The local Fox affiliate had a story this morning about a woman who found a bag full of money, thousands of dollars.
“You won’t believe what happened next!,” the newsreader teased!
What? Was she killed by mobsters? Was it a magic bag, and she turned into a cockroach? What? What was so unbelievable?
She handed the money over to the police instead of keeping it, as, apparently, the reporters would have done and assumed “normal” viewers would do as well.
(Oh–the police located the newlyweds who had dropped their bag of money….the morons.)
Ethics Alarms 
(Oh, …… the morons.). Who, the police or the reporters? These days, it is hard to tell.
The couple that managed to misplace a bag full of cash.
Not certain I agree the newlyweds are the morons in the story. Tim Le Vier seems to be uncertain as well. People misplace and lose things because they are people. Anyone seen my keys? I don’t trust any reporter’s story without verification. And I don’t trust police to stop an alleged traffic violator without beating and kicking him to death. And I would be sick if in my mind if I thought the honest lady was a moron. In our society five years ago, this story would not have created such negative thoughts about such an event. Indeed, a depressing note.
“Everybody does it.” I am comfortable making that harsh verdict because I have regularly rendered it against myself through the years, for losing checks, the tickets to a Paul McCartney concert, my favorite hat that I wanted to pass on to my son, a brief case full of crucial documents, and more—too many to list. I sometimes sooth myself by recalling that when Gilbert and Sullivan and their company traveled across the Atlantic to premiere “The Pirates of Penzance” in America, Sullivan arrived here only to discover that he had left the score, which had not been rehearsed, at home. He had to recreate the score from memory, and recompose several gaps.
Jeez.
Anchor: “You won’t believe what happened next.”
Ethicist: “They were good people who did the right thing?”
Anchor: “How’d you know?”
Ethicist: “How else would anyone know about this story for you to report it? People who don’t do the right thing keep it quiet so the rightful owner can’t find them or the cash.”
I’ve told this story before, but in college I stopped by the union convenience store and waited my turn to pay for a soda. I notice a $20 on the counter between me and the girl paying at the register. She’s fishing for money in her purse and I decide it’s not hers. It’s not mine. I point it out to the cashier – and he genuinely thinks he knows the customer that left it behind. I say great, hand him the bill. Girl in front of me says “wow, I would have kept it.”
Honestly, I would have kept it too if the cashier acted clueless as to who it belonged to and the likelihood of finding the proper owner was nil. I stopped by the next day and the cashier said the money was reunited with the customer who left it behind. Again, I believed him and was happy that I was able to make a small positive impact for someone else’s misfortune. It’s the little things that keep our society going.
I’m happy the anchors reported this story. I’m sad that they are inept in their delivery. They took an inspiring and instructive moment and framed the honest woman as a moron.
As I think I’ve mentioned here before, my mother would have taken the 20 bucks as well as kept the bag of money.
Bag of cash? What bag of cash? I don’t see no bag of cash.
jvb
Judging from the number of times I and other officers either found cash ourselves or handled calls from citizens who found cash and turned it in, many people are in the “moron” category when it comes to handling their (or their employer’s) cash. The biggest amount I ever personally found was about $1,500, but I know of instances of officers and other people finding many thousands of dollars. Since the 80s, I think there is a presumption that any large amount of found cash is likely to be “drug money,” and most people (aside from the characters in “A Simple Plan”) decide to notify authorities immediately, regardless of their temptations. With small amounts of cash, I fear many people revert to “finders, keepers” rather than the Golden Rule.