誹謗案重金和解 批評者認為太便宜福斯

On the surface, Fox News got pummeled.

從表面上看，福斯新聞遭遇重擊。

Rupert Murdoch, its founder, agreed to a settlement of $787.5 million, roughly two-thirds of the Fox Corp.’s net annual income. Fox News was embarrassed by revelations that its anchors privately despised former President Donald Trump. And Dominion Voting Systems, the election technology firm derided on Fox airwaves, declared victory Tuesday on the courthouse steps.

創辦人梅鐸同意付出一筆7億8750萬美元的和解金，相當於福斯新聞年淨收入的三分之二。多名主播被揭發私下表示厭惡美國前總統川普，讓福斯新聞相當尷尬。在福斯節目被嘲笑的多明尼恩投票系統公司，星期二在這項法院和解行動中宣布獲勝。

Yet for some Murdoch critics, the outcome of this landmark libel case fell short of something to celebrate.

然而，對一些梅鐸批評者而言，這一件具有里程碑意義的誹謗案結果並不值得慶祝。

“Rupert Wins Again,” declared Politico press critic Jack Shafer, who noted Murdoch’s long history of paying tens of millions of dollars to settle claims of phone hacking, workplace harassment and other ignominies.

政治新聞網站Politico媒體評論家薛佛宣布，「梅鐸再次獲勝」，他指出梅鐸長久以來以支付上億美元方式，解決電話竊聽、職場騷擾和其他醜聞。

“Country lost, democracy lost,” First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus wrote in an email, predicting that Fox hosts Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo would be feted by conservatives as “heroes” who “stood up against the liberal world.”

美國憲法第一修正案律師加布斯在電郵裡寫道，「國家輸了，民主輸了」，並預測福斯主播卡爾森和瑪麗亞．巴帝羅默將被保守派奉為「起身反抗自由派世界的英雄」。

Others lamented what they perceived to be a lost opportunity for a legal reckoning for the misinformation that has poisoned many Americans’ trust in the democratic process.

其他人則感嘆，他們失去了對假訊息進行法律清算的機會，這些假訊息毒害美國人對民主進程的信任。

“Great win for democracy? I don’t know about that,” said MSNBC host Joy Reid, who told viewers that Fox News “saved their stars from having to take the witness stand and answer questions about all those embarrassing texts and revelations.”

MSNBC節目主持人喬伊．里德表示，「民主的重大勝利？我看不出來」。她告訴觀眾，福斯新聞「讓他們的明星們不用被送上證人席，回答那些令人尷尬的簡訊和被揭露的內情等問題」。

Three-quarters of a billion dollars is no small sum, even for Murdoch, and Fox is still facing a similar defamation suit from another elections firm, Smartmatic, which has asked for $2.7 billion in damages. (Dominion initially demanded $1.6 billion.) The network has often argued that its newsroom is walled off from ideological forces, but emails that were revealed in the case made clear that top executives had rebuked their own journalists who tried to fact-check Trump.

即使對梅鐸而言，超過7.5億美元的和解金也不是個小數目。福斯還面臨另一家選舉科技公司Smartmatic提出的類似誹謗訴訟，求償27億美元，而多明尼恩投票系統公司最初求償16億美元。福斯新聞網常辯稱，他們的新聞編輯室不受意識形態力量影響，但案件中揭露的電郵顯示，福斯新聞高階主管斥責試圖對川普進行事實核查的自家記者。

Still, Fox News was not required under the terms of the settlement to issue an on-air apology for the baseless claims it aired about Dominion, asserting the company had tried to rig the 2020 presidential election in Joe Biden’s favor. And Fox’s public statement about the settlement was hardly an apology.

福斯新聞對多明尼恩公司做出毫無根據的指控，聲稱多明尼恩試圖操縱2020年總統大選以利拜登。儘管如此，根據和解條款，福斯新聞不需直播道歉，而福斯發表關於和解案的公開說明很難被認為是道歉。

“We acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” the network wrote, adding, with Murdochian defiance, “This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”

福斯新聞網寫道，「我們承認法院判決，關於多明尼恩的某些說法是錯的」，他們又以梅鐸風格的反抗補充說，「這項和解反映了福斯對最高新聞標準的持續承諾」。

冬雨（跟接連的陣雨）帶來繁花似錦

Torrential downpours this winter sent California residents fleeing from floods and mudslides. Blizzards dumped snow in the mountains, trapping locals in their homes for weeks. Hulking trees crashed into homes and severed power lines.

今年冬天的傾盆大雨迫使加州居民逃離洪水與土石流。暴風雪在山上倒雪，讓當地人困在他們家中好幾周，粗重的樹木撞進房屋還切斷電線。

But the succession of atmospheric rivers did deliver relief from a prolonged drought. And it left behind other rewards that are only now emerging: The state is awash in color, from the Eastern Sierra to Malibu, from the deserts near San Diego to the meadows north of Sacramento.

但連續的大氣長河確實讓長期乾旱緩解，還留下如今才浮現的其他好處：這個州充滿色彩，從東部山脈到馬里布，從聖地牙哥附近沙漠到沙加緬度北方的草地。

“This is how we feed our souls,” said Heather Schneider, a rare-plant biologist with the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.

聖塔芭芭拉植物園的稀有植物生物學家海瑟．施耐德說，「這就是我們滋養我們靈魂的方式」。

California is experiencing a “super bloom,” an explosion of floral color across hillsides and valleys that occurs only after a particularly wet season. The last time the state experienced the phenomenon on a widespread basis was four years ago — and with California’s boom-bust cycles of precipitation, it is anyone’s guess when the next one will come.

加州正在經歷一場「超級綻放」，這種各處山坡跟山谷的花卉色彩爆發，只在特別多雨的季節後發生。該州前一次大規模經歷這個現象是在4年前，而且隨著加州降雨量興衰循環，下次會在何時到來誰也說不準。

In dry years, many annual wildflower seeds lie dormant in the fragile layers of soil where their parents dropped them, waiting for rain so they can germinate. If enough water arrives, those flowers burst through, in an almost alchemical combination of moisture, temperature, timing and location.

在乾旱年分，許多一年生野花的種子在雙親扔下它們的脆弱土層中休眠，等候著雨水，以便它們可以萌芽。如果足夠的水降臨，在濕度、溫度、時間與位置的接近煉金術式組合中，這些花就會破土而出。

California poppies in recent weeks have turned rolling hillsides into flame-orange canvasses in the Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles. Carpets of yellow goldfields and purple phacelia have unfurled at the Carrizo Plain National Monument, the largest intact grassland in the state’s Central Valley, about 70 miles west of Bakersfield. The flowers are so densely packed across wide swaths of land that recent satellite images look like they’ve been touched by a painter’s brush.

在洛杉磯以北的羚羊谷，花菱草最近幾周把綿延起伏的山坡變成了火橙色油畫。位於貝克斯菲爾德以西約70英里、加州中央山谷最大完好草原卡立卓平原國家公園，黃色加州金花與紫鐘穗花的地毯已經鋪開。這些花是如此密密麻麻地擠滿了大片土地，以至於近期衛星影像看上去像是它們被畫家的畫筆觸動。

For scientists like Schneider, who has been periodically visiting the Carrizo Plain for research, this year’s flower bonanza is a prime opportunity to study ecosystems similar to those that may be lost to development or agriculture elsewhere. This year, she said, the sustained precipitation and colder temperatures were likely to give her and other researchers more time to study wildflowers than in past wet years.

施耐德一直定期探訪卡立卓平原進行研究，對於像她這樣的科學家來說，今年的花卉盛開是個絕佳機會，能夠研究近似於其他地方可能因發展或農業而流失的生態系統。她說，相較於過去的多雨年分，這一年持續的降雨跟較冷溫度，可能給她和其他研究人員更多時間研究野花。

Different flower species thrive in subtly different conditions. And botanists have predicted that this year’s wildflower season could extend through the spring and into the summer, particularly at higher elevations.

不同花卉品種適合生長的環境有細微差異。植物學家預測，今年的野花季節可能延續整個春季直到夏天，特別是在高海拔地區。

“I kind of think of it in waves of color,” Schneider said. Yellow is typically first, she noted. Then purple.

施耐德說，「我想這有點像色彩波浪」，她說，通常先是黃色，接著是紫色。