So: Until the advent of the television age, literature shared with print journalism the task of telling people things they didn't know.
如此一来，直到电视时代的到来，文学与新闻出版物一直共同分担着向人们讲述他们尚未明了之事的任务。
This is no longer the case, either for literature or for print journalism. Those who read newspapers and novels now get their primary information about the world from the TV news and the radio. There are exceptions, of course. The success of that excellent, lively novel Primary Colors shows that novels can just occasionally still lift the lid on a hidden world more effectively than the finest reporting. And of course the broadcast news is highly selective, and newspapers provide far greater breadth and depth of coverage. But many people now read newspapers, I suggest, to read the news about the news. We read for opinion, attitude, spin. We read not for raw data, not for Gradgrind's "facts, facts, facts, but to get a "take" on the news that we like. Now that the broadcasting media fulfill the function of being first with the news, newspapers, like novels, have entered the realm of the imagination. They both provide versions of the world.
不论是对文学还是新闻出版物来说如今都已是时过境迁了。那些从前阅读报纸和小说的人现在把电视和收音机中的新闻广播作为他们主要的信息来源。当然，也有例外。那本优秀而又真实生动的小说《原色》的成功说明了小说也能时而比最出色的新闻报道更有效地揭露隐藏在事件背后的内幕。当然了，新闻广播是通过一番精挑细选的，而报纸提供的是更具广度和深度的报道。但是许多人如今读报纸，在我看来，是要看关于新闻的新闻。我们读报纸是要看到观点、态度以及政见。我们不是为了读那些没有经过分析的数据，不是像狄更斯笔下的葛擂梗那样，一味地要看“事实、事实、事实”，我们要的是对我们觉得感兴趣的新闻的阐释。既然广播媒体尽到了提供第一手新闻消息的职责，报纸也就如同小说一样进入了创作的领域。两者都对世界进行了不同的解读。
Perhaps this is clearer in a country like Britain, where the press is primarily a national press, than in the United States, where the great proliferation of local papers allows print journalism to provide the additional service of answering to local concerns and adopting local characteristics. The successful quality papers in Britain一among dailies, The Guardian, Times, Telegraph and Financial Times—are successful because they have clear pictures of who their readers are and how to talk to them. (The languishing Independent once did, but appears lately to have lost its way.) They are successful because they share with their readers a vision of British society and of the world.
也许，与美国相比这一点在英国更为明显。英国的报刊主要是全国性的，而在美国不断开办起来的地方报纸使得新闻出版物为迎合地方口味和特色而提供额外报道。那些英国成功的内容严肃类报纸——挤身其中的日报包括《卫报》《泰晤士报》《每日电讯报》《金融时报>)——之所以成功是因为它们清楚自己的读者是谁，并且知道如何与他们交流。（日益衰败的《独立报》也曾一度清楚这些，但近来似乎步入了迷途。)这些报纸因为向读者展现了其对英国社会和世界的看法而获得了成功。