美国国家公共电台 NPR Reporting On Mass Shootings: A Familiar Heartbreaking Script

 

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

In Thousand Oaks, Calif., Wednesday, 12 people were killed in a Western-themed bar before the shooter is believed to have turned the gun on himself. It has become an all-too-common scene. According to Gun Violence Archive, an independent research group, there's been a mass shooting nearly every day for the last two weeks. NPR's Leila Fadel tells us what it's like to cover them.

LEILA FADEL, BYLINE¹: It starts with a phone call - usually, in the middle of the night - and you know. You know that someone somewhere has chosen to kill a lot of people. Now your job is to go bear witness - to try to tell the world why, speak to grieving families on the worst days of their lives so that millions of people can mourn with them and know the beautiful details of what makes a person special and what families and loved ones remember about their relatives who were killed.

These days, it feels like it follows a familiar and heartbreaking script. First, the press conference where law enforcement officers tell their community what's happened and reassure² residents, like Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean did this week.

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GEOFF DEAN: Tonight at 11:20 PM, the sheriff's 911 received multiple calls of shots being fired at the Borderline Bar and Grill³ in Thousand Oaks.

FADEL: The families scrambling⁴ to find out if their loved ones lived or died, like Marc Orfanos, whose son Telemachus, a survivor⁵ of the Las Vegas mass shooting, was at the bar.

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MARC ORFANOS: So we get up, and we're down there, there's police everywhere. All right? And one of his friends said, I think he got out, but I'm not sure.

FADEL: Ten hours later, they found out that, this time, he did not survive. Neither did Cody Coffman, Jason Coffman's 22-year-old son.

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JASON COFFMAN: My firstborn son (sobbing) - only him and I know how much I love - how much I miss him. Oh, son, I love you so much.

FADEL: Then there are the vigils.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) Amazing grace, how sweet...

FADEL: The community uniting and comforting each other around a tragedy. And then it feels like it's inevitable⁶ that there will be the next mass shooting. Since returning to the United States from a foreign assignment, I've covered three mass shootings in just over a year. My colleagues and I share the responsibilities of documenting these horrific incidents, like NPR's Nate Rott, who's covered eight mass shootings for NPR.

NATE ROTT, BYLINE: The best word I can think to describe how I feel when I have to go cover one of these things is just deflated⁷. And I think the hardest thing recently has been this sense of inevitability⁸ that you hear from people when you're covering one of these.

FADEL: There's this feeling now, he says, that it's only a matter of time before it happens in your own community. It makes me think of working in Iraq. There were years where bombings were so common that we stopped reporting on incidents that took less than 10 lives. They weren't shocking anymore. They were a steady part of life. And, sometimes, that's how it feels with these shootings. And, as journalists, we always think about what information is important to tell the public. I know, as a human, I always want to know why someone does something like this. The why usually falls to NPR's Martin Kaste to look into. He covers law enforcement and typically is the reporter looking for all the information we can find about the shooter.

MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: I'm getting really worried about that. There's research showing that talking too much about the shooter, talking about his motives¹⁰ can inspire other shooters.

FADEL: So, as reporters, we've started limiting the number of times we say the shooter's name, focusing on families, on victims, on policy debates. Of course, there is journalistic value to look at motive⁹. A person might be driven by some ideology¹² - racism¹³, hatred¹⁴ of a specific group of people. But Kaste says, often, there is no why.

KASTE: A lot of times, these are empty gestures of violence that we should not dignify¹⁵ with the assumption that there is a reason behind it that needs to be discussed and shared with millions of people.

FADEL: There's also a helplessness to this work, says NPR's Hansi Lo Wang.

HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: As a reporter, I wonder, does bearing witness and telling people around the country the hurt, the death, the destruction that people are feeling - is that enough?

FADEL: We all ask ourselves, is this our new normal - this inexcusable business of carnage? And will we be, or are we already numb¹¹ to it?

Leila Fadel, NPR News.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 reassure   

v.使放心，使消除疑虑

参考例句：

• This seemed to reassure him and he continued more confidently.这似乎使他放心一点，于是他更有信心地继续说了下去。
• The airline tried to reassure the customers that the planes were safe.航空公司尽力让乘客相信飞机是安全的。

3 grill   

n.烤架，铁格子，烤肉；v.烧，烤，严加盘问

参考例句：

• Put it under the grill for a minute to brown the top.放在烤架下烤一分钟把上面烤成金黄色。
• I'll grill you some mutton.我来给你烤一些羊肉吃。

4 scrambling   

v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞

参考例句：

• Scrambling up her hair, she darted out of the house. 她匆忙扎起头发，冲出房去。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• She is scrambling eggs. 她正在炒蛋。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 survivor   

n.生存者，残存者，幸存者

参考例句：

• The sole survivor of the crash was an infant.这次撞车的惟一幸存者是一个婴儿。
• There was only one survivor of the plane crash.这次飞机失事中只有一名幸存者。

6 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

7 deflated   

adj. 灰心丧气的

参考例句：

• I was quite deflated by her lack of interest in my suggestions.他对我的建议兴趣不大，令我感到十分气馁。
• He was deflated by the news.这消息令他泄气。

8 inevitability   

n.必然性

参考例句：

• Evolutionism is normally associated with a belief in the inevitability of progress. 进化主义通常和一种相信进步不可避免的看法相联系。
• It is the tide of the times, an inevitability of history. 这是时代的潮流，历史的必然。

9 motive   

n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的

参考例句：

• The police could not find a motive for the murder.警察不能找到谋杀的动机。
• He had some motive in telling this fable.他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

10 motives   

n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• to impeach sb's motives 怀疑某人的动机
• His motives are unclear. 他的用意不明。

11 numb   

adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木

参考例句：

• His fingers were numb with cold.他的手冻得发麻。
• Numb with cold,we urged the weary horses forward.我们冻得发僵，催着疲惫的马继续往前走。

12 ideology   

n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识

参考例句：

• The ideology has great influence in the world.这种思想体系在世界上有很大的影响。
• The ideal is to strike a medium between ideology and inspiration.我的理想是在意识思想和灵感鼓动之间找到一个折衷。

13 racism   

n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识)

参考例句：

• He said that racism is endemic in this country.他说种族主义在该国很普遍。
• Racism causes political instability and violence.种族主义道致政治动荡和暴力事件。

14 hatred   

n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨

参考例句：

• He looked at me with hatred in his eyes.他以憎恨的眼光望着我。
• The old man was seized with burning hatred for the fascists.老人对法西斯主义者充满了仇恨。

15 dignify   

vt.使有尊严；使崇高；给增光

参考例句：

• It does not dignify the human condition. It does not elevate the human spirit.它不能使人活得更有尊严，不能提升人的精神生活。
• I wouldn't dignify this trash by calling it a novel.这部劣等作品我是不会美称为小说的。