PBS高端访谈:比尔考斯比被指控强奸事件的最新进展

 　　GWEN IFILL: Now: the growing fallout surrounding one of America's most famous comedians¹.

　　Bill Cosby, caught up in a swirl² of decades-old rape³ allegations, has been dropped from two high-profile projects. NBC, home of his popular '80s sitcom⁴, announced it will not proceed with the pilot for a proposed new family series. And Netflix announced it's postponing⁵ the premiere of a new comedy special tied to his 77th birthday.

　　At least five women have come forward recently describing episodes of alleged⁶ sexual assault they said have been ignored before. Cosby has denied some and refused to comment on others.

　　Sharon Waxman, the editor-in-chief of The Wrap, an entertainment news Web site, joins us now.

　　Sharon, just since we started talking about this, it's clear the cable program — the cable network TV Land announced they are pulling reruns of “The Cosby Show,” which, as you know, are pretty ubiquitous on television, on cable right now. How significant is it that all of these people are jumping off the Cosby ship?

　　SHARON WAXMAN, TheWrap.Com: It's hugely significant.

　　Bill Cosby has been one of our most beloved and I would say rather untouchable icons⁷ for decades. And in the space of a week-and-a-half, all of a sudden, that seems to be crumbling⁸ before our very eyes.

　　And just in the last 24 hours, the decisions that you cited, by NBC dropping a show that it was developing, a series with Cosby, and Netflix dropping a stand-up special, and now TV Land pulling reruns, this is an — it's another case of the incredible power of social media, because that is where this started. These allegations have been around for many years.

　　A lot of us probably didn't want to hear them, didn't really want to pay attention to them. And in the span of days, this became un-ignorable.

　　GWEN IFILL: It seems like there are two pieces to this. One is the charges and the other is the business impact. How significant is it that NBC, which was his home for so many years — and you tell me how this works when you get a development deal with a network — how much of a business impact is it for them to pull out? How much money do they lose and what does he lose?

　　SHARON WAXMAN: Well, I don't think there's any significant business impact on NBC. They're constantly developing shows. And so — and they constantly make pilots that don't — or they will even air six — two episodes of something.

　　You know how the — the high-stakes game, and the percentages of shows that actually make it to air are very low, but you're talking about Bill Cosby, so that would be a high-profile project. There would be a lot of eyes trained on that, and the expectation would be that it would be good, because his show is on the air for — different versions, “Cosby, “The Bill Cosby Show,” were are on the air for so many years.

　　But there is no — in the development stage, it's not a significant impact. What is the impact to Bill Cosby? Probably something, yes.

　　GWEN IFILL: So, these women, it seems like a different one has come forward every day to make very similar charges to one another.

　　SHARON WAXMAN: Yes.

　　GWEN IFILL: Is this — how damaging is it, his response, or, I should say, non-response, how damaging has it been?

　　SHARON WAXMAN: His lack of response.

　　GWEN IFILL: Yes.

　　SHARON WAXMAN: Well, I think that that's sort of what — I think that's what everybody is wondering.

　　If there's no truth to it, then why doesn't Bill Cosby come out and say this? But I really am of two minds about this. On the one hand, it is absolutely damaging that when NPR asked Bill Cosby a question, who's been out and about quite a lot on the media circuit lately because he's been promoting a book, which is he — why this sort of deer-in-the-headlights moment came, when he thought he was out there promoting a book and the NPR questioner asked him about these allegations, which were backed up by an op-ed in The Washington Post by one of his accusers, and he just said nothing.

　　And then he asked him again, and he came back with nothing. That just right there seemed to speak volumes about something. But on the other hand, I want to say that I have covered so many of these media firestorms that now, you know, spin up in a matter of hours sometimes because of the power of Twitter and because of the power of Facebook.

　　And sometimes there is nothing to them, or sometimes these are nuanced cases, and sometimes there are people who are fabricating things, and sometimes there are some people who are telling the truth. And it's very, very hard to know. And if you're accused of that, it's really hard to give a reasonable, cogent⁹ explanation in the face of a firestorm, which is what Bill Cosby is facing right now.

　　GWEN IFILL: You know, full disclosure, the “NewsHour” interviewed him for the promotion¹⁰ of his Washington, D.C., art exhibit of his, loaner art exhibits, he and his wife, and — just last week.

　　So, yes, he has been out there a lot. But I wonder how much of this still has a legal impact and how much of this is a P.R. impact at this stage.

　　SHARON WAXMAN: Well, the P.R. impact is absolutely devastating¹¹.

　　He's wall-to-wall news on CNN right now, and we as a news site have been covering him heavily and our stories are all over Yahoo! and very, very big Web sites are picking up our stories and stories of sites like ours that cover entertainment journalistically.

　　So that's very, very bad for him from a P.R. standpoint. I want to remind you, so what happened really with this story is that it started — Bill Cosby himself ended up inadvertently putting fuel on the fire on this, because as part of his promotional tour, he invited people on Twitter, he or the team that works for him, on Twitter to come up with a Bill Cosby meme, and to — and the idea was to sort of do fun and have jokes around the Bill Cosby as we have always known him.

　　GWEN IFILL: Yes.

　　SHARON WAXMAN: And it totally backfired.

　　GWEN IFILL: Right.

　　SHARON WAXMAN: And people starting memeing things about rape. And that is what I think set it to — got it to a critical mass, got attention to this issue to a critical mass.

　　GWEN IFILL: Sharon Waxman of The Wrap, thanks for helping¹² us out.

　　SHARON WAXMAN: Thanks, Gwen.

1 comedians   

n.喜剧演员，丑角( comedian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The voice was rich, lordly, Harvardish, like all the boring radio comedians'imitations. 声音浑厚、威严，俨然是哈佛出身的气派，就跟无线电里所有的滑稽演员叫人已经听腻的模仿完全一样。 来自辞典例句
• He distracted them by joking and imitating movie and radio comedians. 他用开玩笑的方法或者模仿电影及广播中的滑稽演员来对付他们。 来自辞典例句

2 swirl   

v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形

参考例句：

• The car raced roughly along in a swirl of pink dust.汽车在一股粉红色尘土的漩涡中颠簸着快速前进。
• You could lie up there,watching the flakes swirl past.你可以躺在那儿，看着雪花飘飘。

3 rape   

n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸

参考例句：

• The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
• He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。

4 sitcom   

n.情景喜剧，（广播、电视的）系列幽默剧

参考例句：

• This sitcom is produced in cooperation with Hong Kong TV.这部连续剧是同香港电视台联合制作的。
• I heard that a new sitcom is coming out next season.我听说下一季会推出一个新的情境喜剧。

5 postponing   

v.延期，推迟( postpone的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He tried to gain time by postponing his decision. 他想以迟迟不作决定的手段来争取时间。 来自辞典例句
• I don't hold with the idea of postponing further discussion of the matter. 我不赞成推迟进一步讨论这件事的想法。 来自辞典例句

6 alleged   

a.被指控的，嫌疑的

参考例句：

• It was alleged that he had taken bribes while in office. 他被指称在任时收受贿赂。
• alleged irregularities in the election campaign 被指称竞选运动中的不正当行为

7 icons   

n.偶像( icon的名词复数 )；（计算机屏幕上表示命令、程序的）符号，图像

参考例句：

• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons. 用图标来区分重要的文本项。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Daemonic icons should only be employed persistently if they provide continuous, useful status information. 只有会连续地提供有用状态信息的情况下，后台应用程序才应该一直使用图标。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

8 crumbling   

adj.摇摇欲坠的

参考例句：

• an old house with crumbling plaster and a leaking roof 一所灰泥剥落、屋顶漏水的老房子
• The boat was tied up alongside a crumbling limestone jetty. 这条船停泊在一个摇摇欲坠的石灰岩码头边。

9 cogent   

adj.强有力的，有说服力的

参考例句：

• The result is a cogent explanation of inflation.结果令人信服地解释了通货膨胀问题。
• He produced cogent reasons for the change of policy.他对改变政策提出了充分的理由。

10 promotion   

n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传

参考例句：

• The teacher conferred with the principal about Dick's promotion.教师与校长商谈了迪克的升级问题。
• The clerk was given a promotion and an increase in salary.那个职员升了级，加了薪。

11 devastating   

adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的

参考例句：

• It is the most devastating storm in 20 years.这是20年来破坏性最大的风暴。
• Affairs do have a devastating effect on marriages.婚外情确实会对婚姻造成毁灭性的影响。

12 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。