1、1 A Courtesy CampaignBob Edwards, host: Nearly half of all American adults have wireless telephones. People are buying them at a rate of 46,000 a day. The rise of portable phones has been accompanied by a rise in complaints about mobile phone manners. A few cities have passed laws restricting their
2、use. But San Diegos trying a different approach, appealing to cell phone users with a courtesy campaign. From member station KPBS, Scott Horsley reports. Scott Horsley Reporting: It seems to be happening more and more, in restaurants, movie theaters, even in church. Soundbite of Cell Phone Ringing H
3、orsley: When it comes to the shrill interruption of a ringing cell phone, no place it seems is sacred.Reverend Wendy Craig-Purcell: Well, if were in the middle of prayer and meditation, I usually just ignore it. And I may make a comment afterwards, something like, “Well, you know, maybe the spirit o
4、f God is truly calling us and wanting our attention.” Horsley: Not everyone is as forgiving as Reverend Wendy Craig-Purcell of San Diegos Church of Today. And not everyone views the cell phone as an instrument of divine intervention. When San Diego Mayor Susan Golding conducted an Internet survey la
5、st year, thousands of people responded calling for restrictions on cell phone use, especially in movie theatres.Mayor Susan Golding: I know that Ive been in the movies. And its at the quiet time when everyones on the edge of their seat and the phone rings next to you and the person starts to talk in
6、 a very loud voice.Horsley: But rather than proposing regulation, Mayor Golding has launched a voluntary courtesy campaign, urging wireless phone users to mind their mobile manners. The campaign includes stickers that business can display, reminding customers theyre in a quite zone. The mayor hersel
7、f posted a sticker outside one movie theatre as Doug Cohen looked on in approval. Cohen is a real estate broker whose own cell phone gets plenty of use, but he agrees there ought to be limits. Doug Cohen: I have a very good friends that I wont eat lunch with. They just cant get away from it. So its
8、theres an etiquette. Its just like driving or anything else, you know. Some people will subscribe to a certain politeness and some people wont. But its nice that theres an issue raised here. Horsley: San Diego might seem like an unlikely place to raise the issue of rude cell phone use since the cell
9、 phone industry is one of the citys biggest employers, with companies like Qualcomm and Nokia. But Nokia is actually sponsoring the mayors courtesy campaign. Vice President Larry Paulson says customers should set phone is vibrate rather than ring in certain settings, and sometimes even turn their ph
10、ones off.Larry Paulson: Certainly, I think everyone agrees with this. In certain public areas such as movie theaters, plays, churches, museums, and libraries, talking can be very disruptive and, essentially, its a violation of basic courtesy.Horsley: Cell phone companies realize a public backlash is
11、nt good for their business. And with communities in Ohio and New Jersey already banning cell phone use behind the wheel, the industry may see a courtesy campaign as a way to head off further government regulation, like the beer companies urging their customers to drink responsibly. Instead of a stri
12、ct enforcer, Mayor Golding hopes to play a gentle Miss Manners. The real Miss Manners, newspaper columnist Judith Martin, thinks that might work better, anyway.Judith Martin: If you use the heavy hand of the law for everyday trivial things, you create this state where everybody is angry at everybody
13、 else, where the courts are clogged up. This is a very simple thing were talking about: dont disturb people, you know. Dont talk at eh movies. Dont talk on the phone in the movies. Dont talk to the person next to you in the movies.Horsley: Martin says its not unusual when new technologies develop fo
14、r people to believe theyre in an etiquette-free zone. But gradually, a consensus develops about how the tools should be used. With cell phones, she says, were halfway there. People agree that others shouldnt annoy them with their phones, but they dont necessarily apply the same rules with themselves
15、. That will be the challenge, as Mayor Golding demonstrated during a news conference kicking off her courtesy campaign. Mayor Golding: I think we will influence a great number of people to stop and think.Soundbite of Cell Phone RingingMayor Golding: For example, my phone is ringing right now. But I
16、think we will influence a lot of people to turn off their cell phones or to put them or vibrate.Clearly, there are placesand this doesnt even hang up well. But because I want to be courteous and not answer it during this press conference.Horsley: The mayor later explained that hers was a new phone,
17、and she hadnt figured out all the settings. She got a quick lesson from the Nokia vie president in how to turn of the ringer. For NPR News, Im Scott Horsley in San Diego. 1. Reverend Wendy Craig-Purcell: Well, if were in the middle of prayer and meditation, I usually just ignore it. And I may make a
18、 comment afterwards, something like, “Well, you know, maybe the spirit of God is truly calling us and wanting our attention.”2. Mayor Susan Golding: I know that Ive been in the movies. And its at the quiettime when everyones on the edge of their seat and the phone rings next to you and the person st
19、arts to talk in a very loud voice.3. Doug Cohen: I have a very good friends that I wont eat lunch with. They just cant get away from it. So its theres an etiquette. Its just like driving or anything else, you know. Some people will subscribe to a certain politeness and some people wont. But its nice
20、 that theres an issue raised here.4. Larry Paulson: Certainly, I think everyone agrees with this. In certain public areas such as movie theaters, plays, churches, museums, and libraries, talking can be very disruptive and, essentially, its a violation of basic courtesy.5. Judith Martin: If you use t
21、he heavy hand of the law for everyday trivial things, you create this state where everybody is angry at everybody else, where the courts are clogged up. This is a very simple thing were talking about: dont disturb people, you know. Dont talk at eh movies. Dont talk on the phone in the movies. Dont t
22、alk to the person next to you in the movies.2 Give me my place to smokeMy name is Michael, and Ive been smoking for fifteen years. My name is Peggy, and Ive been smoking for probably thirty and thirty-five years.Peggy and Michael sit in a smoky neighborhood bar in Washington D.C., a cigarette perche
23、d in each others hands. They say there are fewer and fewer places like this, where they feel completely comfortable lighting up, and they expect the EPA report on secondhand smoke to contribute to further restrictions on smoking in public places. They both say they are keenly aware of the reception
24、they get when they smoke, and how that has changed over the years. Thirty-five years ago you really didnt give a lot of thought to smoking. Now you do. And of course youre finding that its much less acceptable, much less popular, shall we say, to be smoker. And I dont know how much of that is basica
25、lly political, and how much is apolitical. I dont like the atmosphere today, not only for smoking, but I find that thats true in many other areas of freedom. /How do you experience it? How do you get that feeling from other people?Well, fifteen years ago you didnt think about it. You walked in to so
26、meones house and they would offer you an ashtray. You dont do that anymore. I dont even ask anymore. “Is it OK if we smoke?” because for a while there it was. “Well, I really wish you wouldnt.”And that was awkward?No, it wasnt awkward; its just that you learn not to ask anymore, and just assume that
27、 its not right.I found it awkward.You go to parties now. You know, where it used to be that everybody was standing around with a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other and blabbing, and now you see the smokers, kind of if its an apartment, furtively standing around an open window, or if i
28、ts a house, standing outside in groups. Its pretty common. /Has it changed your smoking habits in any way?Thats hard to say. I will say this: I know that Im much more cognizant of my surroundings. For example, if I walk into someone elses office any more, I would never think to take a cigarette. And
29、 like he said, in someones home, you wouldnt automatically sit down and have a cigarette. So in that regard, yes.Yeah. I mean, Ive develop a whole body language about smoking in groups and in places where it is permissible to smoke.Oh, yes.Its take a drag.As you are doing right now.Right, blow it st
30、raight up in the air so that it doesnt get in anybodys face, then try to hold your cigarette so that the wind catches, whatever wind there is catches it so that it goes away from the group. So after a while, you look like a factory. Youre blowing smoke straight up, and youve got this cigarette flyin
31、g out in the air there, / its whole body language.And you do look a bit strange, youre right, now that you say that. Do you feel any defiance?I dont think I do. Ive never felt a desire to inflict my habit on anybody else. I guess I dont mean inflict your habit. I think when I mean defiance, what I m
32、ean by that is, if you are in an area where it is totally acceptable to smoke, thatbut you know that there is someone there who doesnt really want you to smoke.Yes, yes. Actually, one afternoon I was coming home from work. I was walking up Connections Avenue and I had my Walkman on. It had been kind
33、 of a rough day, and I was puffing away on a cigarette and walking up the street, and someone came around in front of me and pointed behind me. So I took my Walkman off, and turned around, and there was this man standing there, and he was going, “Excuse me, your cigarette is in my eyes.”And you were
34、 outside.I was outside, on the sidewalk. And I looked at him, and I said, “Well, then walk in front of me.” And I just felt like he was his own private smoking patrol. It had nothing to do with any kind of physical discomfort I was causing him.And did you wonder if, the next day, he was part of the
35、fur patrol? Thats what I think I mean about defiance. I find that in myself, that when they make a judgment, and thats basically what theyre doing, theyre making a judgment on my behavior. /Do you understand at all, though, this strong feeling that people have about smoking, that if theyre not a smo
36、ker, they dont want to be around it, they dont want to inhale the smoke? Yes, I can understand it. Sure. I mean, Ive really knuckled under I have changed my habits to respect the rights of people who dont want smoke around them, and Im much more cognizant of how my smoking might be affecting the gen
37、eral area. If Im in a smoking section, I feel that Im entitled to smoke. If they take away that smoking section, I wont smoke in there anymore. I wouldnt go there anymore, If its a matter of spending my money in a restaurant, for example, I wouldnt spend my money there. But in regard to that, yes, I
38、 understand it, but I also feel, again, back to equity. Give me my place to smoke. Thats all I ask.Peggy and Michael both live in Washington, D.C. /3 Kids and the mediaThe excesses of the media came under scrutiny this month over how young people are used as sources in news stories. ABC News has bee
39、n under fire for airing an interview with six-year-old Elian Gonzalez, as many other networks for airing a home videotape of the child. Last year, CNN was criticized when it broadcast phone calls from students at Columbine High School as the shootings there were taking place. NPRs Rick Karr reports
40、on the choices journalists make in dealing with children in the news. When ABCs Diane Sawyer introduced her interview with Elian Gonzalez, she referred to one of the bedrock rules of the craft of journalism: Get the story straight from the source.And even though the media has had him under twenty-ho
41、ur-a-day surveillance and written, by our calculation, 11,984 articles about the politics of all this, not one of us has sat down and looked in to his eyes. Just looking into his eyes would have been fine, according to Bob Steel. Es a journalistic ethicist at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg,
42、 Florida. The problem is when he was interviewed. For Diane Sawyer or any other journalist to ask him questions of the weight that were asked of him about his mother and the loss of his mother, about whether he wants to stay in Florida, in the United States, or return to Cuba- these are questions th
43、at are beyond the grasp of a six-year-old in terms of taking with a journalist in a meaningful way. / Steel says journalists need, first and foremost, to consider whether or not a child is mature enough to actually shed light on a story. An immature child may not know fact from fantasy and while tha
44、ts no big deal if the story is on, say, Chicagoans hopes for this years White Sox, where a six-year-old might have as much to say as any other pundit, its much more pressing a concern when international relations or criminal allegations are at stake. Its not solely a matter of chronological age, Ste
45、el says; trauma can make even adults regress to childhood. Steele says journalists need to step back and fight the urge to get it done right this second.Slow down enough that you can assess the situation and assess the individuals who may be the witnesses and may be the interview sources in a partic
46、ular story, and to ascertain the best we can at hat moment what kind of vulnerability they may have. /Sometimes witnesses to a crime can be vulnerable in terms of the perpetrator going after those witnesses.Bob, is it outside the school right now or are they still inside, can you tell?Theyre inside.
47、theyre inside the building. I havent seenCNN and a local Denver television station were criticized last year when they broadcast this tape and others like it: cell phone calls from students hiding in and around Columbine High School, which Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris could, in theory, have used to
48、 pinpoint the locations of their intended victims.Theyre OK. One of my friends is still in the school, though.Really?I guess his mother paged hi. He called her back, said that hes I guess hes in the choir room.Suzanne McCarroll was on the scene at Columbine High School that day. Shes a reporter with
49、 KCNC, Denvers CBS station. She says in breaking news situations, judging right from wrong is a matter of gut instinct. A lot of time I look at the those kids faces I think, “Oh, my God, this could be one of my kids and am I doing something thats OK if this were my child, if somebody came up and started interviewing my child about whatever given topic or grilling my child with those questions?”McCarroll says when shes interviewing kids, p
