中国媒体扩大其在
外国读者中影响力的雄心曾偶尔取得不错的效果。
《中国日报》、
《环球时报》英文版和
新华社虽是中国官方
新闻媒体，均曾针对从
审查到
抗议等多种问题做出深度报道。《环球时报》是中国共产党官方喉舌──《人民日报》社旗下的一份报纸。
The Chinese media's ambitions of gaining a bigger voice among foreign audiences have occasionally shown promising results. China Daily and the English-language editions of Global Times and Xinhua, all government-run outlets (Global Times is an arm of the People's Daily, the Communist Party's official mouthpiece), have produced some in-depth reports on issues ranging from censorship to protests.
但有时这种努力却显得不着边际。
But sometimes the efforts seem off the mark.
《环球时报》英文版北京都市版面中的《亚历山德罗问答》(Ask Alessandro)专栏就非常非常不着边际。该专栏号称由一位住在北京的意大利人主笔，专栏照片中的男子戴了一副大大的蓝色眼镜，上身裸露，在大海中摆出挑逗性的姿势。专栏定期出版，
语言极其不认真，读起来就像是内容低俗的影片《波拉特》的文字版，但却没有其中的喜剧成分。专栏中充斥着仇视外国人的陈词滥调及性别歧视，满篇胡言乱语和粗俗的字眼，似乎千方百计地以不到400字的篇幅惹怒几乎每一个人。
Way, way off the mark, in the case of the 'Ask Alessandro' advice column in the English Global Times, part of the paper's Beijing metro section. It purports to be penned by an Italian resident of Beijing, with an accompanying photograph of a man posing seductively in the sea, wearing only blue wraparound shades. The regular tongue-in-cheek Q&As read like Borat-meets-Bruno in print, although without the comedy. The column manages to fit in plenty of xenophobic stereotypes, sexism, nonsense and foul language, seemingly intent on offending almost everyone in under 400 words.
周四的专栏似乎再创新的低俗纪录。它粗俗到我们甚至想不出能用什么让适合家庭阅读的报纸网站可以接受的词语去概括它──也不能提供它的链接。我们最多只能说它涉及对女性身体的语无伦次且十分无礼的讨论。周四有许多读者表达了他们的不满。其中一位读者形容这可能是他在报纸上读过的最令人惊讶的文章了。这可不是一种称赞。
Thursday's column seems to have hit a new low. The piece is so vulgar, we cannot even think of a way to summarize it for a family newspaper's Web site--nor to provide a link to it (suffice it to say it involves an incoherent and offensive discussion of the female anatomy). But one reader--among the many who complained Thursday--described it as 'perhaps the most astonishing thing I've ever read in a newspaper.' The statement was not meant as a compliment.
这是具有国际化雄心的中国主流媒体实际想表达的声音吗？我们无法不对此表示怀疑。也许在这个专栏付印之前应该有人先读一下。
We can't help but doubt that this is actually the voice that China's internationally ambitious media masters want to project. Maybe someone should read the column before it goes to print.
Sky Canaves 华尔街日报
