voa慢速英语视频:News Literacy Lesson 4: Balance, Fairness

News Literacy Lesson 4: Balance, Fairness

新闻素养第四课：平衡，公平

Media organizations often use words like “balance” and “fairness.” They want to say that they are reporting without showing favoritism or making judgments. Balance simply means giving equal time to both sides of an issue, or not giving one side more importance.

媒体机构经常使用“平衡”和“公平”这样的词，他们想说，他们的报道并没有显示出偏袒或作出评判。平衡仅仅意味着给问题的两面同等的时间，或不给予一方更多的重视。

For example, let’s consider a report about abortion bills winding their way through U.S. legislatures. A balanced report will give equal time to both supporters of abortion and those opposed to the operation. However, journalists must verify the facts put forth by each side. It is not balance to allow both sides to make any statement supporting their case. This can perpetuate fake news and leaves the reader or viewer without solid information.

例如，我们来看一份关于堕胎法案在美国立法机构中曲折通过的报告。一份平衡的报告将给予堕胎支持者和反对该法案者同样的时间。但是，记者必须核实双方提出的事实。允许双方发表任何支持其理由的声明是不平衡的，这会使假新闻永久化，而没有把可靠信息留给读者或观众。

“Will you just shut up for a minute and let me finish? Pardon me, sir, you don’t get to tell me to shut up and national television.”

“你能不能闭嘴，让我说完?对不起，先生，你不能让我和国家电视台闭嘴。“

Shouting and arguing does not bring balance to an issue and it certainly isn’t journalism.

喊和争论并不能使问题得到平衡，当然也不是新闻业。

But journalists must be careful that seeking balance doesn’t lead to unfair reporting, or setting up an unfair moral equivalency or balance, between unequal sides in an argument.

但是记者们必须注意，寻求平衡不能导致不公平的报道，或者在争论中不平等的双方之间建立不公平的道德对等或平衡。

Actually, objectivity means reporting the truth, it means getting everybody’s truth and reporting it, but never creating a false moral equivalence. Never saying all sides are equal because that’s not the truth, false. That’s a cop-out, it’s a lie.

事实上，客观性意味着报道真相，也就是得到每个人的真相并报道，但绝不制造虚假的道德对等。永远不要说各方都是平等的，因为这不是事实，是假的，这是没有根据的，是谎言。

Journalist Christiane Amanpour is talking about the Bosnian War, where she reported on attacks against Bosnian Muslims. Experts called it a kind of ethnic cleansing. To give equal weight to official denials of the violence she saw would have been wrong.

记者克里斯蒂娜·阿曼普尔正在谈论波斯尼亚战争，她在那里报道了对波斯尼亚穆斯林的袭击，专家称这是种族清洗。对官方否认她所看到的暴力行为给予同样的重视是错误的。

Fair reporting represents reality, not a simple “he said, she said.” False moral equivalency is a failure of journalists to carry out their duties.

公平的报道代表着现实，而不是一个简单的“他说的或她说的”。虚假的道德等于是记者未能成功履行其职责。

A smart news consumer must ask: is this coverage fair to the evidence? And what exactly is evidence? In lesson 5 we will explain how to evaluate news coverage in order to answer these questions.

一个聪明的新闻消费者必须问：这种报道对证据公平吗?证据到底是什么?在第五课，我们将解释如何评估新闻报道，以回答这些问题。

Words in this story

abortion – n. a medical procedure used to end a pregnancy and cause the death of the fetus

verify – v. to prove, show, find out, or state that (something) is true or correct

perpetuate – v. to cause (something that should be stopped, such as a mistaken idea or a bad situation) to continue

equivalency – n. a level of that is considered to be on the same level

Ethnic – adj. of or relating to races or large groups of people who have the same customs, religion, origin, etc.