高中英语必修五课文翻译SEARCHING FOR THE TRUTH

Unit 4 Making the news-Reading Task

SEARCHING FOR THE TRUTH

Collecting and writing news is like researching in history: the best information comes from those who were there at the time. So if we want to study the history of China in the sixth century AD, we look at the writings of the people who lived then. They are called the primary sources because they tell us what it was like to live then. People at a much later date who write about the same. events are called secondary sources. For example, when we read the original writings of Jia Sixie on agriculture, we are reading a primary source; when we read about Jia Sixie in our textbook we are reading a

secondary source because the passage was written about him and his ideas many years after he died.

When we make news we use primary and secondary sources. We can see this most clearly in TV programmes. As we watch the news on TV, the person presenting the programme in the studio is the secondary source (because he tells us about the news) and the reporter in Iraq or the USA is the primary source (because he is telling us about what is actually happening there). Without these reporters acting as primary sources, you would never find out what really happened in a war, earthquake, sports meeting, concert or festival. These reporters explain what is happening so we have a