The news, at its best, is often an indulgence, a relief, an escape from one’s own troubles, a flight from the mundane. News is not a civic chore. In fact, to treat reading the news as a duty is to treat ice cream like mustard greens–to believe readers must be tricked into eating it, and thus guarantee that they rarely will.
 
在最好的情況下，新聞通常是一種放縱，一種放松，一種擺脫煩惱，逃離世俗的方式。閱讀新聞不是公民的職責。事實上，隨著人們對其他義務的考慮，新聞就像對待芥末看冰淇淋一樣，認為讀者必須被騙吃芥末，以確保他們幾乎不主動閱讀新聞。
 
I’m going to propose that we should read news sites as ice cream–not as an obligation, but for stimulation, escapism, and even righteousness. At the same time we must admit to ourselves that–far from being a duty–news in heated times (and in the age of Twitter) can often represent a full-tilt compulsion, and thus a habit to be judiciously managed.
 
我建議把新聞網(wǎng)站看作冰淇淋，不是義務，而是靈感、逃避，甚至正義。同時，我們不得不承認，在激烈的變革時代，特別是在推特時代，閱讀新聞和履行義務，與讀者相去甚遠，往往不得不被迫接受全面，因此，閱讀新聞作為一種習慣，需要認真的管理。
 
This new avidity and readerly sense of purpose began about a year ago, during the psychic upheaval of the presidential primaries, with the repeated shocks to our society’s manners, morals, and politics. The work of “being informed”–so long preached in social studies classes–now felt like the opposite of work. You didn’t have to force yourself to read the news. You had to force yourself to take a break.
 
大約一年前，在美國總統(tǒng)初選的激蕩中，這種全新的閱讀迫切感以及讀者目的意識便生根發(fā)芽了，社會的習俗、道德和政治一次又一次遭到?jīng)_擊。“正被告知”盛行社會研究課堂那么多年，現(xiàn)在感覺正好相反。你無需強迫自己閱讀新聞，反而需要強迫自己停下來。
 
There is everything to be gained by cultivating a personal stake in the lives of others, in the future of our nation, and in the world. But reading the front section as if it were the sports pages, with every line a credit or debit, a win, or a loss, has hazards. You begin to twist what you read. It’s what happens when the public’s consumption of news becomes too much about sides, about winning and losing, and less about empathy for our fellow men.
 
把個人利益與他人的生活、國家和世界的未來聯(lián)系起來有許多好處。但是閱讀標題，比如閱讀體育版，閱讀每一行內(nèi)容是很危險的，因為都在計較輸贏。你會開始把你所讀到的。在消費新聞中，如果過分強調(diào)對抗和勝利，而對苦難幾乎沒有同情，就會產(chǎn)生誤解和扭曲。
 
So how do we combat this? By increasing our literacy. To become a better reader, we must borrow practices from higher-order reading, including the reading of fiction. Remember that the best characters and novels–and every single flesh-and-blood human and real-life event–mix good and evil. Suspend judgement. Let yourself be surprised by evidence that doesn’t fit your hypothesis. Take breaks.
 
那么我們該如何回應呢？答案是提高素養(yǎng)。要想成為一個更好的讀者，我們必須從更高層次的閱讀，包括小說中汲取營養(yǎng)。記住，最好的人物和小說，包括每一個真實的生活事件，都混雜著善惡。所以不要妄下結(jié)論，對與你的假設不一致的證據(jù)感到驚訝，偶爾強迫自己停下來。
 
But also, keep reading. It’s quite a story. And you’re part of it.
 
同時，繼續(xù)讀新聞。因為這是一個偉大的故事，你是故事的一部分。
 


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