考研英语第23套题.docVIP

第二十三套题 Part A Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (40 points) Text 1 07.8 Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin just relaunched the formal review of media ownership rules. The agency’s 揊urther Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,?issued July 25, is vague, but its intent is clear: to let a few giant media corporations swallow up more local television channels, radio stations and newspapers in a single market.Martin’s main target is the ban on 搉ewspaper-broadcast cross-ownership?that prohibits one company from owning the major daily newspaper as well as radio and TV stations in the same area. Heti’d also like to allow one company to own more than one TV station in smaller markets, and more than two in the largest cities. A few powerful firms in major cities have won waivers to the ban, or at least delays on enforcement, but those are the exceptions. That d閖?vu youe ’re feeling is because the FCC tried to push through the same rule changes in 2003 under then-Chairman Michael Powell. In response, millions of people梥purred on by groups as diverse as the National Rifle Assn. and the National Organization for Women梒ontacted the FCC and Congress to voice their opposition. The FCC approved the rule changes anyway, only to see them nearly overturned by Congress and then rejected by the courts. Despite the overwhelming public opposition, Martin’s latest attempt to eliminate cross-ownership rules is driven by the massive lobbying of a cartel of second-tier big media companies specializing in newspaper and broadcast station ownership, such as Gannett, Media General and Tribune. Their motive is Bigger profits. But what’s good for Big Media’s bottom line isn’t always good for the rest of us. The first casualty of 搈edia company towns?would be journalism. When one firm owns most of a cityes’s news outlets, who needs a bunch of competing newsrooms? Investigative