视点——窃听无孔不入，媒体下限何在

英语自学网

概述：2011年7月，默多克新闻集团旗下的英国老牌畅销小报《世界新闻报》陷入电话窃听丑闻并最终停刊。新闻自由该如何理解？媒体公信力该如何挽救？
Hints：
Leveson
主持：fancyfrances
校对：sighsmile
翻译：baizhixian
注解：baizhixian
答疑：唔哈哈哈哈哈哈
口语点评：lsy34
口语节目链接：http://bulo.hujiang.com/group/topic/682039/"The press," Lord Justice Leveson announced on the first day of public hearings, "provides an essential check on all aspects of public life. That is why any failure within the media affects all of us."
Here's the latest version of a familiar refrain: on the one hand, a free press, devoid of censorship or any other form of government interference or regulation, is vital to the successful functioning of any nation that claims to be a democracy; but on the other hand, those freedoms are often abused by rich proprietors who use their newspapers to promote their own political agenda, and by journalists whose ethics are at best dubious and at worst deplorable.
From this second perspective, the freedom of the press is a self-serving argument, justifying or concealing practices that ought to be against the law, and in some cases probably are.
Here's a venerable and so far unresolved dilemma: a press which is fettered by government regulation is no longer free to check and criticise government; but a press which is free may abuse those freedoms in ways that the public - on whose behalf it claims to speak, and whose interests it claims to serve - may find deeply repellent and repugnant, as in the case of the current phone hacking scandal.大法官莱维森在听证会的首日宣称，“媒体，对公众生活的方方面面提供一种重要审视，这就是为什么任何媒体内部的失挫影响着我们每一个人的生活”
这又是一种老生常谈：一方面，一个自由的媒体，应当排除审查制度或者来自政府方面的任何形式的干涉与规制，这一点对于任何一个宣称是民主国家的媒体的成功运作至关重要；但是另一方面，这些自由常常被业主和记者滥用，有钱的业主借此利用自己的新闻报章来宣传各自的政治议程，而这些新闻记者的道德说好听点是不靠谱，说难听点就是不堪。
从后一种观点看，新闻自由是媒体自私自利的借口。他们是以此来开脱和隐瞒一些违法的行为——某些事件中很可能确实是违法的。
如今存在着这样一个长期未决的窘境：一个被政府管理所束缚的媒体是不可能去审视和批评政府的。但是，一家绝对自由的媒体尽管宣称自己代表公众说话、服务于公众利益，却可能滥用新闻自由，让公众感到极度厌恶和反感，比如最近发生的电话窃听丑闻。