VOA慢速英语2013 AS IT IS 2013-05-08 Freedom House: Only 14 percent of the World's People Have a Free Press

AS IT IS 2013-05-08 Freedom House: Only 14 percent of the World's People Have a Free Press

Welcome to As It Is, the daily current affairs magazine show from VOA Learning English.

Today we hear about a new film aimed at keeping girls around the world in school and learning. We hear how women stepped in to make guitars during the labor¹ shortage² of World War Two. But first, we hear about a recent report by Freedom House.

An independent press is one of the basic requirements of a free society. Freedom House is a group that seeks to support free reporting around the world.

Every year, the Washington-based group releases a report on press freedom.  This year’s Freedom of the Press 2013 report said the number of people who live in a free media environment is at its lowest point in more than ten years.

How does Freedom House judge media freedom? David Kramer is president of Freedom House. He says there are many issues affecting media freedom.

“The reason that a country is not free [is] because it fails to meet the criteria³ when it comes to a legal freedom, political freedom, economic freedom for journalists and news organizations to be able to operate.”

The report says only 14 percent of the world’s people enjoy a free press. People in the two most populous⁴ countries in the world are not among them. China is rated as not free while India is rated partly free.  China, Russia, Iran and Venezuela have long suppressed⁵ reporters. Russia passed new censorship laws for the Internet last year. And China tightly⁶ controls its traditional and digital media with censorship and arrests.

A new movie is bringing attention to an old problem: the lack of education for girls in many countries, especially poor countries. Karen Leggett has the story.

Girls with eight years of education are four times less likely to marry as a child. But there are 66 million girls in the world who are not in school. American television producer Holly⁷ Gordon says, “If you want to improve the economy, if you want to change health outcomes⁸, if you want to break cycles of poverty, educating girls is the best investment you can make.”

Gordon is the executive⁹ director of Girl Rising, a new movie about girls and the education they want and need.  In the movie, nine girls act out their stories in nine different countries. Girls in the movie come from Afghanistan, Egypt, Peru, Haiti, and Ethiopia. Other countries include Sierra Leone, India, Nepal and Cambodia.

Sokha from Cambodia was forced to pick through trash to live. But in the movie, she finds a way to go to school; viewers see her dancing traditional Cambodian dances.

Each story is written by a writer from that country, such as Marie Arana for Peru and Edwidge Danticat from Haiti. Major actors provide the voice for each story.

This new movie is being advertised in new ways to influence people to act. Several non-government organizations and international companies are involved. They included Ten-by-Ten, Girl UP, a program of the United Nations Foundation, and the technology company Intel.

The movie was first seen in the United States in March. Social and political groups, companies, schools, colleges and individuals can organize a showing of the movie through a service on the Internet called Gathr.com.  From the website, people anywhere in the world can ask for, organize or attend special showings of the movie close to where they live.

The ten-by-ten website encourages visitors to connect with partner organizations where they can give money or take other action.  The organization will use social media to inform people about new chances to take action. Listen to the movie trailer.

“I will read. I will study. I will learn. If you try to stop me, I will just try harder. If you stop me, there will be other girls who will rise up and take my place. I am change.”

During World War Two, as American men went off to war, women filled the jobs they left behind. Women worked in factories, stores and shipyards. One group of women made musical instruments, building Gibson guitars. Christopher Cruise¹⁰ has more on their story.

John Thomas is a writer and a lover of guitars. He was surprised when he saw a wartime photograph of the Gibson guitar factory in Michigan. The 75 people in the picture were nearly all women. Irene Stearns, now age 90, spent several of the war years working at the factory.

"I got out of high school and everybody is looking for a job, and there weren’t any jobs. Then one day, they called and I started at Gibson. I suppose it was because of the war."

Irene Stearns is one of the former Gibson factory workers who John Thomas found in the Kalamazoo, Michigan area. She made guitar strings¹¹ for some of the thousands of instruments the factory produced in the 1940s.

"All the celebrities¹² and people who were buying the guitars would come. And they would be on the other side of the wall from where I sat making strings. So, it was really nice in that part. I could hear them playing all these beautiful guitars."

John Thomas calls the women who worked at the Gibson factory, the "Kalamazoo Gals¹³." That is also the name of his new book about the female guitar makers¹⁴. He believes the company kept their work secret because it did not think guitar buyers of the day would use instruments built by women.

Mr. Thomas collected three of the World War II Gibson guitars and borrowed several others to help tell the story. Then a friend told him about Lauren Sheehan, a professional musician who agreed to help.

"Certainly I'm a champion for a story about women excelling¹⁵ at work that is traditionally a man's domain¹⁶."

Lauren Sheehan bought a restored Gibson guitar for herself. She says she wanted to own a piece of America’s musical heritage¹⁷.

I’m Christopher Cruise.

1 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

2 shortage   

n.缺少，缺乏，不足

参考例句：

• The city is suffering a desperate shortage of water.这个城市严重缺水。
• The heart of the problem is a shortage of funds.问题的关键是缺乏经费。

3 criteria   

n.标准

参考例句：

• The main criterion is value for money.主要的标准是钱要用得划算。
• There are strict criteria for inclusion in the competition.参赛的标准很严格。

4 populous   

adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的

参考例句：

• London is the most populous area of Britain.伦敦是英国人口最稠密的地区。
• China is the most populous developing country in the world.中国是世界上人口最多的发展中国家。

5 suppressed   

被抑制的，被忍住的

参考例句：

• The rebellion was brutally suppressed. 起义遭到了残酷的镇压。
• Members of these sects are ruthlessly persecuted and suppressed. 这些教派的成员遭到了残酷的迫害和镇压。

6 tightly   

adv.紧紧地，坚固地，牢固地

参考例句：

• My child holds onto my hand tightly while we cross the street.横穿马路时，孩子紧拉着我的手不放。
• The crowd pressed together so tightly that we could hardly breathe.人群挤在一起，我们几乎喘不过气来。

7 holly   

n.[植]冬青属灌木

参考例句：

• I recently acquired some wood from a holly tree.最近我从一棵冬青树上弄了些木料。
• People often decorate their houses with holly at Christmas.人们总是在圣诞节时用冬青来装饰房屋。

8 outcomes   

结果( outcome的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The two scenarios provide illustrations of consistent set of outcomes for range of possible policies. 这两个方案说明某一套可能采取的政策将会产生的一系列后果。
• We analyzed all the possible outcomes of your mission, Commander. 我们分析过所有可能的结果，指挥官。

9 executive   

adj.执行的，行政的；n.执行者，行政官，经理

参考例句：

• A good executive usually gets on well with people.一个好的高级管理人员通常与人们相处得很好。
• He is a man of great executive ability.他是个具有极高管理能力的人。

10 cruise   

v.巡航，航游，缓慢巡行；n.海上航游

参考例句：

• They went on a cruise to Tenerife.他们乘船去特纳利夫岛。
• She wants to cruise the canals of France in a barge.她想乘驳船游览法国的运河。

11 strings   

n.弦

参考例句：

• He sat on the bed,idly plucking the strings of his guitar.他坐在床上，随意地拨着吉他的弦。
• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。

12 celebrities   

n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉

参考例句：

• He only invited A-list celebrities to his parties. 他只邀请头等名流参加他的聚会。
• a TV chat show full of B-list celebrities 由众多二流人物参加的电视访谈节目

13 gals   

abbr.gallons （复数）加仑（液量单位）n.女孩，少女( gal的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Jim came skipping out at the gate with a tin pail, and singing Buffalo Gals. 这时，吉姆手里提着一个锡皮桶，嘴中唱着“布法罗的女娃们”蹦蹦跳跳地从大门口跑出来。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
• An' dey thinks dey wants mousy lil gals wid bird's tastes an' no sense at all. 他们想要的是耗子般的小姑娘，胃口小得像雀子，一点儿见识也没有。 来自飘（部分）

14 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 excelling   

优于，擅长( excel的现在分词 )； 胜过平时

参考例句：

• The rockery in the park is of wonderful workmanship excelling nature. 公园里的假山巧夺天工。
• Dukakis has a history of enduring, even excelling at, hardball campaigns. 杜卡基斯一向能承受，甚至擅长选举硬仗。

16 domain   

n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围

参考例句：

• This information should be in the public domain.这一消息应该为公众所知。
• This question comes into the domain of philosophy.这一问题属于哲学范畴。

17 heritage   

n.传统，遗产，继承物

参考例句：

• The ancient buildings are part of the national heritage.这些古建筑是民族遗产的一部分。
• We Chinese have a great cultural heritage.我们中国人有伟大的文化遗产。