记者！是可爱的流氓还是人权的捍卫者？_BEC初级作文

记者！是可爱的流氓还是人权的捍卫者？

Is there anything to this not quite openly made argument? The answer is related to two issues that correspond to the two halves of the journalistic soul, the scamp and the saint. The first is whether the phone-hacking scandal represents a notably egregious type of press misbehavior, rather than the usual naughtiness. The second is whether violating ordinary boundaries of decent behavior in search of big stories actually has a redemptive public-interest aspect.

针对这个并不公开的争论究竟有什么成分呢？这些成分就是他们分别对应了记者分裂的两个灵魂，丑恶和神圣感。第一个是指到底电话窃听是否为非常恶劣的错误行为，还是只是一个普通的恶作剧。第二个是指到为了手机资讯而超越了普通正直行为的底线——是否也有一个可以挽回的公众窥探欲的成分在其中。

The first question is easy: yes! The phone-hacking case that set off the scandal took place within a newsroom culture (and possibly a company culture) in which technologically abetted intrusions on people’s privacy had become about as commonplace as a reporter’s notebook. It’s also—sorry to sound prissy—not O.K. to bribe police and other public officials to serve as unofficial collaborators. Equally repellent is the Mafia-like ecosystem supporting News of the World-style journalism, in which even the highest politicians feel that they will suffer grave personal consequences if they fail to feed the hungry monster. The charm of the journalists in “The Front Page,” it’s worth remembering, had to do with their functioning, for all their gruff cynicism, as a force for good in society—exposing bribery, not engaging in it, and helping to exonerate the falsely accused, not sullying the innocent.