[TED] 人們為何對世界日益無知？

（前言）講者Alisa Miller為美國國際公共電台執行長，她用不到四分鐘的時間與簡明投影片，點出美國人為何對世界日益無知，對比台灣或許也相去不遠。以下影音片段為英文發音，我做了英文聽寫稿，再略譯為中文供參考。不知為何，無法將影片放在部落格上，請各位前往TED網站觀看。

感謝charlesc提及此段影片。

(00:19)How does news shape the way we see the world? Here is the world the way it looks based on land mass, and here is how news shapes Americans see. This map shows the number of seconds that American network and cable news organizations dedicated to news stories by countries in February of 2007. Just one year ago.

新聞如何形塑我們看見的世界？這是依據國土面積大小繪製的世界地圖，而這是美國人透過新聞看見的世界地圖，這是依據2007年2月，各國消息出現在美國電視網與有線電視新聞時段的秒數，所繪出的地圖，不過距離現在一年以前。

(01:01)This was the month when North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear facilities. There was massive flooding in Indonesia. And in Paris, the IPCC released its study confirming man’s impact on global warming. The US accounted to 79% of total news coverage. When we take out the US and look at the remaining 21%, we see a lot of Iraq, which is the big, green thing there, and little else. The combined coverage of Russia, China and India, for example, reaches just one percent.

在2007年2月，北韓同意拆除核子設施、印尼正遭逢大洪水，此外在巴黎，跨政府氣候變遷研究小組（IPCC）公布報告，證實人類作為致使全球暖化。美國占所有新聞報導的79%，若撇開美國不論，分析剩下的21%，其中伊拉克占一大塊，也許是圖中的綠色區域，而關於俄羅斯、中國與印度的報導加總僅占1%。

(01:43)When we analyze all the news stories and remove just one story, here is how the world looks. What was that story? The death of Anna Nicole Smith! This story eclipsed every country except Iraq and received 10 times the coverage of the IPCC report. And the cycle continues as we all know Britney has loomed pretty large lately.

若經過分析，將其中一則新聞扣除後，世界會是這個樣貌，這則新聞，其實是花花公子女郎安娜妮可史密斯的死訊！這則新聞在美國的報導篇幅遠超過各國消息，僅次於伊拉克，更是IPCC報告新聞量的十倍，這個現象最近仍在，因為小甜甜布蘭妮又成為大新聞一件。

(02:12)Why don’t we hear more about the world? One reason is that news networks have reduced the number of their foreign bureaus by half. Aside from one person in ABC bureaus in Nairobi, New Delhi and Mumbai, there are no network news bureaus all of Africa, India or South America, places that are homes to more than two billion people. The reality is that covering Britney is cheaper.

為何我們無法得到更多世界消息？其中一項原因，在於美國各大電視網已將駐外人力砍半，美國廣播公司ABC除了在肯亞奈洛比、印度新德里及孟買各派駐一人之外，整個非洲、印度、南美洲別無其他電視網駐外人力，而這些地區人口總和超過20億，因為事實是，報導小甜甜布蘭妮成本較低。

(02:49)This lack of global coverage is all the more disturbing when we see where the people go for news. Local TV news looms large, and unfortunately only dedicates 12% of its coverage to international news. What about the web? The most popular news sites don’t do much better.

若分析民眾取得新聞的管道，國際新聞來源仍然不足，地方電視台比例很高，但只有12%是國際新聞，至於網路呢？最熱門的新聞網站表現也半斤八兩。

(03:10)Last year Pew and the Colombia Journalism School analyzed the 14,000 stories that appeared on Google News frontpage, and they in fact covered the same 24 news events. Similarly, a study in e-content shows that much of the global news from US news creators is recycled stories from the AP wired services and writers and don’t put things into a context that people can understand their connections to it. If you put it altogether, this can help explain why today’s college graduates as well as less-educated Americans know less about the world than our counterparts did twenty years ago.

去年，皮猶研究中心與哥倫比亞大學新聞學院合作，檢視出現在Google新聞首頁的14000條報導，結果只是同樣24件新聞反覆；另一項有關網路內容的研究亦指出，美國電視台所播放的國際新聞，絕大多數都是拿美聯社消息再利用，且未將新聞置於脈絡之中，無助人們了解新聞與自身的關聯性。種種因素之下，造成今日大學畢業生與教育程度較低的民眾，對於世界愈來愈無知，表現比他國廿年前的情況還糟。

(03:45)If you think that it's simply because we are not interested, you would be wrong. In recent years, Americans who say they closely follow global news most of the time grew to over 50%. The real question: Is this distorted world view what we want for Americans in our increasingly interconnected world? I know we can do better and can we afford not to. Thank you.

各位若認為這個現象，是因為人們沒有興趣所致，那麼就大錯特錯了，近年來，自稱時常關注國際新聞的美國人已超過50%，真正的問題是：在這往來日益密切的世界裡，這就是我們希望美國人接受的扭曲世界觀嗎？我知道各位能做得更好，也非得更好才行，謝謝各位。