暑期英语阅读拓展：新闻不可信的深刻根源

Why do so many Americans distrust what they read in their newspapers? The American Society of Newspaper Editors is trying to answer this painful question. The organization is deep into a long self-analysis known as the journalism credibility project.

Sad to say, this project has turned out to be mostly low-level findings about factual errors and spelling and grammar mistakes, combined with lots of head-scratching puzzlement about what in the world those readers really want.

But the sources of distrust go way deeper. Most journalists learn to see the world through a set of standard templates (patterns) into which they plug each day's events. In other words, there is a conventional story line in the newsroom culture that provides a backbone and a ready-made narrative structure for otherwise confusing news.

There exists a social and cultural disconnect between journalists and their readers, which helps explain why the "standard templates" of the newsroom seem alien to many readers. In a recent survey, questionnaires were sent to reporters in five middle-size cities around the country, plus one large metropolitan area. Then residents in these communities were phoned at random and asked the same questions.

Replies show that compared with other Americans, journalists are more likely to live in upscale neighborhoods, have maids, own Mercedeses, and trade stocks, and they're less likely to go to church, do volunteer work, or put down roots in a community.

Reporters tend to be part of a broadly defined social and cultural elite, so their work tends to reflect the conventional values of this elite. The astonishing distrust of the news media isn't rooted in inaccuracy or poor reportorial skills but in the daily clash of world views between reporters and their readers.

This is an explosive situation for any industry, particularly a declining one. Here is a troubled business that keeps hiring employees whose attitudes vastly annoy the customers. Then it sponsors lots of symposiums and a credibility project dedicated to wondering why customers are annoyed and fleeing in large numbers. But it never seems to get around to noticing the cultural and class biases that so many former buyers are complaining about. If it did, it would open up its diversity program, now focused narrowly on race and gender, and look for reporters who differ broadly by outlook, values, education, and class.

全文翻译

为什么那么多美国人不相信自己在报纸上所读的东西？美国新闻编辑协会正试图回答这个令人痛苦的问题。该组织正在深入开展一个名为“新闻可信度项目”的长期自我剖析工程。

遗憾的是，这次项目只获得了一些肤浅的发现，诸如新闻报道中的事实错误，拼写或语法错误，以及许多关于读者到底想读些什么这样的令人挠头的困惑。

但这种不信任有更深刻的根源。多数新闻记者都学会用一套标准的模式去看待世界，并把每天发生的事件套入这种模式。换言之，在新闻采编室文化中存在着一套惯常的写作套路，为纷繁复杂的新闻报道提供了一个主干框架和一个现成的故事叙述结构。

新闻记者和读者之间存在着社会和文化方面的脱节，这有助于解释为什么新闻采编室的“标准模式”让众多读者看上去很陌生的原因。在最近一次调查中，问卷被送到了全国五座中等城市及一座大都市的记者手中，然后随机地给这些城市的居民打电话，询问他们同样的问题。

人们的回答表明，与其他美国人相比，新闻记者更有可能居住在高级社区，有女佣，有奔驰车，炒股，而去教堂，参加自愿服务，扎根某个社区的可能性却很小。

记者们往往属于广义的社会文化精英的一个部分，因此他们的工作往往反映了这些精英传统的价值观。对新闻媒体的这种令人震惊的不信任的根源不在于报道失实或低下的报道技巧，而在于记者与读者的世界观每天都发生着碰撞。

这对任何一个工业产业来说都算是爆炸性的形势，对于一个正在衰落的行业来说尤其如此。这是一个备受困扰的行业，偏偏不停雇用那些因为其态度而极大惹恼客户的员工。然后它又出资组织许多研讨会和可信度调查项目，去探究为什么顾客们发火了，为什么会有那么多顾客流失了。但它似乎从来就没有时间去注意那么多老顾客所抱怨的文化和阶级偏见。如果它能注意这个问题的话，就应该进一步开放其多样化项目(这个项目现在还仅仅局限于不同种族和性别)，进一步寻找那些世界观、价值观、教育水平和社会阶层各不相同的各种记者。

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