Luxury cruise lines and their passengers are being condemned in some quarters for continuing to dock their ships at Haiti’s private beaches while the rest of Haiti is in the midst of destruction, death and horror. “Royal Caribbean is performing a sickening act to me by taking tourists to Haiti,” one critic wrote one poster on CNN’s “Connect the World” blog. “Having a beach party while people are dead, dying and suffering minutes away hardly makes me want to cruise that particular line,” wrote another. Continue reading
Around the World
Media Ethics and Haiti
- Rebecca Solnit has written a powerful piece questioning the news media’s accounts of “looting” in Haiti. She argues that people in the midst of a disaster with a breakdown of infrastructure and government assistance are acting reasonably and justifiably when they take food and other necessities from abandoned stores. She believes that media accounts emphasizing looting warp the public perception of what is happening, vilifies the victims of the disaster, and prompts excessive measures against the “looters,” who are only trying to survive. She has a point. You can read her whole piece here.
- There is something oppressive and coercive when so many networks and cable channels interrupt regular programming to carry a telethon, as they did last night. It turns an appeal for help into a demand for help. Continue reading
On Hoaxes, Avatar, and More Late Night Ethics
Hoax Update
- Singer, model, television personality and inexplicable celebrity Tia Tequila announced in December that she was engaged to the heiress to the Johnson and Johnson fortune, Casey Johnson. The troubled Johnson turned up dead in squalid circumstances in January, prompting a grief-stricken online statement from Tia in which she spelled her beloved’s name wrong. Shortly after this, it was revealed that the engagement was a publicity stunt by Tequila, who barely knew Johnson. Fake romances for publicity purposes are as old as the Tudors, but this sort of thing further trivializes truth for an entire generation. Continue reading
Ethics Hero Emeritus: Miep Gies, 1909-2010
Miep Gies, the last surviving participant in the inspiring story of Anne Frank, died last week, a month short of her 101st birthday.
One of the most important objectives of thinking about ethics, and challenging ourselves to find the most ethical courses in the dilemmas and conflicts we read and hear about every day, is to be ready if and when a time comes when lives depend on our ability to determine the right thing to do, and to have the courage do it. I have no idea how much or how often Miep Gies thought about ethics. But when her time came, she was ready. Continue reading
Checkbook Journalism at NBC
The Society of Professional Journalists has properly condemned NBC for the journalistic ethics sin of “checkbook journalism”—paying subjects for exclusive news interviews. Following the happy conclusion of the protracted child custody dispute between American father David Goldman and his son’s Brazilian step-father, NBC flew the re-united father and son back to the U.S. on a charter flight, then featured them in a Today Show interview. Continue reading
The 2009 Ethics Alarms Awards, Part 1: The Worst
Welcome to the first annual Ethics Alarms Awards, recognizing the best and worst of ethics in 2009! These are the Worst; the Best is yet to come. Continue reading
Punishing Pregnant Soldiers
The outrage expressed by women’s groups over the Army’s announced intention to discipline and even court-martial female soldiers who become pregnant in war zones was as predictable as a sunrise. It also carries political firepower, and public appeal.
The complaints are, however, ethically nonsensical. Continue reading
Why the SEALS Must Stand Trial
It is one of those stories where Americans have to get stop thinking with their guts and use their brains instead. Guts can be useful, but not this time.
Three Navy SEALs who captured a highly sought terrorist in Iraq are facing court martials because of allegations that they abused him—speaking of guts, they supposedly punched him in his. It is unfortunate that the SEALS are being prosecuted rather than decorated, and it makes the Navy look unappreciative of their own men. The terrorist, Ahmed Hashim Abed, is believed to be behind the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. Yes, capturing him was a good thing. Continue reading
Ethics Dunce: Tag Heuer
Swiss watch company Tag Heuer announced today that it would drop Tiger Woods from its advertising. The CEO of the company told Swiss paper Le Matin, “We recognize Tiger Woods as a great sportsman but we have to take account of the sensitivity of some consumers in relation to recent events.”
Translation: We, of course, would never presume to question the character and integrity of a husband and father who engages in serial adulterous affairs with any cocktail waitress, lingerie model, porn star, reality star or other owner of two x chromosomes as long as she had the physical dimensions of Jessica Rabbit, but such conduct apparently displeases some of our customers, heaven knows why, and though we’d use Martin Bormann as a spokesperson if he sold enough watches, our guess is that Tiger won’t. So he’s out.
This is called “doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.”
But these are the Swiss, after all. They wouldn’t even take a stand against Hitler.
Self-Castration Ethics
Ouch.
A Colombian man whose wife refused to have sexual relations with him castrated himself to remove any temptation to become the next Tiger Woods.
This is in some ways admirable, don’t you think? Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 