Question One
No, it is not morally permissible to take the answers in advance even though it is just a game show. In the 1950’s, television was new, and families were absorbed into television programming. They trusted the industry, the government and the fellow citizens. The current winner in Twenty-One (the show in quiz game), Van Doren, devastated his admirers when he confined that he had taken part in the cheating. Morally, he had an obligation to the public to uphold a vision of integrity, but instead he chose fortune and fame allowing materialism to take precedence over moral values. He had deceived the society not only as an icon of intelligence and integrity, but also as a fellow citizen.
Twenty-one diminished the society’s basic good- a natured trust in its fellow citizens. Even though there were no laws regulating the media from violating the moral standards, it mattered what they made the people believe. Toby, Herbert Stempel’s wife (who was the other contestant), referred to the public as a bunch of saps implying that the media assumed they were ignorant. This assumption infuriated the public, and they forced Van Doren out of the mainstream society, he lost everything he had worked for including his reputation.
Question two
After Herbert Stempel had won for a multitude of weeks, the Show’s rating started to level out. The sponsors of the show among them the NBC network sought a new contender for fresh talent. They asked Stempel to throw the game on a question that was incredible easy for Van Doren (the new contestant) to win. This would in turn boost the flagging rates of the show. Stempel begrudgingly agreed, on the condition that he would keep all the money he had racked up during his run and would be given a post on a panel show.
When Van Doren, the son of a renowned poet and intellectual, was approached by Enright and Freedman, he uprightly refused to cheat on the game. He called it unethical. However, having acknowledged the benefits he would accrue like being famous, he agreed. Despite his regrets about lying to the public and to his father, Doren provided the winning answer to the final question in the show. An answer he already had. He also signed a public statement stating that nothing shady went on in the show.
Rumors of the rigged quiz show intrigued a young congressional lawyer, Richard Godwin, who instigated a series of investigations. He gathered enough evidence to bring down Geritol and the Network. However, when Producers Enright and Freedman were asked to testify, Godwin watched them give false testimony that vindicated the Network and the sponsors of any wrongdoing. They would not turn in their bosses and jeopardize their own futures in television.
