单选题
Good news is bad news and bad news is good news,
newsmen often say to one another. And when you look at the media it's only too
easy to see what they mean. A dictionary definition of the media is mass
communication, e.g. the press, television, radio. The media sees its main
purpose as giving the public news. Naturally to provide the public with news,
the media has first to gather it. The whole function and purpose of the media,
then, seems to depend on the word "news", but more important, on how the word is
interpreted. The media like any big business venture today is
an extremely competitive world of its own. In providing material for its public
it has constantly to make sure it serves the right diet. No public will waste
time on your paper or your TV channel otherwise. The sad truth is that there
seems only one way to catch an audience—hit them right between the eyes. What
started as a mild tap has now become a sledgehammer blow that goes by the name
of sensationalism. A reporter chooses—has to choose—a news
story because of its sensation value. The young inexperienced cub reporter rings
his editor about a car crash. He starts to explain the details to him but the
experienced editor asks the cub one question: "Anyone killed?" and to himself he
thinks, why do we offer jobs to children? One may accuse
newsman of cynicism but they will quickly remind you of the hard facts of
survival in the world of the media. The favorite words the newspaper placards in
the streets bombard the public with are, "Surprise, Sensation, Drama, Shock".
You wonder, when the papers batter the public with dramas and sensations day
after day, that they haven't put an end to sensation long ago. As a regular
newspaper reader you also thank Heavens for the light relief of the strips. Turn
finally from them to what is referred to laughingly as "steam radio", in order
to show its relative antiquity. This for many millions of people is the only
live contact they have with the outside world that tightly or wrongly they have
been led to believe they should have contact with. It's extremely hard of course
to see why, when for the most part its news services bring them tragedy,
disaster, heartbreak, other people's misfortunes—in a word, trouble. What again
becomes quickly apparent is that a man's job depends on sensationalism, and we
are asked to excuse him for this. Perhaps the media hasn't
quite grown up and we should congratulate it on getting this far. The year 2000
may see great changes in the way news is presented to us. Again, who knows, it
might even get worse—if such a thing is possible. Perish the thought!
单选题
Experienced news editors obviously think that
A. children are useless as reporters.
B. some reporters are like children.
C. children make the best reporters.
D. young reporters give too much detail.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】[解析] 本题考查推理判断。从原文第三段中可看出，当毫无经验的年轻记者喋喋不休地叙述事故细节时，有经验的编辑只一语中的地问：“是否有人伤亡?”以此来判断事件是否具有新闻价值。显然有经验的编辑认为年轻记者大谈细节是幼稚，孩子气的表现。所以才有下文中的：“Why do we offer jobs to children?”可见，选项[B]是正确的。
单选题
The passage suggests that being informed by radio
单选题
The passage suggests that to appeal to the public you have to
A. use physical violence.
B. give them cooking recipes.
C. report violent happenings.
D. make them unhappy.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 本题考查细节辨析。此题关键在于对“hit them right between the eyes”一词的理解。新闻界人士不会对读者采取人身暴力，这一词组是说：“要吸引读者的注意，让他们感到震撼”。再联系上下文中的“sensationalism”，“Surprise，Sensation，Drama，Shock”等词，可以判断，要吸引读者就必须报道一些具有震撼力的激烈的事件，所以[C]是正确答案。