Directions: Read the following text and choose the most suitable heading from A-F for each paragraph. There is one extra heading which you do not need.
1．_______________
With the arrival of the age of "information economy", intellectual work is becoming a more
important source of wealth than manufacturing. Organizations in all walks of life are doing more
to spread their information. So people of the Public Relations are hired to speak for them. A lot
of our news is actually collected from press releases and reports of events intentionally staged for
journalists. In the information age, journalists spend their time, not investigating, but passing on the
words of a spokesperson.
2．_________________
There is a joke in the novel Scoop about the newspaper's owner, Lord Copper. The editors can
never disagree with him. When he's right about something they answer "definitely", and when he's
wrong they say "to some extent, Lord Copper." It seems reasonable to suppose that, in the real
world, the opinions of such powerful people still influence the journalists and editors who work for
them.
3．________________
In countries where the news is not officially controlled, it may be provided by commercial
organizations who depend on advertising. The news has to attract viewers and maintain its audience
ratings. I suspect that some stories get air-time just because there happen to be exciting pictures to
show. In Britain, we have the tabloid newspapers which millions of people read simply for entertainment.
There is progressively less room for historical background, or statistics, which are harder to present
as a sensational story.
4．_______________
There is an argument that with spreading access to the internet and cheap technology for recording
sound and images we will all be able to find exactly the information we want. People around the world
will be able to publish their own eye-witness accounts and compete with the widely-accepted
news-gatherers on equal terms. But what it will mean also is that we'll be subjected to a still greater
amount of nonsense and lies. Any web log may contain the latest information of the year, or equally,
a made-up story that you will never be able to check.
5．_______________
Maybe the time has come to do something about it, and I don't just mean changing your choice of
TV channel or newspaper. In a world where everyone wants you to listen to their version, you only
have two choices: switch off altogether or start looking for sources you can trust. The investigative
journalist of the future is everyone who wants to know the truth.
