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  3. "What a difference a word makes." The issue of semantics has been an ongoing complaint against the media, which has been charact

"What a difference a word makes." The issue of semantics has been an ongoing complaint against the media, which has been charact

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问题     "What a difference a word makes." The issue of semantics has been an ongoing complaint against the media, which has been characterized by an increasing level of sensationalism and irresponsible reporting over the years, fostered by increasingly fierce competition and struggle for wider distributions and readerships.
    A focal point for the criticism is the coverage of high-profile criminal cases. With such headlines as "Mr. X Arrested for First-Degree Murder" prominently displayed across the front page, it has been argued that such provocative language influences public opinion, causing premature assumptions of guilt before the matter can be properly and legally decided in a court of law. The power of the media to influence public opinion and, by extension, legal and political perceptions, has long been established and recognized, spurring outcries when inaccurate or overly embellished stories result in unwarranted destruction of public image or intrusions into privacy of unwilling individuals.
    Reporters and editors take the utmost care in their choice of words for use in their articles, but with constant pressure to create provocative headlines in order to sell their papers, the distinction between respectable periodicals and trashy tabloids is becoming thinner every day. The predicament is exacerbated by the public’s seeming short attention span, putting the papers under pressure to make their stories as attention-grabbing as they are accurate. Further obfuscating the situation is the fact that the same phrase can be interpreted in a myriad of different ways depending on who reads it, making it hard for one to judge whether a line is excessive or not.
    Whatever the causes and effects, however, the freedom of press laws in the United States means that any change to the style employed by the media must be self-imposed. In that respect, it appears that nothing will be changing in the near future, since the public’s insatiable hunger for controversy and scandal continues to dominate and set the pace for marketable reporting. As the sensationalism and its related effects continue into the longer term, however, there will no doubt be more outcry as the trend continues. This will possibly result in an upheaval of the system, favoring more accurate, unembellished reporting, consisting of hard facts with a minimum of supposition or commentary and devoid of rumrs and other questionable sources of information. If and when that occurs, we can truly state with pride that our media industry is not only a free one, but a responsible and reliable one.
From paragraph 4, we can infer that______.
选项 A、if public opinion and buying habits continue to favor sensationalism, papers will continue to exaggerate and misrepresent
B、the future of the media is one of truthfulness and accuracy
C、in order for the media to change in a positive direction, the industry itself must desire the change
D、a shift in public opinion will cause the media to change its habits in reporting
答案A
解析 属信息推断题。第四段第二句指出：在新闻自由这方面，看来近期不会发生任何改变，因为公众对争议和丑闻如饥似渴的态度仍然占据主流地位，而报道要想有市场，这种态度就为其定下了基调。由此可知，选项A与此相符。选项B、D表述过于肯定，文中只是假设了这样一种可能性。选项C在文中没有涉及。
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