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Two years ago, RupertMurdoch’s daughter, Elisabeth,spoke of the “unsettling dearth of integrity across somany of our institutions”. Integrity had collapsed, sheargued, because of a collective acceptance that the only “sorting mechanism” in society should beprofit and the market. But “it’sus, human beings, we the people who create the society we want, not profit”.
Driving her pointhome, she continued: “It’s increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose, of a morallanguage within government, media or business could become one of the mostdangerous goals for capitalism and freedom.” This sameabsence of moral purpose was wounding companies such as News International, shethought, making it more likely that it would lose its way as it had withwidespread illegal telephone hacking.
As the hacking trialconcludes—finding guilty oneex-editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, for conspiring to hackphones, and finding his predecessor, Rebekah Brooks, innocent of the samecharge—the wider issue of dearth of integrity stillstands. Journalists are known to have hacked the phones of up to 5,500 people.This is hacking on an industrial scale, as was acknowledged by Glenn Mulcaire,the man hired by the News of the World in 2001 to be the point person for phonehacking. Others await trial. This saga still unfolds.
In many respects, thedearth of moral purpose frames not only the fact of such widespread phonehacking but the terms on which the trial took place. One of the astonishingrevelations was how little Rebekah Brooks knew of what went on in her newsroom,how little she thought to ask and the fact that she never inquired how thestories arrived. The core of her successful defence was that she knew nothing.
In today’s world, it has become normal thatwell-paid executives should not be accountable for what happens in theorganisations that they run. Perhaps we should not be so surprised. For ageneration, the collective doctrine has been that the sorting mechanism ofsociety should be profit. The words that have mattered are efficiency,flexibility, shareholder value, business-friendly, wealth generation, sales,impact and, in newspapers, circulation. Words degraded to the margin have beenjustice, fairness, tolerance, proportionality and accountability.
The purpose ofediting the News of the World was not to promote reader understanding, to befair in what was written or to betray any common humanity. It was to ruin livesin the quest for circulation and impact. Ms Brooks may or may not have hadsuspicions about how her journalists got their stories, but she asked noquestions, gave no instructions—norreceived traceable, recorded answers.
36. Accordign to thefirst two paragraphs, Elisabeth was upset by
(A) the consequencesof the current sorting mechanism.
(B) companies’ financial loss due to immoralpractices
(C) governmentalineffectiveness on moral issues.
(D) the wide misuseof integrity among institutions.
37. It can beinferred from Paragraph 3 that
(A) Glenn Mulcairemay deny phone hacking as a crime.
(B) more journalistsmay be found guilty of phone hacking.
(C) Andy Coulsonshould be held innocent of the charge.
(D) phone hackingwill be accepted on certain occasions.
38. The authorbelieves that Rebekah Brooks’s defence
(A) revealed acunning personality.
(B) centered ontrivial issues.
(C) was hardlyconvincing.
(D) was part of aconspiracy.
39. The author holdsthat the current collective doctrine shows
(A) generallydistorted values.
(B) unfair wealthdistribution.
(C) a marginalizedlifestyle.
(D) a rigid moralcode.
40 Which of thefollowing is suggested in the last paragraph?
(A) The quality ofwritings is of primary importance.
(B) Common humanityis central to news reporting.
(C) Moral awarenessmatters in editing a newspaper.
(D) Journalists needstricter industrial regulations.
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