That fact poses some difficult problems for those of us trying to make sense of the news we are given. One of these problems is indicated by a proposal, made years ago, by the great French writer Albert Camus. Camus wished to establish "a control newspaper." The newspaper would come out one hour after all the others and would contain estimates of the percentage of truth in each of their stories. In Camus' words: "We'd have complete dossiers on the interests, policies, and idiosyncrasies of the owners. Then we'd have a dossier on every journalist in the world. The interests, prejudices，and quirks of the owner would equal Z. The prejudices, quirks, and private interests of the journalist Y. Z times Y would give you X, the probable amount of truth in the story."
这个现实让我们理解新闻的意义变得更加困难。许多年前，一位杰出的法国作家阿尔贝·加缪曾提过倡议，建议建立一家“管理报纸”。该报纸可在其他报纸发行小时后出版，对各家报纸新闻的可信程度进行评估。其原话是：“我们应该对每家报社老板的兴趣利益、政治信仰和个性建立全方位档案。同样，我们也该给全世界所有记者建立同样的档案。报社老板的兴趣利益、偏见、怪癖用Z表示，记者的偏见、怪癖、个人兴趣用Y表示，Z乘以Y得X，X就是新闻的可信程度。”
Camus was either a reckless mathematician or else he simply neglected to say why and how multiplying Z and Y would tell us what we need to know. (Why not add or divide them?) Nor did he discuss the problem of how to estimate the reliability of those doing the estimating. In any case, Camus died before he had a chance to publish such a newspaper, leaving each one of us to be our own "control center." Nonetheless, we can't help thinking how Camus' idea might be applied to television. Imagine how informative it would be if there were five-minute television programs that went on immediately after each television news show. The host might say something like this: "To begin with, this station is owned by Gary Farnsworth, who is also the president of Bontel Limited, the principal stockholder of which is the Sultan of Bahrain. Bontel Limited owns three Japanese electronic companies, two oil companies, the entire country of Upper Volta, and the western part of Romania. The anchorman on the television show earns $800,000 a year; his portfolio includes holdings in a major computer firm. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas but was a C+ student, has never taken a course in political science, and speaks no language other than English. Last year, he read only two books—a biography of Cary Grant and a book of popular psychology called "Why Am I So Wonderful"? The reporter who covered the story on Yugoslavia speaks Serbo-Croatian, has a degree in international relations, and has had a Neiman Fellowship at Harvard University."
加缪要么是一位不合格的数学家，要么就是他忘记了说明用Z乘Y的原因和操作方式（为什么不是加法或者除法？）。他也并没有讨论过这个评估本身的可靠性。不管怎样，加缪在没有出版此类报纸之前就过世了，留下我们每人充当自己的评估报纸。不过，我们止不住地去想加缪的理论应用于电视新闻会产生怎样的效果。想象一下，每家电台播放过新闻之后有一档为时五分钟的即时节目将会多么有用。主持人可能会这样说：“首先，这家电视台的老板是加里·法恩斯沃思，他也是邦特尔有限责任公司的董事长，这个公司的主要持股人是巴林的苏丹。邦特尔有限责任公司拥有三家日本电力公司、两家石油公司、整个上沃尔塔地区和罗马尼亚西部地区。新闻主持人年薪八十万美元，投资一家大型电脑公司。他在阿肯色州立大学获得新闻学学士学位，在校期间成绩平平，从没有修过政治学，除了英语不会第二种语言。去年他只读了两本书——《加里·格兰特传》和流行心理学图书《为什么我如此不凡？》。报道南斯拉夫新闻的记者说塞尔维亚-克罗地亚语，获得国际关系学学位，曾获得过哈佛大学尼曼奖学金。”
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