VOA慢速英语20060814b

THIS IS AMERICA - White House Pressroom Getting a Makeover; Reporters RelocateBy Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver¹

Broadcast: Monday, August 14, 2006

VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Faith Lapidus. This week we report on the reporters who report on the president.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:


White House reporters

The correspondents take their seats in the James S. Brady Briefing Room. Other reporters and photographers crowd around. The White House press corps² represents print and electronic media from around the world.

The time is half past one. The afternoon press briefing is about to begin.

The atmosphere is different from the briefings in the morning. The morning briefing is called a gaggle. Gaggles are informal. They are a chance to discuss events that will take place that day in the government. They are also a chance to find out what reporters are interested in that day. Gaggles are usually not permitted to be broadcast. Afternoon briefings are 鈥?and today this one is special.

VOICE TWO:

Behind press secretary Tony Snow on the speaker's stage are five former press secretaries. They include the man for whom the briefing room is named.

James Brady was shot in the head and partially³ paralyzed in nineteen eighty-one. He was struck when a gunman, John Hinckley, wounded President Ronald Reagan outside a Washington hotel. Since then Mister Brady and his wife have campaigned against gun violence. Sarah Brady was with her husband at the White House for the press briefing last Tuesday.

Two other special guests also stopped by: President Bush and his wife, Laura.


White House Press Secretary Tony Snow takes questions from reporters

So what was the event? Tony Snow explained in his opening announcements:

TONY SNOW: Welcome to the final briefing before we christen the next swimming pool here at the White House. Scared silence. No, no, no. The last iteration of the present version of this briefing room. The next time we have a briefing here, it will be spiffed-up and high-tech⁴. But it's a wonderful thing and a wonderful day and I'm glad you are all here.

VOICE ONE:

The pressroom is built over Franklin Roosevelt's swimming pool. Members of the public raised the money to build the pool. They wanted to thank President Roosevelt for guiding the nation through the Great Depression. Franklin Roosevelt enjoyed exercising in water, though polio robbed him of the use of his legs.

He was president from nineteen thirty-two until his death in nineteen forty-five.

Years later, Richard Nixon had the swimming pool covered over. President Nixon wanted to create a pressroom that could handle modern television equipment. Nixon left office in nineteen seventy-four, the only president ever to resign.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Over the years, the pressroom started to show its age. Coffee found its way onto the floor, onto the once fine carpets. The forty-two seats in the room often need repair. This past January, a television camera hanging near President Bush came loose as he spoke⁵ in the pressroom. The camera fell and hung by a strap⁶.

The room will be modernized⁷. Among other things, the blue curtain backdrop that millions of people have seen on television will be gone. A big video screen is expected to take its place behind the speaker's stand.

Reporters will work from a building across the street from the White House while the pressroom is closed. The work is expected to take about nine months.

VOICE ONE:

The White House, at Sixteen-Hundred Pennsylvania Avenue, is where the president lives and works. The office of the vice⁸ president is next door, in the Old Executive Office Building.

The pressroom looks large on television, but reporters say it is not nearly large enough. Some days the room gets more crowded than usual. Hundreds of journalists cover stories at the White House from time to time.

Thirteen journalists, or even fewer, sometimes have to gather information for the other members of the press corps. This is known as pool duty. Reporters pool their information. Some events, and places like the president's Oval Office, do not have enough room to fit a big crowd of journalists.

Pool reporters are supposed to do the best they can to supply others, including their competitors, with information. Reporters share the responsibility of pool duty. A journalist who spent ten years in the White House press corps says pool duty often worried her more than any other part of her job.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Every press corps has someone who is considered its dean. Merriman Smith of United Press International had that honor at the White House for many years. Yet the story for which he is best known took place in Dallas, Texas. The date was November twenty-second, nineteen sixty-three.

Smitty, as he was known, was traveling in the motorcade when President John F. Kennedy was shot. The president had been riding in an open car.

Merriman Smith was seated next to the radio-telephone in the press car. He quickly reached for it and got through to the U.P.I. office in Dallas to report the news. He stayed on the phone, even as a reporter from the Associated Press hit him on the back again and again to give it up.

Smith had bruises⁹ on his back -- but U.P.I. beat its fiercest competitor on the story. Merriman Smith won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage¹⁰ of the assassination¹¹ of President Kennedy.


Helen Thomas

VOICE ONE:

Today the journalist long called the dean of the White House press corps is Helen Thomas. She has covered the White House for more than forty years. She celebrated¹² her eighty-sixth birthday on August fourth.

For many years Helen Thomas was White House correspondent for United Press International. Now she writes commentaries for the Hearst newspapers. She also writes books. Her newest is called Watchdogs of Democracy? The Waning¹³ Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public.

Helen Thomas often criticizes President Bush and the war in Iraq. Some people say she is not a true journalist but a liberal activist¹⁴. Others say her position now as an opinion columnist¹⁵ gives her freedom to say what she thinks.

VOICE TWO:

Free speech and a free press were two of the rights written into the First Amendment¹⁶ to the Constitution. These guarantees have led to many disagreements over the limits to press freedom.

In the United States, most news organizations are privately¹⁷ owned. There are public broadcasters, but only part of their financial support comes from the government.

Presidents and the press have a complex relationship. It can be tense, it can be friendly; it can be friendly and tense, all in the same breath. Some people think White House reporters are too aggressive. Others think they are not aggressive enough.

Working in the White House is seen as one of the top jobs in journalism¹⁸. Yet the working spaces for the press are small and crowded. And reporters who have the job say that all too often it can involve simply covering events. These include photo opportunities. Photo ops are short events designed mostly for the cameras. They are a fact of life in politics.

Efforts by an administration to prevent news leaks and to control the flow of information can limit the ability to dig for stories. So can time pressures. Reporters today face greater demands to feed nonstop news operations and the Internet.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

In nineteen fourteen, eleven members of the press corps formed the White House Correspondents' Association. They had heard a rumor¹⁹ about press conferences to be given by President Woodrow Wilson. They had heard that other reporters would choose who would cover them.

But the story was not true. The White House reporters got to cover the president's briefings.

For six years the White House Correspondents' Association seemed to have no real purpose. Then the group started to hold dinners and invited presidents to attend.

VOICE TWO:

The association has other responsibilities, like trying to get more chances to question the president. But to the public its best known activity is its yearly dinner. Presidents take part in the entertainment. The dinner is one of those Washington traditions that bring together people who make the news and those who report it.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver. You can read transcripts²⁰ of our shows and listen online to our archives at www.unsv.com. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Faith Lapidus. We hope you can join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

1 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

2 corps   

n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组

参考例句：

• The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

3 partially   

adv.部分地，从某些方面讲

参考例句：

• The door was partially concealed by the drapes.门有一部分被门帘遮住了。
• The police managed to restore calm and the curfew was partially lifted.警方设法恢复了平静，宵禁部分解除。

4 high-tech   

adj.高科技的

参考例句：

• The economy is in the upswing which makes high-tech services in more demand too.经济在蓬勃发展，这就使对高科技服务的需求量也在加大。
• The quest of a cure for disease with high-tech has never ceased. 人们希望运用高科技治疗疾病的追求从未停止过。

5 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

6 strap   

n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎

参考例句：

• She held onto a strap to steady herself.她抓住拉手吊带以便站稳。
• The nurse will strap up your wound.护士会绑扎你的伤口。

7 modernized   

使现代化，使适应现代需要( modernize的过去式和过去分词 )； 现代化，使用现代方法

参考例句：

• By 1985 the entire railway network will have been modernized. 等到1985年整个铁路网就实现现代化了。
• He set about rebuilding France, and made it into a brilliant-looking modernized imperialism. 他试图重建法国，使它成为一项表面华丽的现代化帝业。

8 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

9 bruises   

n.瘀伤，伤痕，擦伤( bruise的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was covered with bruises after falling off his bicycle. 他从自行车上摔了下来，摔得浑身伤痕。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The pear had bruises of dark spots. 这个梨子有碰伤的黑斑。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

11 assassination   

n.暗杀；暗杀事件

参考例句：

• The assassination of the president brought matters to a head.总统遭暗杀使事态到了严重关头。
• Lincoln's assassination in 1865 shocked the whole nation.1865年，林肯遇刺事件震惊全美国。

12 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

13 waning   

adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡

参考例句：

• Her enthusiasm for the whole idea was waning rapidly. 她对整个想法的热情迅速冷淡了下来。
• The day is waning and the road is ending. 日暮途穷。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

14 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

15 columnist   

n.专栏作家

参考例句：

• The host was interviewing a local columnist.节目主持人正在同一位当地的专栏作家交谈。
• She's a columnist for USA Today.她是《今日美国报》的专栏作家。

16 amendment   

n.改正，修正，改善，修正案

参考例句：

• The amendment was rejected by 207 voters to 143.这项修正案以207票对143票被否决。
• The Opposition has tabled an amendment to the bill.反对党已经就该议案提交了一项修正条款。

17 privately   

adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地

参考例句：

• Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
• The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。

18 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

19 rumor   

n.谣言，谣传，传说

参考例句：

• The rumor has been traced back to a bad man.那谣言经追查是个坏人造的。
• The rumor has taken air.谣言流传开了。

20 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句