高级英语听力 lesson 6

 Lesson Six

    Section One: News in Brief

    Tapescript

    1. The Senate has voted to override 1 President Reagan's veto of sanc-

    tions against South Africa by a decisive seventy-eight to

    twenty-one.  As the House has already voted to override, the sanc-

    tions now become law.  NPR's Linda Wertheimer reports.

    'American civil rights leaders, including Mrs. Caretta Scott King,

    watched the Senate debate from the Senate family gallery as mem-

    bers argued not so much about sanctions and the efficacy of sanc-

    tions, more about the choice between affirming the bill already pas-

    sed by Congress or supporting the President.'

    2. American food aid to southern African countries could be cut off

    if South Africa carries out its threat to ban imports of US grain.

    Foreign Minister Pic Botha said if US sanctions were imposed, his

    government would stop imports and would not allow its transport

    service to carry US grain to neighboring countries.

    3. The White House today denied that it planted misleading stories

    in the American news media as part of a plan to topple Libyan lead-

    er Muammar Quddafl.  The Wtishington Post reported this morning

    that stories were leaked this summer alleging 3 Qtiddafi was resuming

    his support for terrorist activities, even though National Security

    Adviser 4 John Poindexter knew otherwise.  Today, White House

    spokesman Larry Speakes said Poindexter denied the administration

    had involved the media in an anti-Quddafi campaign but Speakes

    left open the possibility a disinformation campaign was conducted in

    other countries.

_Section Two: News in Detail

Tapescript

    The question in Washington today is this: Did the federal gov-

@ment try to scare Libya's Colonel Muammar Quddafl in August

by way of a disinformation campaign in the American media?  The

'Washington Post Bob Woodward reports today that there was an

_     elaborate disinformation program set up by the White House to

     convince Quddafi that the United States was about to attack again,

     or that he might be ousted 6 in a coup 7.  The White House today denies

     that officials tried to mislead Quddafi by using the American media.

     NPR's Bill Busenburg has our first report on the controversy 8.

        The story starts on August 25th when the Wall Street Journal

     ran a front page story saying that Libya and the United States were

     once again on a collision course.  Quoting multiple official sources,

     the paper said Quddafi was plotting new terrorist attacks and the

     Reagan Administration was preparing to teach him another lesson.

     The Journal reported that the Pentagon was completing plans for a

     new and wider bombing of Libya in case the President ordered it.

        That story caused a flurry of press attention.  Officials in

     Washington and at the western White House in California were

     asked if it was true.  " The story was authoritative 9" said the White

     House spokesman Larry Speakes.  Based on that official confirma-

     tion, other news organizations, including the New York Times, the

     Washington Post, NPR and the major TV networks, all ran stories

     suggesting Libya should watch out.  US naval 10 maneuvers 11 then taking

     place in the Mediterranean 12 might be used as a cover for more attacks

     on Libya as in the past.

         Today's Washington Post, however, quotes from an August

     14th secret White House plan, adopted eleven days before the Wall

     Street Journal story.  It was outlined in a memo 13 written by the Pres-

     ident's National Security Advisor 14 John Poindexter.  That plan called

     for a strategy of real and illusory events, using a disinformation

     program to make Quddafl think the United States was about to

     move against him militarily.  Here are some examples the Post cites,

     suggesting disinformation was used domestically: Number one, while

     some US officials told the press Quddafi was stepping up his terrorist

     plans, President Reagan was being told in a memo that Quddafl was

     temporarily quiescent 15, in other words, that he wasn't active.  Number

_ two, while some officials were telling the press of internal infighting

 in Libya to oust 5 Quddafi, US officials really believed he was firmly

 in power and that CIA's efforts to oust him were not working.

 Number three, while officials were telling the press the Pentagon was

 planning new attacks, in fact nothing new was being done Existing

 contingency plans were several months old, and the naval maneuvers

 were just maneuvers.  The Post says this policy of deception 16 was ap-

 proved at a National Security Planning Group meeting chaired by

 President Reagan and his top aides.

_ Section Three: Special Report

 Tapescript

 @   Two new studies were published today on the links between tel-

 evision coverage 17 of suicide and subsequent teenage suicide rates.  The

 Now England J6urnal of Medicine reports that both studies suggest

 that some teenagers might be more likely to take their own lives after

 seeing TV programs dealing 18 with suicide.  NPR's Lorie Garrett re-

 ports.

     The first suicide study, done by a team from the University of

 California in San Diego, examines television news coverage of sui-

 cides.  David Philips and Lundy Carseson looked at forty-five sui-

 cide stories carried on network news-casts between 1973 and '79.

 The researchers then compared the incidence of teen suicides in those

 years to the dates of broadcast of these stories.  David Philips says

 news coverage of suicides definitely prompted an increase in the

 number of teens in America who took their lives.

      ,The more TV programs that carry a story, the greater they in-

 crease 19 in teen suicides just after-wards.  "

     The suicide increase among teens was compared by Philips to

 adult suicide trends.

      'The teen suicides go up by about 2.91 teen suicides per story.

 And adult suicides go up by, I think, around two adult suicides per

 stor . The increase for teens, the percentage increase for teens is

_     very, very much larger than the percentage increase for adults.  It's

     about, I think, fourteen or,fifteen times as big a response for teens

     percentagewise as it is for adults.'

         The TV news coverage appears to have prompted a greater in-

     crease than is seen around other well-known periods of adolescent

     depression, such as holidays, personal birthdays, the start of school

     and winter.  Philips could not find any specific types of stories that

     seem to trigger a greater response among depressed 20 teens.  Philips

     says it seems to simply be the word "suicide' and the knowledge that

     somebody actively 21 executed the act that pushes buttons in depressed

     teenagers.  Psychiatrists 22 call this 'imitative behavior.'

          " What my study showed was that there seems to be imitation

     not only of relatively 23 bland 24 behavior like dress, dressing 25 or

     hairstyles, but there seems to be imitation of really quite deviant be-

     havior as well.  The teenagers imitate apparently 26 across the board,

     not just suicides, but everything else as well.'

          In a separate study, Madeline Gould and David Shaeffer of

     Columbia University found that made-for-television movies about

     suicide also stimulated 27 imitative behavior.  Even though the movies

     were intended to portray 28 the problem of teen suicide and offered, in

     some cases, suicide hot line numbers and advice on counselling, the

     team believes the four network movies prompted eighty teen

     suicides.  One of the made-for-TV movies examined by the

     Columbia University team was a CBS production.  George Schweitz-

     er, a CBS's Vice 2 President, is well aware of this research.  He says, 'It

     is terribly unfortunate that any teens took their lives after the broad-

     cast, but if they had it to do over,' says Schweitzer, 'CBS would still

     run the movie."

          " Studies, like these do not measure the most, what we think is

     the most important thing, which I don't think can be measured, and

     that is the hundreds and hundreds and probably thousands of teen-

     agers who were positively 29 moved by these kinds of broadcasts."

_     Moved to call suicide hot lines, moved to seek counseling, and

 6wved to discuss their depressions with family members.  Schweitzer

 does not dispute today's studies: some teens may be moved to

 suicide.

     ' But ignoring the issue for fear of that, I think, would be far

 more disastrous 30 than addressing important social issues to help

 create awareness 31 and again to have a positive effect.'

     But researcher David Philips suggests the media could decrease

 the teen suicide problem by avoiding some suicide stories all together

 and changing the way the others are covered.  For example, says

 Philips, " Don't make suicide seem heroic." He cites the story of 'a'

 Young Czechoslovakian dissident who set himself on fire.  But t

 dissident action was taken to draw attention to government repres-

 sion in Czechoslovakia.  Should the news media really have ignored

 such a story?  'I think it's a really difficult question.  There are all

 these goods on all sides of the issue.  And thank God, I don't have to

 be the one to disentangle that issue.'

     One prominent expert in this field said the young people moved

 .to take their lives, following a news story or movie, are particularly

 vulnerable, suicidal individuals.  In the absence of television stories,

 some other events in their lives might well have triggered their ac-

 tions.  So while most psychiatrists agree there is an imitative compo-

 nent to teenage suicides, that tendency, they say, should not lead so-

 ciety to repress information.  On the contrary, some say we are now

 'facing a major epidemic 32 of adolescent suicide in America.  We must

 publicize and confront the problem.  Last year some fifty-five'hun-

 dred adolescents between fifteen and twenty-four years of age took

 their lives.  At least ten times that tried.  Some estimates are that 275

 thousand teens attempted suicide last year.  The rate of teenage sui-

 cide in America has tripled since 1955.