Don’t you just hate it when you give a snarky, belittling, “you’re such an idiot to believe that” response to someone’s complaint, only to discover that they were right and you are the idiot? I sure do, and yes, it has happened to me.
The ethical way to avoid this, if you are Gawker, the habitually unethical gossip website, is to 1) not violate copyright laws by publishing long, bootlegged excerpts from Sarah Palin’s as yet unreleased new book without the publisher’s permission, 2) not respond, when she suggests in a tweet that this is illegal, by saying—
“Sarah: If you’re reading this—and if you are, welcome!—you may want to take a moment to familiarize yourself with the law. Try starting here or here. Or skip the totally boring reading and call one of your lawyers. They’ll walk you through it.”
—communicating in a condescending and insulting manner to a former state governor and candidate for Vice President who is, despite her political views, infinitely more accomplished, successful and productive than anyone associated with a sleazy gossip website, and thus deserves some respect and deference, and 3) actually know what the hell you’re talking about.
Because, you see, Palin was right, even before her lawyers “talked her through it.” (Gawker’s links, by the way, were to Wikipedia, which is not an acknowledged legal authority.) A federal judge on Saturday ordered Gawker Media to pull leaked pages of Sarah Palin’s forthcoming book America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag from its blog, and issued an injunction prohibiting Gawker from “continuing to distribute, publish or otherwise transmit pages from the book” pending a hearing on Nov. 30….after the book is released.
If you do make that insulting response and discover that it is you that were wrong, and that in addition to being rude and obnoxious you also broke the law, your proper and ethical response is to apologize quickly, profusely and sincerely.
The proof that this is the proper and ethical response is that Gawker won’t do it.
Ethics Alarms 
OH, please don’t make me go look to see if the did(n’t)!
No, what Gawker will likely do is wait for the usual suspects to find what they consider grist for their particular mills in Palin’s book after its release and reprint copyright-legal excerpts along with lots of eye-rolling commentary about it. At that point, Gawker will point to said commentary and say “See! We knew it all along! So what if we were a little premature? We were right, weren’t we?” Snarky, indeed.
communicating in a condescending and insulting manner to a former state governor and candidate for Vice President who is, despite her political views, infinitely more accomplished, successful and productive than anyone associated with a sleazy gossip website, and thus deserves some respect and deferenceUm, what accomplishments and productivity? I’ll give you success, but that’s no reason to give anyone respect or deference.Attacking Gawker’s idiocy when they’re idiotic: good job.
Attacking Gawker for giving no respect to someone who hasn’t earned any respect: ethicsalarms fodder.
No, that’s just unfair. Palin’s raised a family of good kids, she was a pretty good mayor; she has devoted much of her career to public service; she ran for national office; she’s written two books; she has been a cultural and political force. Even a portion of that is more respectable than anything Gawker has accomplished, which is to make the world a sleazier, meaner place. We should be able to respect people whom we disagree with. By most standards, she’ accomplished a lot more and been more successful in her endeavors that I have. I can’t deny her that, and I’m far from a fan.
She raised a fmily of good kids. Sure, she raised a family of kids. Raised them well? I don’t think either of us know enough. Respect reserved.
She was mayor of a town. Sure, but she was covered in ethics complaints there. Respect not earned.
She devoted much of her career to public service. Sure, though it appears it was more to get a head then to do any actual good work. She also quit. Respect not earned.
She ran for national office. Sure. So did Spiro Agnew and any number of convicted murderers. She also piloted lack of accountability. Respect not earned.
She’s written two books. Sure, but they’re riddled with inconsistencies. If I hired a ghost writer and slopped together two books denying the holocaust, would I deserved respect? No. The content matters. In this case, respect not earned.
She is a cultural political force. Sure, but not necessarily a good one. Respect not earned.
You also seem to imply that noone who has worked at Gawker has raised a family, written a book, or performed any kind of public service.
Yes, She has accomplished a ton, but I don’t think that any of those accomplishments should have necessarily earned her any respect. You are equating success with respect. By that measure, Pol Pot and Al Qaida deserve respect. I’m not saying Sarah Palin is anything like them (she clearly isn’t), but your respect measuring stick does appear to lump them together.
Gawker is evil and immoral in principle. We agree. Fortunately, we can judge actions independently. Showing a lack of respect was not one of their immoral or evil actions.
“She raised a afmily of good kids. Sure, she raised a family of kids. Raised them well? I don’t think either of us know enough. Respect reserved.”
Oh, please. They haven’t hurt anyone; one is in the military, Raising kids, even bad kids, takes sacrifice and work, and she’s raised many. I’ve half-raised one, and it’s killing me. Respect earned.
“She was mayor of a town. Sure, but she was covered in ethics complaints there. Respect not earned.”
She wasn’t covered in ethics complaints as mayor, not in the least. The ethics complains started was governor, and that’s mostly because Alaska has a loopy ethics process that was exploited by political opponents. All but one ethics complaint was pretty much fabricated. I respect anyone who leads a state for any length of time, and so should you. It’s a tough, thankless job
” She devoted much of her career to public service. Sure, though it appears it was more to get a head then to do any actual good work. She also quit. Respect not earned.”
Since when is “getting ahead” an unworthy goal or motive? Public service is public service. I don’t respect her for quitting.
“She ran for national office. Sure. So did Spiro Agnew and any number of convicted murderers. She also piloted lack of accountability. Respect not earned.”
This is no argument. Running for office is a sacrifice, and subjecting yourself to the abuse of a vicious media takes courage. Agnew’s subsequent corruption doesn’t forfeit his earned respect for his legitimate public service.
“She’s written two books. Sure, but they’re riddled with inconsistencies. If I hired a ghost writer and slopped together two books denying the holocaust, would I deserved respect? No. The content matters. In this case, respect not earned.”
Nonsense! Her book isn’t about the Holocaust; it’s a memoir. It has biographical and inspirational value; it benefits the economy; it’s a net accomplishment, even if it’s crap. I’ve co-written a book; I’m trying to write another. It’s hard. I respect anyone who does it.
“She is a cultural political force. Sure, but not necessarily a good one. Respect not earned.”
Again, this is bias. She has energized the political system and inspire women of both parties to enter politics. I dislike both her and Hillary, but they have guts, drive and charisma, and they deserve respect for that.
“You also seem to imply that noone who has worked at Gawker has raised a family, written a book, or performed any kind of public service.”
No, I imply that their current activity is despicable, and thus they have no business denigrating someone with respectable accomplishments, like Palin.
“Yes, She has accomplished a ton, but I don’t think that any of those accomplishments should have necessarily earned her any respect. You are equating success with respect. By that measure, Pol Pot and Al Qaida deserve respect. I’m not saying Sarah Palin is anything like them (she clearly isn’t), but your respect measuring stick does appear to lump them together.”
Achievement IS worthy of respect, unless it is criminal, hurtful or otherwise unethical. You seem to only respect the people you agree with. That’s not respect; that’s admiration.
“Gawker is evil and immoral in principle. We agree. Fortunately, we can judge actions independently. Showing a lack of respect was not one of their immoral or evil actions.”
Not evil, not immoral. Unethical. BIG difference.
Out of point 1, I get that all parents are deserving of respect, especially (but not necessarily) if the kids aren’t criminals and some of them joined the army. All parents should be treated with respect in matters not at all related to raising kids. I find this position ridiculous.
Out of the ethics complaints, you appear to be the partisan one who doesn’t have their facts straight. While mayor, she approached the local librarian about possibly removing books she didn’t like from the library. That, to me, is an ethical (and legal) issue. As governer, the ethics complaints came from both sides of the aisle. The commission she appointed to short circuit the legislature even came back with her violating her ethics (which she has repeatedly lied about). I see no respect.
You can’t say she deserves respect for serving the public, while agreeing that she’s not serving the public for the public, but for herself. That cancels out any respect there.
Moving on to running for public office, you believe running for public office deserves respect. I don’t. You believe opening yourself up to the big evil left wing media deserves respect. I see this a red herring. What did the media do that was vicious? Ignore her inconsistent stories? Can she really get credit for opening herself up, when she never actually did so, instead pilotting the process of shutting the media out of legitimate inquiries of public figures? This deserves respect?
I didn’t say she wrote a book on the holocaust. I said that what you write matters. You ignored my point. If I wrote a book denying the holocaust, would I deserve respect for it? I say absolutely not. Now her book as little to no biographical value that wasn’t already known and its inspirational value is built on lies. You apparently also believe that everything that benefits the economy is worthy of respect. You’ve diluted respect down to be meaningless at this point, but lets continue.
You move on to accusing me of bias for noting that having a message doesn’t mean your message is good. I didn’t actually attack her message in that piece, just your giving her respect for having any message. Strawmanning me is not going to work. I do agree both those characters have guts, drive, and charisma. I see nothing in those 3 traits that earns my respect. I’ll give you being a female entering politics and running for high office as earning some respect.
You then recategorized your attacks on gawker to hide your behavior. You claimed that Sarah Palin was “infinitely more accomplished, successful and productive than anyone associated with a sleazy gossip website.” Later, you used such things as raising kids, writing books, and public service as things worthy of respect. I see only 3 ways this can go: no one at Gawker has done any of those things, your points in support of Palin are now worthless, or you are being hugely hypocritical. If I’m missing a 4th let me know.
So after all this, you then agree that you redefined respect to mean “did alot of impressive stuff” instead of “holding someone in high regard,” so my take down of you could have been done in 2 sentences: “You don’t seem to understand what the word respect means. You should probably correct that.”
Two last notes.
Ethical and Moral are synonyms. I want to see this big difference you speak of.
I also stand by my statement that Gawker is evil in principle. Invasion of privacy and causing intentional distress are a big part of their business model.