美国国家公共电台 NPR--A citizen journalist in Alabama steps in to serve a news desert

A citizen journalist in Alabama steps in to serve a news desert

Transcript¹

As newspapers fold across the country, a citizen journalist in a small Alabama town keeps watch over the local government. (Story aired on Weekend Edition Sunday on June 11, 2023.)

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Money problems have forced many news organizations to shrink or shut down, and that means limited or no local coverage² - no reporters to document the decisions made by local city and county leaders. Cori Yonge of Alabama Public Radio introduces us to one citizen journalist who's been filling the void.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Everyone cares so passionately³ about the environment. It's just making sure that you can optimize⁴ all the trade-offs.

CORI YONGE, BYLINE⁵: Late on a Friday in the public library auditorium⁶, members of the Fairhope, Ala., Environmental Advisory⁷ Board are meeting with the city's mayor and building officials.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Their little patches of marsh⁸ benefit them, but they also benefit the water quality for the whole bay.

YONGE: Fairhope is perched on the edge of Mobile Bay, near sensitive coastal⁹ habitat. That means environmental issues weigh heavily in building decisions. Still, there are no news reporters here, but sitting in the audience, dressed in faded jeans and taking notes, is...

JAMES WATKINS: James Watkins, citizen journalist, I guess.

YONGE: Watkins is the self-taught, unpaid¹⁰ reporter behind the blog The Fairhope Times. He's been keeping it up for 15 years.

WATKINS: I decided¹¹ I didn't know enough about what was going on locally, in local government, so I decided to start going to all the meetings to find out. And then people started asking me what was going on.

YONGE: He's witnessed the loss of local reporters over the years. The area's largest paper is now a regional and digital only. So each week, Watkins combs through city and county public notices, choosing which meetings to cover.

WATKINS: Some of them are quite important. You know, the airport authority - they spend millions of dollars a year. They get grants from the federal government. They get 300,000 a year from the city taxpayers¹³.

YONGE: Watkins' diligence to covering city and county governance comes at a time when the U.S. is losing newspapers at a rate of more than two a week. That's according to a 2022 report by Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism¹⁴. The report predicts the country will lose a third of its newspapers by 2025, forcing many to turn to a social media app like Facebook or Nextdoor in search of local information.

CHRIS ROBERTS: It doesn't typically provide news, if you define news as objective and more than one source - those kind of things that would make something news.

YONGE: That's Chris Roberts, who teaches media integrity at the University of Alabama. He says an objective citizen journalist like Watkins can fill a critical need in a news desert.

ROBERTS: The point is to have somebody there because it matters for democracy. It matters for your pocketbook as a taxpayer¹². It matters for your community.

YONGE: Watkins' presence at city council meetings does make a difference, says Fairhope Mayor Sherry Sullivan, who is suffering from laryngitis.

SHERRY SULLIVAN: I think him being at all those meetings and reporting some information that we may or may not have wanted to share immediately with the public - it keeps us honest and keeps us transparent¹⁵.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I put three coats of this.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Yes, that's good.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: That's good?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Yeah.

YONGE: At the Kiln¹⁶ Studio and Gallery in Fairhope, I find Carolyn Mayo giving pottery¹⁷ advice and hand-building a bowl. Mayo says she's a news junkie at heart. She trusts the Fairhope Times for its objectivity.

CAROLYN MAYO: It feels very - maybe agnostic is the right word. It feels agnostic, where it's a throwback to just the facts, ma'am.

YONGE: For now, readers can expect Watkins to continue covering several meetings a week and nosing around local government.

WATKINS: I'm interested in the stuff they don't want out, to be honest. That's where the press is supposed to play the watchdog role.

YONGE: But at 69, Watkins says he'll take that watchdog role one day at a time.

For NPR News, I'm Cori Yonge in Fairhope, Ala.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 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。

3 passionately   

ad.热烈地，激烈地

参考例句：

• She could hate as passionately as she could love. 她能恨得咬牙切齿，也能爱得一往情深。
• He was passionately addicted to pop music. 他酷爱流行音乐。

4 optimize   

v.使优化 [=optimise]

参考例句：

• We should optimize the composition of the Standing Committees.优化人大常委会组成人员的结构。
• We should optimize our import mix and focus on bringing in advanced technology and key equipment.优化进口结构，着重引进先进技术和关键设备。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 auditorium   

n.观众席，听众席；会堂，礼堂

参考例句：

• The teacher gathered all the pupils in the auditorium.老师把全体同学集合在礼堂内。
• The stage is thrust forward into the auditorium.舞台向前突出，伸入观众席。

7 advisory   

adj.劝告的，忠告的，顾问的，提供咨询

参考例句：

• I have worked in an advisory capacity with many hospitals.我曾在多家医院做过顾问工作。
• He was appointed to the advisory committee last month.他上个月获任命为顾问委员会委员。

8 marsh   

n.沼泽，湿地

参考例句：

• There are a lot of frogs in the marsh.沼泽里有许多青蛙。
• I made my way slowly out of the marsh.我缓慢地走出这片沼泽地。

9 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

10 unpaid   

adj.未付款的，无报酬的

参考例句：

• Doctors work excessive unpaid overtime.医生过度加班却无报酬。
• He's doing a month's unpaid work experience with an engineering firm.他正在一家工程公司无偿工作一个月以获得工作经验。

11 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

12 taxpayer   

n.纳税人

参考例句：

• The new scheme will run off with a lot of the taxpayer's money.这项新计划将用去纳税人许多钱。
• The taxpayer are unfavourably disposed towards the recent tax increase.纳税者对最近的增加税收十分反感。

13 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

14 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。

15 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

16 kiln   

n.（砖、石灰等）窑，炉；v.烧窑

参考例句：

• That morning we fired our first kiln of charcoal.那天上午，我们烧了我们的第一窑木炭。
• Bricks are baked in a kiln.砖是在窑里烧成的。

17 pottery   

n.陶器，陶器场

参考例句：

• My sister likes to learn art pottery in her spare time.我妹妹喜欢在空余时间学习陶艺。
• The pottery was left to bake in the hot sun.陶器放在外面让炎热的太阳烘晒焙干。