Of all the changes that have taken place in English-language newspapers during the past quarter-century, perhaps the most far-reaching has been the inexorable decline in the scope and seriousness of their arts coverage.
在过去的25年里，英语报纸行业发生的许多变化，意义最深远的也许是艺术类新闻报道的范围和严肃性呈不可阻止的下降。
It is difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers.
对于四十岁以下的读者来说，很难想象在那个时代，大多数大城市的报纸上都能找到高质量的艺术评论。
Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20thcentury consisted in large part of newspaper reviews.
然而在20世纪出版的最具影响力的评论文集，大部分是由报纸上的评论组成的。
To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their learned contents were once deemed suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies.
今天再读到这样的书时，我们会惊叹，这些有学识的内容曾经一度被认为非常适合在大众发行的日报上出版。
We are even farther removed from the unfocused newspaper reviews published in England between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of World War II, at a time when newsprint was dirt-cheap and stylish arts criticism was considered an ornament to the publications in which it appeared.
20世纪初期至第二次世界大战前夕，我们距离这些自由的用英语出版的报纸评论越来越远，当时，报纸印刷非常便宜，前卫的艺术评论被视作为出版物的一个装饰。
In those far-off days, it was taken for granted that the critics of major papers would write in detail and at length about the events they covered.
在那段遥远日子里，人们自然而然地认为大部分的报纸评论对报道的事件写得非常详细。
Theirs was a serious business, and even those reviewers who wore their learning lightly, like George Bernard Shaw and Ernest Newman, could be trusted to know what they were about.
即使评论家以轻松的方式展现他们的学识，他们的评论依然是一份严肃的工作，比如乔治·伯纳德·肖和欧内斯德·纽曼，人们也相信他们直到自己写的是什么。
These man believed in journalism as a calling, and were proud to be published in the daily press.
这些人把记者当作是一种天职，为自己的评论能在日报上发表感到非常自豪。
“ So few authors have brains enough or literary gift enough to keep their own end up in journalism,” Newman wrote, “that I am tempted to define ‘ journalism’ as ‘a term of contempt applied by writers who are not read to writers who are.’”
“智商和文学功底都在线并可以坚持报道的作者很少，”纽曼写道，“我总想将‘新闻报道’定义为‘没读者的作者对有着的作者的蔑视’。”
Unfortunately, these critics are virtually forgotten.
不幸的是这些评论家最终被遗忘了。
Neville Cardus, who wrote the Manchester Guardian from 1917until shortly before his death in 1975, is now known solely as a writer of essays on the game of cricket.
内维尔·卡杜斯,从1917开始直到他去世前不久（1975年）都在为曼彻斯特卫报写稿，却仅仅只被人们认为是曲棍球比赛的评论员。
During his lifetime, though, he was also one of England’s foremost classical-music critics, and a stylist so widely admired that his Autobiography(1947) became a best-seller.
在他的人生中，他是一名英格兰古典乐的最佳评论员，而且也是一名受欢迎的设计师，他的《自传》是一本畅销书。
He was knighted in 1967, the first music critic to be so honored.
他在1967年被封爵，是获此殊荣的第一位音乐评论家。
Yet only one of his books is now in print, and his vast body of writings on music is unknown save to specialist.
然而他的书现在只有一本在发售，除了专业人士，他在音乐方面的大量著作都不被大众知晓。
Is there any chance that Cardus’s criticism will enjoy a revival?
卡杜斯的评论有没有可能再次复兴？
The prospect seems remote.
这个可能性很渺茫。
Journalistic tastes had changed long before his death, and postmodern readers have little use for the richly upholstered Vicwardiam prose in which he specialized.
在他死之前，新闻报道的品味已经改变，后现代的读者几乎不需要他擅长的辞藻华丽的维多利亚-爱德华风格的散文。
Moreover, the amateur tradition in music criticism has been in headlong retreat.
更有甚者，音乐评论的业余传统也已经迅速衰退。