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When Mitt Romney announced on Friday that he would not seek the Republican presidential nomination for a third time, he cited the desire to “give other leaders in the party” a chance to win the White House. He did not mention the public mugging he had received from Rupert Murdoch, the media titan who had called him “a terrible candidate” and whose Wall Street Journal had suggested that his run in 2012 had been “a calamity.”
米特·罗姆尼(Mitt Romney)上周五宣布，他不会第三次角逐共和党总统候选人提名，他表示想把赢得总统宝座的机会留给“党内其他领导人”。他没有提到传媒大亨鲁伯特·默多克(Rupert Murdoch)公开羞辱自己，称他是“糟糕的候选人”。默多克的《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)曾形容他2012年的竞选是场“灾难”。
There are a lot of reasons that the third time did not prove to be a charm for Mr. Romney’s presidential ambitions, but Mr. Murdoch’s public rebuke sure didn’t help.
罗姆尼决定不参加第三次竞选的原因有很多，但默多克的公开斥责肯定有影响。
Having tried and failed to get his hands on Time Warner, Mr. Murdoch is back to king-making. As the man who controls both the Fox News Channel and The Journal, he doesn’t exactly have to attend a precinct caucus to exercise political influence.
默多克染指时代华纳(Time Warner)的努力失败后，又回到了顶级政治推手的角色。作为Fox新闻频道(Fox News Channel)和《华尔街日报》的控制者，他无需参加哪个选区的党团会议，就可以发挥政治影响力。
He’s clearly enjoying life as a mogul and newspaper titan, enough to invite others to the party.
他显然很享受这种媒体大亨和报业巨头的生活，也乐于邀请其他人加入这个行列。
Rupert Murdoch: Is there a price for lifetime happiness for generous but bored, public spirited multibillionaire? Mike Bloomberg can easily afford NY Times
鲁伯特·默多克1月24日在Twitter上发言称：“对于一掷千金但却百无聊赖、热衷公共事务的亿万富翁而言，想买一辈子的快乐要花多少钱？迈克·布隆伯格(Mike Bloomberg)可以轻松买下《纽约时报》。”
(New York magazine had earlier reported, based on not very much, that Mr. Bloomberg might try to buy the newspaper.)
（《纽约》[New York]杂志早前曾报道，布隆伯格可能想购买《纽约时报》，但那篇报道没有太多依据。）
Only two people in the world could have this conversation, whether in public or private: Both are New York media owners, both with more money than many sovereign republics and both huge fans of the news and the organizations that trade in it.
这个世界上只有两个人能进行这样的交谈，无论是在公开场合还是私下里：两人都是纽约媒体的老板，个人财富多过许多主权国家，而且两人都非常醉心于新闻，以及做新闻生意的机构。
Rupert Murdoch has a big national newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, and though Michael Bloomberg does not, they are otherwise similarly situated overlords. And so Mr. Murdoch’s entreaty to his friend Mr. Bloomberg: C’mon in, the water is fine.
默多克拥有《华尔街日报》，尽管布隆伯格没有这样的全国性大报，但两人在其他方面都是属于同一个档次的大亨。所以默多克力邀朋友布隆伯格：快来吧，很好玩的。
I don’t think The New York Times is for sale, but it is a telling sentiment, a conversation among kings about what possessions are truly precious to the man, or men, with everything.
我觉得《纽约时报》不会出售，但是他们的心态很能说明问题。这是霸主之间的交谈：对于什么都不缺的人，怎样的财产才算真的弥足珍贵。
Even if The Times were for sale, how would it benefit Mr. Murdoch to have a rival paper in the hands of an equally moneyed media baron? It wouldn’t, but it is in Mr. Murdoch’s nature to stir the pot and create mischief.
即使时报会出售，让一个同样有钱的传媒大亨将一家竞争性的报纸收入囊中，对默多克又有什么好处呢？没有好处。但默多克本来就喜欢搅局捣蛋。
He’s mostly just having his version of fun, all the while tweaking a competitor, which is another hobby.
他基本上只是在以自己的方式消遣，同时刺激一下竞争对手，这是他的另一个爱好。
Mr. Bloomberg had his own version of fun running the City of New York for three terms. Now that he is on the other side of that, he did not take long to realize that he was not going to sit in the back seat of the huge data and media company he built while others drove.
布隆伯格也享受了自己的消遣，当了三任纽约市长。卸任政府职务之后，布隆伯格很快就意识到，他不会坐在自己创办的大型数据和媒体公司的后座上，让别人来掌舵。
I don’t know Mr. Bloomberg or Mr. Murdoch personally, but I have covered them enough to know that they share a few hobbies. They both enjoy gossip, are inveterate news hounds and love to involve themselves in all aspects of the production of the news. They also like to wield broad influence on how that news unfolds.
我和布隆伯格和默多克没有私交，但我报道过他们的很多事情，知道他们有一些共同的爱好。他们都喜欢八卦，有敏锐的新闻嗅觉，喜欢插手新闻产生流程的方方面面。他们也喜欢对新闻事件发展的走向施加广泛影响。
True, Mr. Bloomberg was educated as an engineer and is the ultimate rationalist whereas Mr. Murdoch came up in the bare-knuckled world of tabloids and relies on his gut. But neither seems particularly interested in money in the way that only the fabulously rich can be uninterested in money, and they both love winning.
诚然，布隆伯格接受的是工程师教育，终究是个理性主义者，而默多克是从毫无底线的小报圈发迹的，凭借的是自己的直觉。但两人似乎对钱都不是特别感兴趣，这是指巨富对钱的那种不感兴趣；此外，他们都热衷于取胜。
Beyond business and politics — which are, after all, about winning — neither appears animated by much else.
除了商业和政治——毕竟这两个领域的重点就在于取胜——这两人对其他很多东西似乎都没多大兴趣。
As business reporters, we tend to overanalyze the titans among us, because, well, they aren’t like us.
作为商业记者，我们往往会对大亨过度分析，因为他们与我们不同。
Watching Mr. Murdoch, who controls and owns big chunks of a movie studio, a cable news channel and newspaper and television properties all over the world, and Mr. Bloomberg, who owns a worldwide terminal and data business, along with various media assets, it’s easy to guess that the empire-building is all part of one, huge unified plan.
看看默多克，他控制一家电影制片厂并拥有其中大量股份，拥有一家有线电视新闻频道，以及全球各地的很多报纸和电视资产；再看看布隆伯格，他拥有一个世界性的终端和数据业务，以及各种媒体资产，你很容易觉得，媒体帝国是根据一个巨大而统一的规划建立起来的。
But in some respects, they remind me of other newspaper owners in various sized towns that I have covered — men with an immense appetite for power who want nothing so much as to be in the middle of things. Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Murdoch just have many more zeros behind their net worth, and global empires to match.
但是在某些方面，这两人让我想起了我曾经报道过的其他一些报业老板，所在的城市有大有小。他们对于权力都有着非常强烈的欲望，最热衷的事情就是置身于热点事件之中。只不过布隆伯格和默多克的身家是他们的成千上万倍，而且还拥有与这种权力欲相匹配的全球性帝国。
To project might, few things are as effective as owning big, throbbing media properties. Since returning to his company, Mr. Bloomberg, 72, has dedicated a large amount of money to remaking his media operations, including a reorganized website unveiled last week. By all reports, he has spent time tinkering with even the most minute aspects of the redesign, despite that being a tiny part of his company.
要想施加影响力，几乎没有什么方法比拥有规模巨大且生机勃勃的媒体资产更加有效了。自从重返公司以来，72岁的布隆伯格就开始大把花钱来改造自己的媒体业务，上周推出的新版网站就是一个例子。据多方透露，就连这次改版中最微不足道的方面，他也花费了大量时间摆弄，尽管网站只是公司业务的一小部分。
Mr. Murdoch vastly overpaid for The Journal, and continues to support the money-losing New York Post. When News Corporation split two years ago, he protected his beloved newspaper assets in a well-funded new company. He is, by all accounts, highly involved with his papers and finds no detail too small to merit his interests.
默多克对《华尔街日报》的收购买贵了很多，而且他还在继续支持赔钱的《纽约邮报》(New York Post)。两年前新闻集团分拆时，他用一家资金雄厚的新公司来保护自己心爱的报业资产。大家都说，他对旗下的报纸有非常高的参与度，事无巨细都有兴趣过问。
These are extremely successful businessmen who spend many hours on noneconomic parts of their businesses. They do so for two reasons: because they can, and because it is fun.
他们是非常成功的商人，把大量时间花在公司不赚钱的方面。这有两个原因：一是因为他们可以这么做，二是因为这么做是种消遣。
Even those of us who aren’t billionaires could tell you as much — creating media content is a diverting activity that rarely resembles actual work.
即使一个人不是亿万富翁，他也会告诉你：创造媒体内容是种消遣，和真正的工作大不相同。
At 83, Mr. Murdoch has seen a few presidential elections come and go, and, through Fox News and The Journal, has had a hand in influencing most of them. But that won’t be true forever, which may explain his antipathy at the prospect of Mr. Romney’s taking another shot at the White House. (And it’s not just the Republicans: On Sunday, he tweeted: “Guess what! Joe Biden actively preparing to run against Hillary. Maybe others like Kerry.”) An Australian by birth who became an American citizen, he recently said in an email to my colleagues Amy Chozick and Michael Barbaro that he made no apologies for his interest in United States politics.
现已83岁的默多克已经见证过多次总统竞选，并通过Fox新闻和《华尔街日报》对大多数的选举施加过影响。但是，情况不会永远如此，这也许可以解释他为什么反感罗姆尼再次参选。（而且也不只是针对共和党：上周日，他在Twitter上写道：“你猜怎么着？乔·拜登[Joe Biden]积极准备和希拉里竞争。或许其他人喜欢克里。”）默多克出生于澳大利亚，后来成为美国公民。最近在一封电子邮件中，他对我的同事艾米·柯西克(Amy Chozick)和迈克尔·巴巴罗(Michael Barbaro)说，他不觉得自己对美国政治感兴趣有什么不妥。
“I am deeply interested in the future of our country, and I enjoy meeting with potential candidates of both parties,” he wrote to them, responding to an inquiry about his political activity. “I am keen to hear their views, whether it’s on tax reform, immigration or defense and foreign policy.”
“我对我们国家的未来非常感兴趣，我喜欢与两党的潜在候选人会面，”在被问到他的政治活动时，默多克在答复的电邮中表示。“我很希望了解他们的看法，无论是在税制改革、移民，还是防务和外交政策方面。”
And they will be pretty keen to hear his. Other presidential hopefuls will be stopping by to see Mr. Bloomberg, who is seen as a centrist and is among those perennially mentioned as a possible candidate.
他们也会非常希望听听他的看法。其他总统候选人则将去拜会布隆伯格。布隆伯格被视为中间派，在谈到可能的候选人时，常常有人提及他的名字。
Executives at Bloomberg say that all of the investments in media are about driving traffic to the terminal business, but I don’t buy it. The company did not hire Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, longtime political reporters, at a reported cost of $1 million each to operate in the confines of some financial terminal. It is a classic influence play, a way to gain stature and currency.
彭博的高管说，所有的媒体投资都是为了提升终端业务上的流量，但我不相信这个说法。该公司聘请资深政治记者马克·霍尔珀林(Mark Halperin)和约翰·海尔曼(John Heilemann)，绝不是为了报道一些只在金融终端上展示的内容。据报道彭博给他们每人开出的年薪是100万美元。这是一种运用影响力的经典方式，一种获得地位和认可的方式。
And while everyone around Mr. Murdoch — family, investors and senior executives — was against buying The Journal at the precise moment that newspapers seemed most embattled, he went ahead and did it anyway. Because he wanted to, and because he could.
虽然默多克周围的每一个人——家人、投资者、高管——都反对他在《华尔街日报》陷入最大困境的关头收购它，但默多克一意孤行，买下了该报。因为他想买，也买得起。
In “Citizen Kane,” Charles Foster Kane is notified by his adviser and legal guardian Walter Parks Thatcher that he is losing a great deal of money on his newspapers. “You’re right, Mr. Thatcher,” he responds. “I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I’ll have to close this place in ... 60 years.”
在电影《公民凯恩》(Citizen Kane)中，查尔斯·福斯特·凯恩(Charles Foster Kane)的顾问和法定监护人沃尔特·帕克斯·撒切尔(Walter Parks Thatcher)告诉他，他的报纸正在大幅亏损。“你说得对，撒切尔，”他回答说。“去年我确实亏了100万美元。我预计今年也会亏100万，明年还会亏100万。你知道吗，撒切尔，按照每年亏100万的速度计算，我不得不关掉它的时候……是60年后。”
