英语演讲Television News Coverage.docx

1、英语演讲Television News Coverage英语演讲：Television News CoverageSpiro Theodore Agnew: Television News CoverageI think its obvious from the cameras here that I didnt come to discuss the ban on cyclamates or DDT. I have a subject which I think if of great importance to the American people. Tonight I want to

2、discuss the importance of the television news medium to the American people. No nation depends more on the intelligent judgment of its citizens. No medium has a more profound influence over public opinion. Nowhere in our system are there fewer checks on vast power. So, nowhere should there be more c

3、onscientious responsibility exercised than by the news media. The question is, Are we demanding enough of our television news presentations? And are the men of this medium demanding enough of themselves?Monday night a week ago, President Nixon delivered the most important address of his Administrati

4、on, one of the most important of our decade. His subject was Vietnam. My hope, as his at that time, was to rally the American people to see the conflict through to a lasting and just peace in the Pacific. For 32 minutes, he reasoned with a nation that has suffered almost a third of a million casualt

5、ies in the longest war in its history.When the President completed his address - an address, incidentally, that he spent weeks in the preparation of - his words and policies were subjected to instant analysis and querulous criticism. The audience of 70 million Americans gathered to hear the Presiden

6、t of the United States was inherited by a small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts, the majority of whom expressed in one way or another their hostility to what he had to say.It was obvious that their minds were made up in advance. Those who recall the fumbling and groping that

7、 followed President Johnsons dramatic disclosure of his intention not to seek another term have seen these men in a genuine state of nonpreparedness. This was not it.One commentator twice contradicted the Presidents statement about the exchange of correspondence with Ho Chi Minh. Another challenged

8、the Presidents abilities as a politician. A third asserted that the President was following a Pentagon line. Others, by the expressions on their faces, the tone of their questions, and the sarcasm of their responses, made clear their sharp disapproval.To guarantee in advance that the Presidents plea

9、 for national unity would be challenged, one network trotted out Averell Harriman for the occasion. Throughout the Presidents address, he waited in the wings. When the President concluded, Mr. Harriman recited perfectly. He attacked the Thieu Government as unrepresentative; he criticized the Preside

10、nts speech for various deficiencies; he twice issued a call to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to debate Vietnam once again; he stated his belief that the Vietcong or North Vietnamese did not really want military take-over of South Vietnam; and he told a little anecdote about a “very, very re

11、sponsible” fellow he had met in the North Vietnamese delegation.All in all, Mr. Harrison offered a broad range of gratuitous advice challenging and contradicting the policies outlined by the President of the United States. Where the President had issued a call for unity, Mr. Harriman was encouraging

12、 the country not to listen to him.A word about Mr. Harriman. For 10 months he was Americas chief negotiator at the Paris peace talks - a period in which the United States swapped some of the greatest military concessions in the history of warfare for an enemy agreement on the shape of the bargaining

13、 table. Like Coleridges Ancient Mariner, Mr. Harriman seems to be under some heavy compulsion to justify his failures to anyone who will listen. And the networks have shown themselves willing to give him all the air time he desires.Now every American has a right to disagree with the President of the

14、 United States and to express publicly that disagreement. But the President of the United States has a right to communicate directly with the people who elected him, and the people of this country have the right to make up their own minds and form their own opinions about a Presidential address with

15、out having a Presidents words and thoughts characterized through the prejudices of hostile critics before they can even be digested.When Winston Churchill rallied public opinion to stay the course against Hitlers Germany, he didnt have to contend with a gaggle of commentators raising doubts about wh

16、ether he was reading public opinion right, or whether Britain had the stamina to see the war through. When President Kennedy rallied the nation in the Cuban missile crisis, his address to the people was not chewed over by a roundtable of critics who disparaged the course of action hed asked America

17、to follow.The purpose of my remarks tonight is to focus your attention on this little group of men who not only enjoy a right of instant rebuttal to every Presidential address, but, more importantly, wield a free hand in selecting, presenting, and interpreting the great issues in our nation. First,

18、lets define that power.At least 40 million Americans every night, its estimated, watch the network news. Seven million of them view A.B.C., the remainder being divided between N.B.C. and C.B.S. According to Harris polls and other studies, for millions of Americans the networks are the sole source of

19、 national and world news. In Will Rogers observation, what you knew was what you read in the newspaper. Today for growing millions of Americans, its what they see and hear on their television sets.Now how is this network news determined? A small group of men, numbering perhaps no more than a dozen a

20、nchormen, commentators, and executive producers, settle upon the 20 minutes or so of film and commentary thats to reach the public. This selection is made from the 90 to 180 minutes that may be available. Their powers of choice are broad.They decide what 40 to 50 million Americans will learn of the

21、days events in the nation and in the world. We cannot measure this power and influence by the traditional democratic standards, for these men can create national issues overnight. They can make or break by their coverage and commentary a moratorium on the war. They can elevate men from obscurity to

22、national prominence within a week. They can reward some politicians with national exposure and ignore others.For millions of Americans the network reporter who covers a continuing issue - like the ABM or civil rights - becomes, in effect, the presiding judge in a national trial by jury.It must be re

23、cognized that the networks have made important contributions to the national knowledge - through news, documentaries, and specials. They have often used their power constructively and creatively to awaken the public conscience to critical problems. The networks made hunger and black lung disease nat

24、ional issues overnight. The TV networks have done what no other medium could have done in terms of dramatizing the horrors of war. The networks have tackled our most difficult social problems with a directness and an immediacy thats the gift of their medium. They focus the nations attention on its e

25、nvironmental abuses - on pollution in the Great Lakes and the threatened ecology of the Everglades. But it was also the networks that elevated Stokely Carmichael and George Lincoln Rockwell from obscurity to national prominence.Nor is their power confined to the substantive. A raised eyebrow, an inf

26、lection of the voice, a caustic remark dropped in the middle of a broadcast can raise doubts in a million minds about the veracity of a public official or the wisdom of a Government policy. One Federal Communications Commissioner considers the powers of the networks equal to that of local, state, an

27、d Federal Governments all combined. Certainly it represents a concentration of power over American public opinion unknown in history.Now what do Americans know of the men who wield this power? Of the men who produce and direct the network news, the nation knows practically nothing. Of the commentato

28、rs, most Americans know little other than that they reflect an urbane and assured presence seemingly well-informed on every important matter. We do know that to a man these commentators and producers live and work in the geographical and intellectual confines of Washington, D.C., or New York City, t

29、he latter of which James Reston terms the most unrepresentative community in the entire United States.Both communities bask in their own provincialism, their own parochialism.We can deduce that these men read the same newspapers. They draw their political and social views from the same sources. Wors

30、e, they talk constantly to one another, thereby providing artificial reinforcement to their shared viewpoints. Do they allow their biases to influence the selection and presentation of the news? David Brinkley states objectivity is impossible to normal human behavior. Rather, he says, we should stri

31、ve for fairness.Another anchorman on a network news show contends, and I quote: “You cant expunge all your private convictions just because you sit in a seat like this and a camera starts to stare at you. I think your program has to reflect what your basic feelings are. Ill plead guilty to that.”Les

32、s than a week before the 1968 election, this same commentator charged that President Nixons campaign commitments were no more durable than campaign balloons. He claimed that, were it not for the fear of hostile reaction, Richard Nixon would be giving into, and I quote him exactly, “his natural instinct to smash the enemy with a club or go after him with a meat axe.” Had this slander been made by one political candidate about another, it would have been dismissed by most commentators as a partisan attack. But this attack emanated from the privileged sanctuary o