Making the headlines

1  It isn’t very often that the media lead with the same story everywhere in the world. Such an event would have to be of enormous international significance. But this is exactly what occurred in September 2001 with the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. It is probably not exaggerated to say that from that moment the world was a different place.

2    But it is not just the historical and international dimension that made 9/11 memorable and (to use a word the media like) newsworthy. It was the shock and horror too. So striking, so sensational, was the news that, years after the event, many people can still remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they first heard it. They can remember their own reactions: For many people across the globe their first instinct was to go and tell someone else about it, thus providing confirmation of the old saying that bad news travels fast.

3 And so it is with all major news stories. I remember when I was at primary school the teacher announcing pale-faced to a startled class of seven year olds President Kennedy is dead. I didn’t know who President Kennedy was, but I was so upset at hearing the news that I went rushing home afterwards to tell my parents (who already knew, of course). In fact, this is one of my earliest memories.

4 So what exactly is news? The objective importance of an event is obviously not enough – there are plenty of enormous global issues out there, with dramatic consequences, from poverty to global warming – but since they are ongoing, they don’t all make the headlines on the same day. 9/11, in contrast, was not just international, but odd, unexpected, and (in the sense that it was possible to identify with the plight of people caught up in the drama) very human.

5 Odd doesn’t mean huge. Take the story in the China Daily about a mouse holding up a flight from Vietnam to Japan. The mouse was spotted running down the aisle of a plane in Hanoi airport. It was eventually caught by a group of 12 technicians worried that the mouse could chew through wires and cause a short circuit. By the time it took off the plane was more than four hours late.

6 Not an event with momentous international consequences, you might say, (apart from a few passengers arriving late for their appointments in another country), but there are echoes of the story across the globe, in online editions of papers from Asia to America, and even Scotland (“Mouse chase holds up flight”, in the Edinburgh Evening News).

7 Another element of newsworthiness is immediacy.  This refers to the nearness of the event in time. An event which happened a week ago is not generally news – unless you’ve just read about it. “When” is one of the five “wh” questions trainee journalists are regularly told that they have to use to frame a news story (the others are “who”, “what”, “where”, and “why”); “today”, “this morning”, and “yesterday” are probably  at the top of the list of time adverbs in a news report. Similarly, an event which is about to happen (“today”, “this evening” or “tonight”) may also be newsworthy, although, by definition, it is not unexpected and so less sensational.

8   When it comes to immediacy, those media which can present news in real time, such as TV, radio, and the Internet, have an enormous advantage over the press. To see an event unfolding in front of your eyes is rather different from reading about it at breakfast the next morning. But TV news is not necessarily more objective or reliable than a newspaper report, since the images you are looking at on your screen have been chosen by journalists or editors with specific objectives, or at least following set guidelines, and they are shown from a unique viewpoint. By placing the camera somewhere else you would get a different picture. This is why it is usual to talk of the “power of the media” – the power to influence the public, more or less covertly.

9  But perhaps in the third millennium this power is being eroded, or at least devolved to ordinary people. The proliferation of personal blogs, the possibility of self-broadcasting through sites such as YouTube, and the growth of open-access web pages (wikis) means that anyone with anything to say – or show – can now reach a worldwide audience instantly.

10    This doesn’t mean that the press and TV are going to disappear overnight, of course. But in their never-ending search for interesting news items – odd, unexpected, and human – they are going to turn increasingly to these sites for their sources, providing the global information network with a curiously local dimension.

Translation

新闻头条

1     世界各地的媒体都以头条报道同一新闻的情形并不很常见。这样的事件得具有巨大的国际影响力。但是这正是2001年9月恐怖分子袭击纽约世贸中心双塔之后发生的情形。从那一刻起世界改变了模样，这样说也许并不夸张。

2     但是，使9/11值得纪念并（用媒体喜欢的话来说）具有新闻价值的不仅仅是它的历史和国际影响，还有震惊和恐惧。这一消息极其令人震撼，极具爆炸性。事发多年以后，许多人还清楚地记得他们第一次听到这一消息时身在何处、当时正在做什么。他们依然记得自己当时的反应：对世界各地的许多人来说，他们的第一本能是去把这一消息告诉别人。这就证实了那句老话：“坏事传千里”。

3    一切重大新闻都是如此。我记得上小学的时候，老师脸色煞白地向一班吃惊的七岁孩子通报说，肯尼迪总统死了。我并不知道肯尼迪总统是谁，但是我听到这一消息后非常不安，后来就跑回家去告诉了父母（当然，他们已经知道了）。事实上，这是我最早的记忆之一。

4    那么，新闻到底是什么？一个事件光有客观重要性显然还不够——世界上有大量全球性的问题，从贫困问题到全球变暖，这些都会造成戏剧性的后果——但由于它们都是进行中的，并不都会在同 一天成为头条。对比之下，9/11不仅具有国际影响，而且奇特怪异、出人意料，还极具人性（这一事件可能使读者对身陷那场悲剧中的人们的痛苦感同身受）。

5    奇特怪异并不意味着重大。就拿《中国日报》上关于一只老鼠延误了一架从越南飞往日本的航班这条消息为例吧。在河内机场有人发现那只老鼠在一架飞机的过道里逃窜。它最终被12名技术人员合力逮住。他们怕它会咬坏电线，造成短路。飞机晚点了四个多小时才起飞。

6    你也许会说，这并不是具有重大国际影响的事件（除了少数乘客到另一国赴约迟到以外）。但是这一事件在全球却颇具反响，从亚洲到美洲，甚至是苏格兰的网络报纸都有转载（《爱丁堡晚报》的标题是“捉老鼠导致航班延误”）。

7     新闻价值的另一个元素是“即时性”。这是指事件发生在近期。一周前发生的事件一般来说就不是新闻了——除非你刚刚读到它。“何时”是受训记者常被教导用以勾勒新闻故事的五个“何”问题 之一（其余四个问题分别是“何人”、“何事”、“何地”和“何故”）；“今天”、“今晨”、“昨天”这几个词可能是新闻报道最为常用的时间副词。同样，即将发生的事件（“今天”、“今晚”或“今夜”） 也可能具有新闻价值，虽然从定义上讲，这种事件不出人意料，也就不那么耸人听闻。 

8    说到即时性，能够实时播报新闻的媒体，如电视、广播和互联网，就比报纸的优势大多了。眼看着事件在你眼前展开与次日早餐时在报上读到它的感觉大不相同。但是，电视新闻未必比报纸报道更客观或更可靠，因为你在屏幕上看到的图像是经记者或编辑根据特殊的目的，或至少是按照既定方针筛选的，并且以一个独特的视角展现给观众。如果把摄像机镜头移到别的地方，你就会看到另一番景象。这就是为什么人们通常会说“媒体霸权”——媒体或多或少地暗中影响公众的能力。

9     但也许在第三个千年，这种权力正在减弱，或至少下放给普通民众。个人博客的大量出现，通过像YouTube这样的网站自我广播的可能性以及权限开放网页（wiki网）的增长都意味着任何人如果有任何话要说——或者有任何东西要展示的话——现在都能立刻让全世界的观众看到。

10      当然，这并不意味着报纸和电视即将在一夜之间消失。但是，在永不休止地搜寻有趣新闻——奇特怪异、出人意料和具有人性的新闻——的过程中，报纸和电视将越来越多地借助这些网站来收集资料，为全球信息网络提供具有稀奇的地方色彩的视角。