郑维 | 一封官方媒体总编辑的辞职信

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2016-06-07 郑维 郑维视界

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马来西亚执政的巫统控制的英文报《新海峡时报》（New Straits Times）的总编辑，穆斯塔法·卡米尔（Mustapha Kamil）不久前辞职了。

卡米尔

这几天，马来西亚反对党领袖林吉祥在他的facebook原文照登了卡米尔的辞职信。我看了全文，被这位沉默许久的资深新闻人的倔骨头感动，谨此原文翻译给大家。

愿天下还在做新闻的人们共勉。

以下是辞职信全文。

在4月25日早上，我拿着辞职信走进了集团总裁的办公室。我们坐下聊我为何期望离开，谈了一个多小时。当然，总裁问我，为什么要这样做。

On the morning of April 25th I walked into the CEO’s room with my resignation letter in hand. We sat and talked about my wish for a good one hour where naturally, the CEO enquired why I had wanted to do so.

总裁是位特许会计师（chartered accountant），对待工作兢兢业业。他对数字特别熟悉。除了在公司管理的日常交流外，我和他私交也不错。

The CEO is a chartered accountant, a man who took his job very seriously, one who is adept with numbers and besides heading the company, someone whom I also considered a friend…

那天早上，我和他谈了两件事情。第一，正如他作为特许会计师，对于一堆假账会毫不犹豫要求澄清一样，在他签下字的时候，不单单是写下他自己的名字，也是签下了他作为成员的专业团体所秉持的职业道德。我，对于新闻专业也是如此严肃郑重。

There were two things I related to him that morning. First, just as he, a chartered accountant, would not hesitate to qualify a set of flawed accounts, signing each of them not only by his name, but also by the ethics enshrined within the professional body in which he was a member, I too take journalism ethics seriously.

在我的行业里，有一个重要的元素叫做“真实的原则”。这要求一个新闻工作者从名字或者地点的拼写，到交稿的整个新闻都需要正确。他的第一责任就是保证真实，以此引导整个社会在他们选择的方向上前行。

“In my line of work, there is this element called the ‘truth discipline’. It is one that requires a journalist to be correct, right from the spelling of names of persons or places, to all the reports he must file. His responsibility is first to the truth, by which he must then guide society in navigating the path they had chosen.

第二，我告诉他，我对现状掂量了很久。直到一个总部在纽约下曼哈顿区的美国报纸，写了一个就发生我眼皮底下的新闻，被提名了令人梦寐以求的普利策奖，我开始认真地质问我的良知，问自己我当初做新闻工作的初心何在。

“Second, I told him that I had weighed the situation for as long as I could but when an American newspaper, headquartered somewhere in Lower Manhattan in New York, wrote a story that got nominated for the coveted Pullitzer Prize, about an issue that happened right under my nose, I began to seriously search my conscience and asked myself why was I in journalism in the first place.

那个早上，我们交心而谈。总裁完全理解我的困境以及无计可施。

“We had a cordial discussion that morning and the CEO fully understood my predicament and the fact that there was little else that I could do.

在我27年的记者生涯里，我从不认可“识时务者为俊杰（拧不过他们，就加入他们）”这种说法。

In my 27 years of being a journalist, I never once subscribed to the saying that if you can’t beat them, join them.

在这个行业里，并没有一条最容易的道路。你只能坚持自己的原则。在这世界上，每年平均有110位我们的同袍，为了真实新闻的面世而付出生命的终极代价。那至少，我作为一个新闻工作者，我应该以坚持真实原则向他们的牺牲致敬。

“In this line of work, there is no such thing as the path of least resistance. You have to stick to your principles. Around the world, an average of 110 like us, pay the ultimate price each year to get the true stories out. At the very least, I felt that as a journalist, I had to honour the sacrifices they had made in abiding by the discipline.

我希望我回答了所有的问题。

I hope that answers everything.

以上，是卡米尔的辞职信全文。

以下为新闻背景：

一个马来西亚发展有限公司（1Malaysia Development Berhad，缩写1MDB），简称一马公司，是马来西亚政府全资拥有的开发公司。

1MDB在2015年被爆出负债420亿马币（约合675亿人民币），引发了贪污丑闻和争议。美国《华尔街日报》更声称有大约7亿美元从一马公司流入马来西亚首相兼财政部长纳吉的私人户头，报道一出，震动全马，马来西亚货币令吉大跌。

卡米尔的信里提到的【总部在纽约下曼哈顿区的美国报纸】，指的就是《华尔街日报》。它报道7亿美元从一马公司流入马来西亚首相纳吉的私人户头的系列新闻，被提名了新闻最高荣誉的普利策奖。

这个丑闻就是卡米尔说的：【发生在我们眼皮底下的东西】。而作为马来西亚新闻人，眼睁睁地看着美国同行因为报道马来西亚新闻而获得普利策奖，他的内心挣扎之大，可想而知。

纳吉和马来西亚政府不断驳斥华尔街日报的报道是虚假的，是政治阴谋，意图颠覆马来西亚政府。不过华尔街日报也坚持一个立场：欢迎纳吉对华尔街日报的任何被指为虚假报道的文章提出诽谤诉讼。

到目前为止，纳吉还没动静……

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