??soaring newsprint costs make life even harder for newspapers新闻纸价格的飙升使报业公司的处境更为艰难

it may accelerate the move online

这或许有助于推动数字化进程

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“it’s like tasering an elderly person who’s already on a pacemaker,” says a british newspaper boss of the newsprint market, where prices have risen by over 50% in a matter of months. the cost of paper that feeds into presses around the world is rising to record highs, pushing up expenses for newspapers from mumbai to sydney.?

一位负责新闻纸市场的英国报纸老板说：“这就像拿泰瑟枪打一个安装了心脏起搏器的老人一样。”在几个月的时间里，新闻纸的价格上涨超过50%。全球各地印刷厂的纸张成本正升至历史新高，从孟买到悉尼的报纸成本也随之上升。

when times were good, before ads shifted online, newspapers had a supportive partnership with paper mills. as ads departed and circulations fell, relations became more transactional. they are now at the shouting stage.

在广告转向网络之前，形势尚好的时候，报纸与造纸厂有着支持性的合作关系。随着广告的消失和发行量的下降，双方的关系变得更具交易性。他们现在甚至处于相互争执的阶段。

paper mills had the worst of it for years as newspapers reduced pagination, went wholly digital or shut for good. the papers were able to hammer down the cost of newsprint from firms fighting for business as demand declined.price-taking paper mills suffered in silence. many hesitated to shut massive machines costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

随着报纸页数减少、完全数字化或永久停刊，造纸厂经历了多年来最糟糕的情况。随着需求的下降，报纸能够从争夺业务的公司手中压低新闻纸的成本。遭受压价的造纸厂默默承受着损失。许多人不愿关停耗资数亿美元的大型机器。

that hesitance has disappeared; mills are taking out newsprint capacity and diversifying. norske skog, a norwegian pulp and paper firm, said in june it would close its 66-year-old tasman mill in new zealand, for example. many mills are converting machines to make packaging for e-commerce.?

这些人不再犹豫了；造纸厂正在削减新闻纸产能，并实现多样化。例如，挪威造纸公司 norske skog 在6月份表示，将关闭其在新西兰拥有66年历史的塔斯曼工厂。许多工厂正在改造机器，为电商生产外包装。

upm, a finnish firm, announced this year the sale of its shotton newsprint mill in wales to a turkish maker of containerboard and packaging. for jcs volga, a russian mill, newsprint used to account for 70% of production; now half of what it makes is packaging.?

芬兰公司 upm 今年宣布将威尔士的肖特顿新闻纸厂出售给一家土耳其纸板及包装制造商。对于俄罗斯的 jcs volga 造纸厂来说，新闻纸曾经占其产量的70%；如今，包装已占其产量的一半。

the mills “moved from being price takers to being capable co-participants in a declining market,” says tim woods of industryedge, a research firm for australia and new zealand’s forestry and paper industries.

澳大利亚和新西兰林业和造纸业研究公司 industryedge 的蒂姆·伍兹表示这些造纸厂“在不断下滑的市场中，从价格接受者转变为有

能力的合作参与者”。

the pandemic, with people working from home, meant even fewer newspaper purchases, which depressed demand for newsprint again and increased the pain for paper suppliers. in the past 24 months european mills have responded by shutting almost a fifth of their newsprint capacity, says a buyer for a large british newspaper group.

新冠疫情迫使许多人在家办公，这意味着报纸的购买量更少，进而再次抑制了新闻纸的需求量，使纸张供应商陷入了更大的痛苦。英国一家大型报业集团的一位买家表示，在过去24个月里，欧洲造纸厂的应对措施是关停近五分之一的新闻纸产能。

then economies reopened. newsprint demand shot up. that, combined with much reduced capacity and coupled with soaring energy prices, has resulted in a price shock. particularly controversial are energy surcharges that some paper suppliers are seeking to pass on.?

随着经济重新开放，新闻纸的需求激增，再加上产能大幅下降以及能源价格的上涨，导致新闻纸的价格一路飙升。尤其具有争议的是一些纸张供应商试图转嫁的能源附加费。

newspaper firms reckon this amounts to breaking

contracts. european newspapers will have to pay newsprint prices that are 50-70% higher in the first quarter of 2022 compared with the year before. as for their counterparts in asia and oceania, they are facing prices around 25% to 45% above their usual level.?

报业公司认为这相当于毁约行为。2022年第一季度，欧洲的报业公司将不得不支付比去年同期高出50-70%的新闻纸价格。至于亚洲和大洋洲的报业公司也需要支付比通常水平高出25%至45%的价格。

kenya’s nation media group is paying around $840 per tonne, compared with $600 at most in the past, says dorine ogolo, a procurement manager at the firm. north american prices went up earlier, and more gradually; contracts are fixed monthly rather than half-yearly. but there, too, newsprint prices are 20-30% higher in 2021 than in 2020.

肯尼亚国家媒体集团的采购经理多林·奥戈洛说，该公司如今采购新闻纸的价格大约为每吨840美元，而过去最多也才600美元。北美新闻纸的价格上涨得更早，但也更缓慢；合同是按月（而非半年）签定的。但即便如此，北美2021年新闻纸的价格也比2020年高出20-30%。

germany’s print and media industry association has warned that mills are going to force newspapers to dump paper editions, hurting each other in the process. “it’s about the famous branch that both of them are sitting on,” it said recently. but mills can sell packaging instead. “we’re not going to save the publishing industry by being unprofitable ourselves,” says a mill executive in north america.

德国印刷及媒体行业协会警告称，造纸厂将迫使报业公司放弃对纸质版报纸的发行，如此一来只会两败俱伤。该协会最近表示：“这就好比一根绳上的蚂蚱。”但造纸厂还可以转型销售包装。北美一家造纸厂的高管说：“我们不会为了拯救出版业而让自己不盈利的。”

for some publishers, price rises will?wipe out?profits. they will need to do further restructuring involving axing titles and layoffs. iwan le moine of emge, a british paper-industry consultancy, expects a big increase in 2022 of the number of papers that shut compared with a typical year.?

对一些出版商来说，纸价上涨会抹去利润。他们将需要进行进一步的重组，包括停刊和裁员。英国造纸行业咨询公司emge的伊万·勒梅因预计，相比往年，2022年将会有更多的报纸停刊。

that will lower demand and?nudge?the market back towards equilibrium. but newspapers will have more hard conversations about paper, full stop, says douglas mccabe of enders analysis, a research firm. more digital adrenaline is one possible?riposte?to the paper mills’ tasers.?

这将有利于降低新闻纸需求，推动市场回归平衡。但研究公司恩德斯分析公司的道格拉斯·麦凯布表示，报社与造纸厂的纷争不会就此结束。更多数字化报刊的上线或许是对造纸厂泰瑟枪的反击。

重难点词汇：

wipe out?消灭，彻底摧毁

nudge?[n?d?] vt. 轻推；推进

riposte?[r??po?st] n. 还刺，机敏回答

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