【自由评】纽约时报纪念彭佩云？当金钱可以买到“体面告别”

当金钱可以买到“体面告别”

——评《纽约时报》对计划生育暴政执行者的纪念性叙述

When Money Can Buy a “Respectable Farewell”
— On The New York Times’ Commemorative Narrative of an Enforcer of Population-Control Violence

如果一家媒体在报道历史人物时选择性失明，那它失去的不是立场，而是新闻的底线。《纽约时报》近期对中国计划生育政策主要执行者彭佩云所采用的纪念性叙述，正是这样一个例子：大量溢美之词，极少事实背景，几乎完全回避争议与伤害，仿佛那段历史只是一次“技术性治理尝试”，而非一场长期、系统性的国家暴力。

When a media outlet chooses selective blindness in reporting historical figures, what it loses is not neutrality but the very bottom line of journalism. The New York Times’ recent commemorative narrative of Peng Peiyun, a principal enforcer of China’s population-control policy, is a telling example: abundant praise, minimal factual context, and an almost complete evasion of controversy and harm—portraying that period as a “technical governance effort” rather than a prolonged and systematic exercise of state violence.

计划生育政策并不是一项抽象的“人口调控方案”。它在现实中意味着强制堕胎、强制绝育、孕检监控、连坐处罚，意味着无数家庭在行政命令下失去孩子、尊严和基本的人身权利。这些事实并非秘密，也并非“争议观点”，而是早已被大量当事人证词、学术研究与国际报道所确认的历史现实。

The population-control policy was not an abstract “demographic management plan.” In practice, it meant forced abortions, compulsory sterilizations, intrusive pregnancy surveillance, and collective punishment—leaving countless families stripped of children, dignity, and basic bodily autonomy under administrative orders. These facts are neither secret nor merely “controversial opinions”; they are historical realities documented by survivor testimonies, academic research, and international reporting.

然而，在《纽约时报》的相关纪念叙述中，这些内容要么被完全省略，要么被轻描淡写地压缩成一句“政策存在争议”。这种写法不是中立，而是一种主动的事实抽离——把血肉之痛剥离，只留下“官员履历”和“制度贡献”。

Yet in The New York Times’ commemorative account, these realities are either omitted altogether or reduced to a passing remark that the policy was “controversial.” This is not neutrality but a deliberate extraction of facts—stripping away human suffering and leaving only résumés and “institutional contributions.”

更值得警惕的是，这种叙事并非偶然失误，而是高度熟悉的模式：
只要权力足够集中、资源足够雄厚、形象包装得体，历史就可以被重新书写。

More troubling is that this narrative is not an accidental lapse but a familiar pattern:
when power is sufficiently concentrated, resources sufficiently abundant, and image management sufficiently polished, history can be rewritten.

《纽约时报》当然会强调编辑独立与新闻专业主义，但一个无法回避的现实是：在其版面体系中，“谁的故事值得被郑重讲述”，本身就受到资源与影响力的强烈筛选。普通受害者没有讣告，没有专栏，没有“复杂一生”的深度回顾；而掌握国家机器、控制庞大资源的独裁体系核心人物，却可以获得“平衡”“理解”“历史语境”的耐心对待。

The New York Times will of course invoke editorial independence and journalistic professionalism. Yet an unavoidable reality remains: within its pages, whose story is deemed worthy of solemn telling is itself heavily filtered by resources and influence. Ordinary victims receive no obituaries, no columns, no nuanced retrospectives of “complex lives,” while those at the core of authoritarian systems—commanding state machinery and vast resources—are granted patience, “balance,” and historical context.

讽刺之处恰恰在这里：
在一个资本高度主导话语的平台上，独裁者往往最有钱，也就最容易被认真对待。

Herein lies the irony:
on platforms where capital strongly shapes discourse, dictators are often the wealthiest—and therefore the most likely to be taken seriously.

按照这种逻辑延伸下去，也许有一天，习近平也会在《纽约时报》上获得一篇充满“理解”“复杂性”和“历史地位”的赞美性回顾——毕竟，只要权力足够集中、资源足够雄厚，暴行总能被重新包装。

By extending this logic, one might even prepare for the day when Xijinping receives in The New York Times a laudatory retrospective filled with “understanding,” “complexity,” and “historical significance”—for as long as power is sufficiently concentrated and resources sufficiently abundant, atrocities can always be repackaged.

当《纽约时报》愿意为这类人物提供“体面告别”，却无意为数以千万计的受害者提供同等分量的事实呈现，它实际上是在传递一个危险信号：权力的规模，可以冲淡罪责；金钱与地位，可以重塑记忆。

When The New York Times offers a “respectable farewell” to such figures while denying comparable factual weight to tens of millions of victims, it sends a dangerous signal: the scale of power can dilute culpability, and money and status can reshape memory.

这种做法不仅是对受害者的二次伤害，也是对新闻伦理的自我消解。因为它暗示：只要站得足够高，历史就会对你更温柔；只要掌控足够资源，暴行就可以被称为“政策遗产”。

This practice inflicts secondary harm on victims and corrodes journalistic ethics. It implies that standing high enough ensures a gentler history, and that commanding sufficient resources can rebrand violence as “policy legacy.”


《纽约时报》并非不知道这些事实。问题不在于不了解，而在于不选择讲述。而在新闻行业中，不讲述，本身就是一种立场。

The New York Times does not lack knowledge of these facts. The problem is not ignorance but editorial choice. And in journalism, choosing not to tell is itself a position.

真正负责任的报道，不是形式化地“功过并陈”，而是在权力与受害者之间作出清晰的伦理选择。否则，所谓“复杂叙事”，只不过是为强者提供遮羞布，为暴政留下后门。

Truly responsible reporting is not a formulaic “balance of merits and faults,” but a clear ethical choice between power and its victims. Otherwise, so-called “complex narratives” merely provide cover for the powerful and leave back doors open for tyranny.

历史不会因为登上《纽约时报》就被洗白。
但《纽约时报》若持续选择性遗忘，终将把自己写进另一部历史——一部关于资本如何让暴力显得体面、如何让独裁显得值得理解的历史。

History is not absolved by appearing in The New York Times.
But if selective amnesia persists, the paper will write itself into another history—one about how capital makes violence appear respectable and dictatorship appear understandable.