高级英语 新编英语教程5 课文+翻译 unit9

高级英语 新编英语教程5 课文+翻译 unit5

Unit 9

1 Not long ago I was asked to join in a public symposium on the role of the American press. Two other speakers were included on the program. The first was a distinguished TV anchorman. The other was the editor of one of the nation’s leading papers, a newsman to the core – though , aggressive, and savvy in the ways and means of solid reporting.

不久前，我应邀参加了一次有关美国报业的作用的公共研讨会。还有另外两位嘉宾也出席了，一位是知名的节目主持人，另一位是美国一家主要报纸的编辑，他勇敢坚定，咄咄逼人，深谙撰写可靠新闻的之道，堪称一位彻头彻尾的新闻界人士。

2 The purpose of the symposium, as I understood it, was to scrutinize the obligations of the media and to suggest the best ways to meet those obligations.

据我所知，本次研讨会旨在审查传媒的使命，提出完成使命的最佳方式。

3 During the open-discussion period, a gentleman in the audience addressed a question to my two colleagues. Why, he asked, are the newspapers and the television news programs so disaster-prone? Why are newsmen and women so attracted to tragedy, violence, failure?

在公开讨论时，观众席中的一位男士向两位嘉宾提问，‘为什么报纸和电视新闻都充斥灾难？为什么新闻界的男男女女对悲剧、暴力和失败有如此关注?’

4 The anchorman and editor reached as though they had been blamed for the existence of bad news. Newsmen and newswomen, they said, are only responsible for reporting the news, not for creating it or modifying it

主持人和编辑的反应是，好像他们为坏消息的存在受到了责难。他们回答说，新闻界人士只负责报道新闻而不创造或修改新闻。

5 It didn’t seem to me that the newsmen had answered the question. The gentleman who had asked it was not blaming them for the distortions in the world. He was just wondering why distortions are most reported. The news media seem to operate on the philosophy that all news is bad news. Why? Could it be that the emphasis on downside news is largely the result of tradition – the way newsmen are accustomed to respond to daily events?

我认为他们没有回答那位先生的问题。那位先生的问题。那位提问的先生并没有责怪他们，让他们为世上的不实复杂。他只是想弄明白为什么报道的最多的是扭曲的现实。新闻传媒的运作理念似乎凡是新闻皆坏事。为什么？难道突出负面新闻是传统？是新闻业内人士对日常事件的习以为常的反应？

6 Perhaps it would be useful here to examine the way we define the world news, for this is where the problem begins. News is supposed to deal with happenings of the past 12 hours - 24 hours at most. Any sniper kills some pedestrians; a terrorist holds 250 people hostage in a plane; OPEC announces a 25 percent increase in petroleum prices; Great Britain devalues by another 10 percent; a truck conveying radioactive wastes collides with a mobile cement mixer.

或许看一下我们如何定义新闻一词会有所帮助，因为这是问题的起因，新闻应该是报道过去十二小时，最迟二十四小时内所发生的事情。然而突发事件往往是具有爆炸性的：一名狙击手枪杀几名行人，一名恐怖分子劫持飞机上250名人质，欧佩克宣布原油价格上涨25%，英国货币又贬值10%一辆载有放射性废料的卡车与一架水泥搅拌车相撞。

7 Focusing solely on these details, however, produces a misshapen picture. Civilization is a lot more than the sum total of its catastrophes. The most important ingredient in any civilization is progress. But progress doesn’t happen all at once. It is not eruptive. Generally, it comes in bits and