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 u a word the media like) newsworthy. It was the shock and horror, too. So striking, so nsational, 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 el 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 te
acher announcing pale-faced to a startled class of ven year olds President Kennedy is dead. I didn't know who President Kennedy was, but I was so upt at hearing the news that I went rushing home afterwards to tell my parents (who already knew, of cour). 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 conquences, from poverty to global warming—but since they are ongoing, they don't all make the just international, but odd, unexpected, and (in the n 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 today's China Daily about a mou holding up a flight from Vietnam to Japan. The mou 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 mou could chew through wires and cau a short circuit. By the time it took off the plane was more than four hours late.
6 Not an event with momentous international conquences, you might say, (apart from a few pasngers 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, via Scotland (Mou cha holds up flight, in the Edinburgh Evening News).
7 Another element of newsworthiness is immediacy. This refers to the nearness超字笔顺 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 u 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 nsational.
8 When it comes to immediacy, tho media which can prent news in real time, such as TV, radio, and the Internet, have an enormous advantage over the press. To e an ev
ent unfolding in front of your eyes is rather different from reading about it at breakfast the next morning.少年愁 But TV news is not necessarily more objective or reliable than a newspaper report, since the images幼儿情商教育 you are looking at on your screen have been chon by journalists or editors with specific objectives, or at least following t guidelines, and they are shown from a unique viewpoint. By placing the camera somewhere el 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 lf-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 布鲁斯口琴谱This doesn't mean that the press and TV are going to disappear overnight, of cour. But in their never-ending arch for interesting news items—odd, unexpected, an
d human—they are going to turn increasingly to the sites for their sources, providing the global information network with a curiously local dimension
新闻头条
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。 不要叫醒我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。
稿纸 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性和国际性。 还有震惊和恐惧。 这一消息极度震撼，极具爆炸性。事发多年以后，许多人还能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。 中国古代神话人物他们能记得自己的反应：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”。
一切重大新闻都是如此。 炒股票新手入门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。
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大问题，都会造成戏剧性的后果，从贫困问题到全球变暖问题——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不仅具有国际性，而且奇特怪异、出人意料，还（可能使读者对身陷那场悲剧中的人们的痛苦感同身受，从这个意义上讲）极具人性。
