题目内容:
根据以下内容回答题:No company likes to be told it is contributing to the moral decline of a nation.“Is this what you like to accomplish with your careers?”an American senator asked Time Warner executives re.cently.“You have sold your souls,but must you corrupt our nation and threaten our children as well?”At Time Warner,however,such questions are simply the latest manifestation of the soul.searching that has involved the company ever since the company was born in l990.It’S a self-exami.nation that has,at different times,involved issues of responsibility,creative freedom and the corpo.rate bottom line.
At the core of this debate is chairman Gerald Levin,56,who took over from the late Steve Ross in the early 1990s.On the financial front,Levin is under pressure to raise the stock price and reduce the company’S mountainous debt,which will increase to$17.3 billion after two new cable deals close.He has promised to sell off some of the property and restructure the company,but in.
vestors are waiting impatiently.
The flap over rap is not making life any easier for him.Levin has consistently defended the company’S rap music on the grounds of expression.In l992,when Time Warner was under fire for releasing Ice-T’S violent rap song Cop Killer,Levin described rap as a lawful expression of street culture.which deserves all outlet.“The test of any democratic society,”he wrote in a Wall Street Journal column.“lies not in how well it can control expression but in whether it gives freedom of thought and expression the widest possible latitude,however disputable or irritating the results may sometimes be.We won’t retreat when we face any threats.”
Levin would not comment on the debate last week,but there were signs that the chairman was backing off his hard-line stand,at least to some extent.During the discussion of rock singing verses at last month’S stockholders’meetin9.Levin asserted that“music is not the cause of society’S ills” and even cited his son。a teacher in the Bronx,New York,who uses rap to communicate with students.But he talked as well about the“balanced struggle”between creative freedom and social responsibility,and he proclaimed that the company would launch a drive to develop standards for distribution and labeHng of potentiaHy objectionable music.
The 15一member Time Warner board is generally supportive of Levin and his corporate strate。gy.But insiders say some of them have shown their concerns in this maaer.“Some of US have known for many,many years that the freedoms under the First Amendment are not totally unlimit-ed.”says Luce.“I think it is perhaps the case that some people associated with the company have only recently come to realize this.”
An American senator criticized Time Warner for__________. A.its raising of the corporate stock price
B.its self-examination of the soul
C.its neglect of social responsibility
D.its emphasis on creative freedom
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