2022年高级口译阅读：媒体与道德的争战

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　　Publish, perish, protest

　　Libel law in England is too expensive and restricts free speech. But

　　journalistic dirty tricks are a disgrace and self-regulation of the media isn’t

　　working properly. So the rules need lots of tweaks and a couple of big changes.

　　Those are the conclusions of a much-awaited parliamentary committee report on

　　the British press.

　　It makes uncomfortable reading for many. But the sharpest criticism was

　　reserved for the News of the World, a tabloid that is Britain’s best-selling

　　Sunday newspaper; its owner, Rupert Murdoch’s News International; and its

　　practice of stealing messages from the voice mailboxes of prominent people,

　　including members of the royal family. A reporter, Clive Goodman, was jailed for

　　four months for the offence, later receiving a generous pay-off from his

　　erstwhile employer for “unfair dismissal”.

　　The report says the number of phones hacked must have been far bigger than

　　the handful admitted by the company, and calls it “inconceivable” that nobody

　　else knew what was going on. It criticises the “collective amnesia” of the

　　company’s witnesses and their “deliberate obfuscation” (some refused to give

　　evidence; others said things that the MPs implied were untrue). But the report

　　makes only indirect criticism of Andy Coulson, then the paper’s editor and now a

　　close adviser to the Conservative leader, David Cameron. In response, News

　　International rejected the allegations, accused the MPs of bias and said they

　　had produced nothing new. Calls for a further inquiry are growing.

　　The report gives other journalistic misconduct a savaging too, especially

　　the “abysmal” standards of reporting in the frenzy surrounding Kate and Gerry

　　McCann, the parents of a British child who went missing in Portugal in 2007.

　　(The McCanns later won hefty libel damages from newspapers that wrongly blamed

　　them for abducting their own daughter.) The MPs also note that the McCanns were

　　failed by the Press Complaints Commission, a self-regulatory body which is meant

　　to deal with such conduct.

　　The committee’s original aim was to focus on media misbehaviour. But its

　　investigation has ranged more widely. The report has plenty of comfort for more

　　serious-minded journalists, as well as for the campaigning groups, scientists

　　and others who worry about the chilling effect of libel law on press freedom. In

　　English libel law (Scotland’s is different), the fact that the public has an

　　interest in knowing about something offers only a limited defence against a

　　charge of libel. (This is not unlike the rest of Europe, but it is shockingly

　　different for Americans used to the First Amendment’s protection of free

　　speech.) When sued, journalists usually have to prove that what they wrote was

　　right, fair or at least conscientiously reported. That can be costly (even a

　　preliminary defence can easily exceed ￡100,000). Foreigners may sue other

　　foreigners, as long as they can show that their reputation was damaged in

　　England.

　　Many lawyers and judges have dismissed media campaigns for changes in the

　　law as self-interested. The committee rejects sweeping proposals for reform,

　　such as statutory caps on the size of libel damages. But it does suggest that

　　the Ministry of Justice, which is examining the libel law, make some important

　　changes.

　　One is reversing the burden of proof for corporate claimants: if they want

　　to sue for libel, they would have to show that the published material actually

　　damaged their business. That could help people such as Simon Singh, a science

　　writer facing a lawsuit from the chiropractors’ trade body for calling their

　　treatments “bogus”. The MPs also want to discourage “libel tourism” by requiring

　　a claimant who is not based in Britain to produce a very solid argument as to

　　why the case needs to be brought there.

　　As for the cost of libel actions, which can be ruinous to all but the

　　biggest defendants, the MPs have few specific ideas, though they appeal to

　　lawyers’ sense of responsibility. That is about as realistic as urging tabloid

　　journalists to act ethically.

　　词句笔记：

　　chiropractor：脊柱按摩师

　　tweak：n.调整

　　erstwhile：从前的

　　amnesia：健忘症

　　obfuscation：困惑

　　misconduct：n.行为不端

　　abysmal：深不可测的

　　bogus：假的，伪造的

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