Question

Why do so many Americans distrust what they read in their newspapers? The American Society of Newspaper Editors is trying to answer this painful question. The organization is deep into a long self-analysis known as the journalism credibility project.
Sad to say, this project has turned out to be mostly low-level findings about factual errors and spelling and grammar mistakes, combined with lots of head-scratching puzzlement about what in the world those readers really want.
But the sources of distrust go way deeper. Most journalists learn to see the world through a set of standard patterns into which they plug each day’s events. In other words, there is a conventional story line in the newsroom culture that provides a backbone and a ready-made narrative structure for otherwise confusing news.
There exists a social and cultural disconnect between journalists and their readers, which helps explain why the "standard patterns" of the newsroom seem alien to many readers. In a recent survey, questionnaires were sent to reporters in five middle-size cities around the country, plus one large metropolitan area. Then residents in these communities were phoned at random and asked the same questions.
Replies show that compared with other Americans, journalists are more likely to live in upscale neighborhoods, have maids, own Mercedes, and trade stocks, and they’re less likely to go to church, do volunteer work, or put down roots in a community.
Reporters tend to be part of a broadly defined social and cultural elite, so their work tends to reflect the conventional values of this elite. The surprising distrust of the news media isn’t rooted in inaccuracy or poor reportorial skills but in the daily clash of world views between reporters and their readers.
This is an explosive situation for any industry, particularly a declining one. Here is a troubled business that keeps hiring employees whose attitudes vastly annoy the customers. Then it sponsors lots of symposiums and a credibility project dedicated to wondering why customers are annoyed and fleeing in large numbers. But it never seems to get around to noticing the cultural and class biases that so many former buyers are complaining about. If it did, it would open up its diversity program, now focused narrowly on race and gender, and look for reporters who differ broadly by outlook, values, education, and class.
【小題1】What is the passage mainly about?

A．needs of the readers all over the world

B．causes of the public disappointment about newspapers

C．origins of the declining newspaper industry

D．a(chǎn)ims of a journalism credibility project

【小題2】The results of the journalism credibility project turned out to be______.

A．quite trustworthy	B．somewhat contradictory
C．very instructive	D．rather superficial(膚淺的)

【小題3】The basic problem of journalists as pointed out by the writer lies in their _________.

A．working attitude	B．conventional lifestyle
C．world outlook	D．educational background

Answer 1

【小題1】B
【小題1】D
【小題1】C

解析【小題1】B 文章的第一句就提出了本文旨在說明的問題“為什么那么多的美國人不相信自己在報(bào)紙上讀到的內(nèi)容呢?”從第二段、第三段的內(nèi)容來看，作者都在試圖尋找造成公眾對(duì)報(bào)紙失望的一個(gè)真正的根本性的原因。因此可以判斷[B]為正確答案。[A]不正確，是因?yàn)樗鼉H僅是新聞界的調(diào)查項(xiàng)目得到的一個(gè)結(jié)果而已。[C]和[A]相比較，還是[A]來得比較確切。[C]已經(jīng)從文章主旨引申到別的項(xiàng)目上去了。[D]僅僅是為了查明原因而進(jìn)行的一個(gè)調(diào)查項(xiàng)目而已。
【小題1】D 根據(jù)本題題干可以定位到第二段，文中指出“該項(xiàng)目最終所發(fā)現(xiàn)的原因大都是新聞報(bào)道中的事實(shí)錯(cuò)誤，拼寫或語法錯(cuò)誤，以及許多關(guān)于讀者到底想讀些什么令人撓頭的困惑”，在作者看來，這些發(fā)現(xiàn)大都是“低級(jí)的”(low-level)，而真正的原因沒有這么表面“go way deeper”(第三段首句中)。因此可以判定是答案是[D]選項(xiàng)。
【小題1】C 文章的解題點(diǎn)在文章的倒數(shù)第二段中“對(duì)新聞媒體的這種令人震驚的不信任的根源不在于報(bào)道失實(shí)或低下的報(bào)道技巧，而在于記者與讀者的世界觀每天都發(fā)生著碰撞”這句話。也就是說，作者的基本問題是“世界觀”的問題。另外三個(gè)選項(xiàng)都不是最基本的問題。