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.
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 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.
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。 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”。
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.
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 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 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.
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。
5 Odd doesn't mean huge. Take the story in today's 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.
奇特怪异并不意味着重大。 就拿今天的《中国日报》上关于一只老鼠延误了一架从越南飞至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奔跑。 它最终被12 名技术人员合力逮住，他们怕它会咬破电线，造成短路。 飞机晚点了四个多小时才起飞。
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, via Scotland (Mouse chase holds up flight, in the Edinburgh Evening News).
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）。但是全球却颇有反响，从亚洲经苏格兰到美洲的电子版报纸都有转载（《爱丁堡晚报》的标题是《捉老鼠延误航班》）。
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. \is one of the five \questions traineejournalists are regularly told that they have to use to frame a news story (the others are \\list of time adverbs in a news report. Similarly, an event which is about to happen (\although, by definition, it is not unexpected and so less sensational. 新闻价值的另一个元素是即时性。 这是指事件发生的时间近。 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（其余是“何人”、“何事”、“何地”和“何故”）；今天、今晨、昨天很可能在新闻报道所使用的时间副词中名列前茅。 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，它不出人意外，也就不那么耸人听闻了。
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 imagesyou are looking at on your screen have been chosen by journalists or editors with specific objectives, or at least following set guidelines,
