Passage 1

Two years ago, Rupert Murdoch′s daughter, Elisabeth, spoke of the"unsettling dearth ofintegrity across so many of our institutions". Integrity had collapsed, she argued, because of acollective acceptance that the only "sorting mechanism" in society should be profit and the market.

But "it′ s us, human beings, we the people who create the society we want, not profit".

Driving her point home, she continued: "It′s increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose,of a moral language within government, media or business could become one of the most dangerousgoals for capitalism and freedom." This same absence of moral purpose was wounding companiessuch as News International, she thought, making it more likely that it would lose its way as it hadwith widespread illegal telephone hacking.

As the hacking trial concludes--finding guilty one ex-editor of the News of the World, AndyCoulson, for conspiring to hack phones, and finding his predecessor, Rebekah Brooks, innocent ofthe same charge--the wider issue of dearth of integrity still stands. Journalists are known to havehacked the phones of up to 5,500 people. This is hacking on an industrial scale, as wasacknowledged by Glenn Mulcaire, the man hired by the News of the World in 2001 to be the pointperson for phone hacking. Others await trial. This long story still unfolds.

In many respects, the dearth of moral purpose frames not only the fact of such widespreadphone hacking but the terms on which the trial took place. One of the astonishing revelations washow little Rebekah Brooks knew of what went on in her newsroom, how little she thought to ask andthe fact that she never inquired how the stories arrived. The core of her successful defence was thatshe knew nothing.

In today′s world, it has become normal that well-paid executives should not be accountable forwhat happens in the organisations that they run. Perhaps we should not be so surprised. For ageneration, the collective doctrine has been that the sorting mechanism of society should be profit.

The words that have mattered are efficiency, flexibility, shareholder value, business-friendly, wealthgeneration, sales, impact and, in newspapers, circulation. Words degraded to the margin have beenjustice, fairness, tolerance, proportionality and accountability.

The purpose of editing 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 lives in the quest forcirculation and impact. Ms Brooks may or may not have had suspicions about how her journalistsgot their stories, but she asked no questions, gave no instruction--nor received traceable, recordedanswers.

According to the first two paragraphs, Elisabeth was upset by __________.

• A.the consequences of the current sorting mechanism
• B.companies' financial loss due to immoral practices
• C.governmental ineffectiveness on moral issues
• D.the wide misuse of integrity among institutions