2011年高考英语上海卷 - 阅读理解D

News in the age of information
信息时代的新闻

With the arrival of the age of “information economy”, intellectual work is becoming a more important source of wealth than manufacturing. Organizations in all walks of life are doing more to spread their information. So people of the Public Relations are hired to speak for them. A lot of our news is actually collected from press releases and reports of events intentionally staged for journalists. In the information age, journalists spend their time, not investigating, but passing on the words of a spokesperson.
随着“信息经济”时代的到来，智力工作正成为比制造业更重要的财富来源。各行各业的组织都在尽力传播他们的信息。因此，雇佣公关人士为他们说话。我们的许多新闻实际上都是来自新闻稿和记者们有意呈现的报告和事件。在信息时代，记者们的时间不是花在调查上，而是传递发言人的话上。

Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers.
不要相信报纸上看到的一切
There is a joke in the novel Scoop about the newspaper’s owner, Lord Copper. The editors can never disagree with him. When he’s right about something they answer “definitely”, and when he’s wrong they say “to some extent, Lord Copper.” It seems reasonable to suppose that, in the real world, the opinions of such powerful people still influence the journalists and editors who work for them.
小说《独家新闻》（Scoop）中有一个关于报社老板库珀勋爵的笑话，编辑们绝对不会反对他的观点。当他对某件事观点正确时，他们回答“非常棒”，当他错了时，他们说“某种程度上是对的，库珀勋爵”，这些有权势的人的意见仍然影响着为他们工作的记者和编辑。

Information is presented in an entertaining way.
信息以娱乐的方式呈现
In countries where the news is not officially controlled, it may be provided by commercial organizations who depend on advertising. The news has to attract viewers and maintain its audience ratings. I suspect that some stories get air-time just because there happen to be exciting pictures to show. In Britain, we have the tabloid newspapers which millions of people read simply for entertainment. There is progressively less room for historical background, or statistics, which are harder to present as a sensational story.
在新闻不受官方控制的国家，新闻可能由依赖广告的商业机构提供。新闻必须吸引观众并保持收视率。我怀疑，有些新闻之所以能播出，只是因为有令人兴奋的画面。在英国，我们有数以百万计的人只是为了娱乐而阅读小报。有历史背景或统计数据的空间越来越小，而这些都很难以耸人听闻的故事来呈现。

Argument about individual accounts and their reliability
关于个人账户及其可靠性的争论
There is an argument that with spreading access to the internet and cheap technology for recording sound and images we will all be able to find exactly the information we want. People around the world will be able to publish their own eye-witness accounts and compete with the widely-accepted news-gatherers on equal terms. But what it will mean also is that we’ll be subjected to a still greater amount of nonsense and lies. Any web log may contain the latest information of the year, or equally, a made-up story that you will never be able to check.
有一种观点认为，随着互联网的普及和录音录像廉价技术的普及，我们将能够准确地找到我们想要的信息。世界各地的人们将能够发布自己的目击证人账户，并在平等的条件下与广为接受的新闻采集者竞争这也意味着我们将遭受更多的胡说八道和谎言。任何网络日志都可能包含本年度的最新信息，或者同样，一个你永远无法确认的虚构故事。

Be your own investigative journalist
自己作调查记者
Maybe the time has come to do something about it, and I don’t just mean changing your choice of TV channel or newspaper. In a world where everyone wants you to listen to their version, you only have two choices: switch off altogether or start looking for sources you can trust. The investigative journalist of the future is everyone who wants to know the truth.
也许是时候采取行动了，我的意思不仅仅是改变你对电视频道或报纸的选择。世界上每个人都想让你听他们的版本，你只有两个选择：完全关闭或开始寻找你可以信任的消息来源。未来的调查记者是每个想知道真相的人。