Newsletter No. 543

藝 士 匹 靈 / ARTS pirin 免役於郵 You've Got Mail 電子郵件是由Ray Tomlinson (1941–2016) 於1971年發明。隨着萬維網的出現和個人電腦 的發展，電郵已經成為全球商貿最常用的傳播工具。根據研究科技的公司Radicati Group估 計，現時全球每天大約傳送超過一千二百八十億份電子郵件，而一個商業用戶每天大約處理 一百二十六份電郵。 中大的資訊科技服務處早於1995年成立香港第一個互聯網交收點HKIX，為本地互聯網服務 供應商提供了一個集中發放站，中大自此成為香港的電郵樞紐。中大教職員、學生為教研和 工作所需，每天電郵發送超過三十三萬份，每位教職員平均處理二十九份；學生則為十四份。 學生處理的電郵數目比教職員少一半，原因可能是年輕一代比較喜歡以社交媒體傳達訊 息。市面上出現愈來愈多先進而易用、專為公司或工作間設計的社交媒體軟件或平台，如 Yammer、Slack以及臉書的Workplace等。中大員工也可利用Office 365這個平台聯繫，或設 計出自己的工作流程、傳閱文件等。這個平台也提供SharePoint和微軟的Teams兩個工具。 但選擇太多的話，有時候可能會導致分心而影響效率，而新的工具也實在需要先投放時間和 心力方可得心應手。按軟件公司RescueTime去年的一項調查，每位用戶平均每隔六分鐘便 檢視電郵一次。加州大學的 Gloria Mark 教授，也發現一間大機構的員工平均每天檢視電郵郵 箱達七十七次。 如果要不受來自你手機或腕錶的音效或震動支配，同事應該聽聽喬治城大學的 Cal Newport 教授在《紐約客》怎麽寫：「現代人的正當工作，只在無休止地招呼完信息檔之後所剩下的零 碎時間中才進行。」 The e-mail system was invented by Ray Tomlinson (1941–2016) in 1971. With the advent of the world wide web and the development of the personal computer, e-mails have become the most common means of communication in business and commerce. According to the technology-research firm Radicati Group, more than 128 billion business e-mails are being sent and received each day. A business user deals with an average of 126 e-mails per day. In 1995, the Information Technology Services Centre (ITSC) of CUHK set up HKIX, the first internet exchange centre in Hong Kong to provide an interconnection point for local ISPs. CUHK has since been the local hub for e-mails. It is estimated that as many as one third of a million e-mails get sent and received each day among CUHK members for purposes relating to teaching and learning, research and work. Each staff member deals on the average with 29 e-mails a day; each student 14. That our students deal with only half of the number of e-mails as our staff do might be explained by the younger generation’s preference for social media. From Yammer to Slack (which stands for Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge) to Facebook’s Workplace, increasingly sophisticated but user-friendly social media platforms have appeared in the market to organize and facilitate the work of those in an organization or office setting. Office 365 is a platform available to CUHK staff members for organizing their workflow, processing documents and communicating among themselves. SharePoint and Microsoft’s Teams are two available options on the platform. More options, however, may mean more distraction and the need to invest time and effort before the tools can become truly handy. In 2018, the software company RescueTime found that on average users checked their e-mails once every six minutes. Prof. Gloria Mark of the University of California, Irvine found that the employees of a large company checked their in-boxes on average 77 times a day. Lest concentration and discipline run scarce on the call of technology—those pings and buzzes from your cell phone and/or watch—take heed of what Prof. Cal Newport of Georgetown University wrote in The New Yorker : ‘Work has become something we do in the small slivers of time that remain amid our Sisyphean skirmishes with our in-boxes.’ TC 文字的溫度 The Sentiment of Reportage 有天我在書店閒逛， 譚蕙芸 的新書《文字欲：回應時代的特寫新聞》即時映入眼簾，封面是 一位典型傳媒人伏案疾書的畫面，其肩膀上有一行文字：「以真實扎實的報道，令讀者從一 粒細沙看見一個世界。」我立即買來細閱。 新聞特寫通常把鎂光燈聚焦個別人物。有人以為特寫作者只是跟受訪者聊聊天，寫點感性 故事，譚蕙芸卻堅持用心與受訪者交流，真實呈現其內心世界，折射出背後的社會脈絡， 「缺乏脈絡的報道會令人以為弱勢社群都是受害者。」 一般關於露宿者的報道會走向兩極，要麼把他們形容為社會邊緣人，要麼把他們描繪得像 「喪屍」，但她筆下的露宿者會穿皮褸、西裝，甚至擁有LCD電視。很少人這樣細心了解露 宿者的家當，而且照片中的受訪者都樂意望向鏡頭，可見她與受訪者建立了信任。 2012年起，她在中大新聞及傳播學院教授「新聞特寫」，備課時特意研讀美國普立茲新聞 特寫獎作品，歸納出特寫的寫作心法，並引用中港台例子說明，內容亦載於書中首三章。要 寫出有質感的故事，背後的心思不可小覷。「特寫都是以人為起點，做好資料搜集之餘，也 要留意受訪者的身體語言，甚至觀察其隨身物品。」 當主流媒體日漸追求速度和點擊率，譚蕙芸逆流而行，精心預備每篇深度訪問，由採訪、寫 稿至修改，動輒用上三個工作天。她代入受訪者的處境撰文，用心抽絲剝繭，反覆端詳用 字，難怪其特寫如此耐讀，見樹又見林。 Hanging around a bookstore, I discovered Vivian Tam ’s The Writaholic: Hong Kong Features . The book cover depicts a typical media practitioner burying oneself in work. After I glanced over the sentence ‘To help readers see the world in a grain of sand with factually grounded reporting’ (my translation), I immediately bought the book. News features spotlight individuals. Some believe feature writers mainly chat with their interviewees and write emotionally captivating stories. But Tam strives to communicate with her interviewees to explore their inner worlds and underlying social contexts. In her own words, ‘Decontextualized news reports may victimize the disadvantaged group.’ Normally, news reports on homeless people go to two extremes: to describe them as marginalized or simply as zombies. One homeless person Tam depicted, however, likes to dress himself in a leather jacket or a suit. Another even owns an LCD television. Not many people observe the homeless people’s belongings like she did. The interviewees in the pictures even look at the camera upright, implying that Tam has built trust with them. Tam has been teaching ‘News Features’ at CUHK’s School of Journalism and Communication since 2012. For the course, she studied the American Pulitzer Prize-winning features and distilled the golden rules of feature writing and illustrated them with references from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, which can be found in the first three chapters of the book. To give the stories a real human touch, the writers’ effort cannot be overlooked. ‘Feature stories start with humans. Besides soliciting background information, we should observe the interviewees’ body language and even their belongings.’ While the mainstreammedia prioritize speed and click rate, Tam chooses the road less taken. She meticulously prepares for each in-depth interview. The process from interviewing, writing to polishing takes at least three working days. She places herself into the shoes of the interviewees, unravels the intriguing factors and carefully examines her word choice. Tam’s clarity helps me separate the trees from the forest, as her features encompass both the minutiae and overarching narrative of things, making for highly readable writing. J. Lau Source: CUHK Press 09 # 5 4 3 | 1 9 . 0 9 . 2 0 1 9 字 裏 科 技 / T ech T alks