歷年考研英語(yǔ)閱讀理解1997年04

[00:04.00]1997 Passage4 [00:07.54]No company likes to be told [00:09.55]it is contributing to the moral decline of a nation. [00:13.48]"Is this what you intended to accomplish with your careers?" [00:17.21]Senator Robert Dole asked Time Warner executives last week. [00:22.57]"You have sold your souls, but must you corrupt our nation [00:25.94]and threaten our children as well?" [00:28.85]At Time Warner, however, [00:30.76]such questions are simply the latest manifestation [00:34.10]of the soul-searching that has involved [00:36.31]the company ever since the company was born in 1990. [00:41.65]It's a self-examination that has, at various times, [00:45.49]involved issues of responsibility, [00:48.11]creative freedom and the corporate bottom line. [00:52.45]At the core of this debate is chairman Gerald Levin, [00:56.59]56, who took over for the late Steve Ross in 1992. [01:02.34]On the financial front, [01:04.05]Levin is under pressure to raise the stock price [01:07.29]and reduce the company's mountainous debt, [01:10.21]which will increase to $17.3 billion [01:14.34]after two new cable deals close. [01:17.97]He has promised to sell off some of the property [01:20.69]and restructure the company, [01:22.70]but investors are waiting impatiently. [01:26.33]The flap over rap is not making life any easier for him. [01:31.28]Levin has consistently defended the company's rap music [01:34.91]on the grounds of expression. [01:36.93]In 1992, when Time Warner [01:39.85]was under fire for releasing Ice-T's violent rap song Cop Killer, [01:45.50]Levin described rap as a lawful expression of street culture, [01:49.83]which deserves an outlet. [01:52.16]"The test of any democratic society," [01:54.87]he wrote in a Wall Street Journal column, [01:57.40]"lies not in how well it can control expression [02:00.74]but in whether it gives freedom of thought [02:03.26]and expression the widest possible latitude, [02:06.48]however disputable or irritating the results [02:09.61]may sometimes be. [02:11.53]We won't retreat in the face of any threats." [02:15.35]Levin would not comment on the debate last week, [02:18.48]but there were signs that the chairman [02:20.17]was backing off his hard-line stand, [02:23.10]at least to some extent. [02:25.19]During the discussion of rock singing verses [02:27.90]at last month's stockholders' meeting, [02:30.83]Levin asserted that "music is not the cause of society's ills" [02:35.56]and even cited his son, [02:37.58]a teacher in the Bronx, New York, [02:40.20]who uses rap to communicate with students. [02:43.63]But he talked as well about the "balanced struggle" [02:46.75]between creative freedom and social responsibility, [02:50.49]and he announced that the company [02:52.17]would launch a drive to develop standards [02:54.69]for distribution and labeling [02:57.49]of potentially objectionable music. [03:01.13]The 15-member Time Warner board [03:03.65]is generally supportive of Levin and his corporate strategy. [03:07.68]But insiders say several of them [03:09.80]have shown their concerns in this matter. [03:13.04]"Some of us have known for many, many years [03:16.06]that the freedoms under the First Amendment [03:18.28]are not totally unlimited," says Luce. [03:22.21]"I think it is perhaps the case [03:24.03]that some people associated with the company [03:26.65]have only recently come to realize this."

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