面谈。
In this courageous farewell column, she diagnoses why so many media owners are unfit to be in the business of journalism, despite the woefully misguided trend of private equity firms purchasing “cheap” media companies as just another asset to flip in an investment portfolio.
在这篇勇敢的告别专栏中，她分析了为什么如此多的媒体所有者不适合从事新闻业，尽管私募股权公司购买“廉价”媒体公司作为投资组合中的另一种资产存在着可悲的误导趋势。
In the eyes of the already-wealthy, turning a profit — practicing the quaint art of adequately resourcing, supporting, and otherwise getting out of the way of a thriving business run by trustworthy professionals — pales in comparison to the bottomless project of turning wealth into more wealth.
在已经富有的人看来，扭亏为盈——实践一种古怪的艺术，即提供充足的资源、支持或以其他方式摆脱由值得信赖的专业人士经营的蓬勃发展的企业——与将财富转化为更多财富的无底计划相比，显得相形见绌。
## The 1619 Project (Nikole Hannah-Jones, Matthew Desmond, and Trymaine Lee, The New York Times Magazine)
## 1619 计划（Nikole Hannah-Jones、Matthew Desmond 和 Trymaine Lee，纽约时报杂志）
By any measure, The 1619 Project, a visionary initiative that examines the legacy of slavery in America on the 400th anniversary of its brutal beginning, is one of the major accomplishments of the year.
无论以何种标准衡量，“1619 项目”这一富有远见的倡议，在奴隶制残酷开始 400 周年之际审视美国奴隶制的遗产，都是今年的主要成就之一。
Three essays in particular offer essential histories that are key to understanding American capitalism today: Nikole Hannah-Jones‘ opening essay on the nation’s founding, Matthew Desmond‘s essay on plantation economies, and Trymaine Lee‘s essay on the racial wealth gap.
其中三篇文章特别提供了理解当今美国资本主义的关键历史：尼科尔·汉纳-琼斯关于国家建国的开篇文章、马修·德斯蒙德关于种植园经济的文章以及特里梅因·李关于种族贫富差距的文章。
Heirs born into this wealth have maintained whitewashed delusions for centuries, refusing to acknowledge that economic prosperity in this country could never have existed without so much systemic, generational violence.
几个世纪以来，出生在这种财富中的继承人一直保持着粉饰的幻想，拒绝承认如果没有如此多的系统性代际暴力，这个国家的经济繁荣就不可能存在。
Each of these essays haunts any based-on-an-untrue-story American business narrative that relies on sidestepping an honest accounting of overdue reparations.
这些文章中的每一篇都困扰着任何基于不真实故事的美国商业叙述，这些叙述依赖于回避对逾期赔偿的诚实核算。
Together, all three serve as a blanket correction to business writing that omits slavery from the historical ledger.
这三者共同构成了对商业写作的全面修正，将奴隶制从历史账本中删除。
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