第十篇 新聞自由

新聞自由是一個相對的詞。我認為，第一新聞應該不受限制；第二，新聞應該對社會負責；第三，新聞應該促進社會穩定與進步。這三個方面互為聯系，同等重要，不可分割。片面強調某一方面會帶來問題，因而是有害的。

Freedom of the press is a relative term. In my opinion, firstly, the press should be unrestrained; secondly, the press should be responsible to society; and thirdly, the press should promote social stability and progress. The three aspects are integrated, equally important and inseparable. It is harmful to one-sidely stress only one aspect, as this would cause some problems.

美國也曾經面臨過這樣的局面，最初極其崇尚自由主義，而對自由主義的強調不當造成了濫用新聞自由概念的結果。這是新聞理論發展的第一階段。后來美國新聞業發現了聞，于是提出了負責任的新聞這個概念，或者叫作社會責任理論，新聞理論于是進入了第二個發展階段。現在世界已進入一個和平與發展的后冷戰時期。全世界人民都渴望有一個穩定的、進步與和平發展的社會環境。他們真誠地希望媒體在促進社會穩定和進步方面發揮更大的作用，不要引起社會動蕩與退步。我認為，這個后冷戰時期標志著新聞理論已進入第三個發展時期。我認為，目前中國的傳播媒體正在努力實踐我前面所講的三點。

The United States once faced this situation. It had much esteem for Liberalism at the very beginning. However, its undue emphasis on this idea resulted in the excessive abuse of the freedom of the press. This was the first period of development of the press theory. Later on, the American press perceived their own problems and therefore, put forward the concept of the responsible press, or the theory of social responsibility, bringing the development of the press theory into the second period of development. Now the world has entered a pose-cold-war period of peace and development. People all over the world yearn for a social environment characterized by stability, progress and peaceful development. They earnestly hope the media will play an even greater role in promoting social stability and progress, instead of causing social turbulence and retrogression. This post-cold-war period, I believe, characterizes the emerging third period of development for the press theory. In my opinion, China’s media is striving to put the three aspects I mentioned earlier into practice.

西方媒體對中國的許多報道是不正確的，有時是非常不客觀的，是非常不公正的。西方報紙很少報道中國的發展，它們感興趣的不是中國的快速進步，而是存在的困難和問題。如果人們只依據這些報道，無視中國的現實，那么中國在他們腦海里便是一個很快就要垮臺的社會。而事實恰恰相反，中國是一個政治上非常穩定的社會，是一個經濟上快速發展的國家。

Many reports on China by the media of the West are not accurate, and sometimes very unobjective and very unfair. Reports on China’s development are rarely seen in Western newspapers. They show little concern for China’s rapid progress, but care only about the difficulties and problems. If one relied only on those reports and ignored the reality of China, the picture of China in one’s mind would be a society soon to collapse. But quite on the contrary, China in fact is a politically very stable society and economically rapid growing country.

我們經常報道政府工作中存在的問題。讀者可以從中發現，我們對這些問題的報道完全不同于西方的報道。我們知道在發展過程中產生這些問題在所難免。我們報道的目的是讓人民為解決這些問題獻計獻策，而不是激發社會的動蕩不安，引起誤解，甚至歪曲事實。新聞媒介只有這樣進行報道，才會被視為對社會的負責。

We often report problems that exist in the government’s work. Readers may find that our reports on these problems are totally different from Western reports. We know these issues arose naturally in the process of our development. The purpose of our report is to let people offer solutions to these problems, not to stir up social turmoil and lead to misunderstandings and even to the distortion of what is really happening. Only by reporting in this way can a news medium be regarded as responsible to society.