Arts & Entertainment

The Ethics Of Getting Fired: Ann Curry’s Today Show Exit

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

“We love you, Ann!” “I hate you, Matt!”

I was going to make Ann Curry’s method of leaving the Today Show’s anchor chair an Ethics Quiz, but decided that there weren’t sufficiently compelling arguments for more than one conclusion: her farewell drama yesterday morning was unprofessional, and in her job and her industry, but also many others, professional obligations trump candor.

I will admit up front that I never liked Ann Curry, either as a news reader nor as Matt Lauer’s partner after Meridith Viera left the show. Her open-faced demeanor, which made it crystal clear with every story and interview where her own sympathies lay, was the antithesis of objective and fair reporting, regardless of the steadily increasing number of similar practitioners, like CNN’s eye-rolling, squinting, smirking morning tag-team of Soledad O’Brien and Carol Costello. Thus it was no surprise that having received the gift of being able to have an on-air good-bye and the trust of her NBC bosses to handle her farewell properly, Curry chose instead to (or perhaps it is fairer to say “couldn’t control herself sufficiently not to..”) make it obvious to viewers that she had been dumped, that she was hurt and angry about it, and that she blamed Matt Lauer, her co-host, who was widely reported to have made her ouster a condition of his new contract. The emotions Curry was wearing on her sleeve were especially glaring while Lauer was making the traditional speech about how much Curry would be missed and ended by trying to give her a show-biz hug and kiss. Curry refused to look at Lauer while he was talking, and ducked his kiss, looking for all the world like she was hugging Jerry Sandusky or someone similarly appealing. As we say in the theater in such situations: “Nice cover, Ann!” Continue reading →

The Gaby Rodriguez Virus—Hoax Your Friends For Fame and Profit—Spreads

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Be careful! If you catch the virus, you might lie to your family that you’re going to die, and write a book about it!

High school senior Gaby Rodriquez got fame, a book, a movie deal and awards, not to mention an A for her school project, by traumatizing her family and friends with an extended pregnancy hoax. It was inevitable that when such blatantly unethical and destructive conduct is hailed as “courageous” by media pundits and pays off in speaking fees and book contracts as well, other ambitious liars would try the same trick. Sure enough, a young straight male Christian decided to hoax his friends and family by telling them he was gay.

It’s worth lying to everyone who cares about you and trusts you for a book deal, right? Timothy Kurek’s experience posing as gay for a year is the basis of his “Jesus In Drag” coming out this fall. The Today show should slobber all over this one, and I’m sure Timothy will become a familiar butt on the couches of Ellen, Dave, Jimmy and others. And, like Gaby Rodriguez, he will be hailed for his “courage” to exploit the trust of his family and to betray his friends so he could use their discomfort as book material. Continue reading →

“The Ice Child” and Staging Theft Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Copy or inspiration?

Well-reviewed, received and attended, the Washington D.C. production of “The Ice Child,” an original horror play by members of the three-year-old ensemble Factory 449, has stirred controversy because of its staging and production design, which is not only strikingly similar to a New York production of another horror play, “Americana Kamikaze,” but the company candidly admits that its visual concept was inspired by the 2009 work. Factory 449 also maintains that the plays are different, and that their appropriation of the design elements of the Temporary Distortion production of “Americana Kamikaze” is within the realm of acceptable, and ethical, theater practice. In a statement responding to charges of theft of creative output, the company wrote: Continue reading →

Is Watching A President’s Speech A Civic Duty?

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

It certainly was regarded as one once. Back in the ancient days when there were just three TV networks and no cable, Americans didn’t even complain that all three would be broadcasting Presidential addresses at once, causing them to miss “Sugarfoot,” “McHale’s Navy,” or “The Gale Storm Show.” Ratings for Presidential speeches have been steadily declining, however, since the advent of cable and satellite TV, and the perpetual campaign mode of recent Presidencies has played a role as well.

I am a American Presidency enthusiast, as if you couldn’t tell, and I feel guilty about skipping President Obama’s address on the economy last night, as I feel guilty every time I re-arrange my sock drawer when POTUS speaks to the nation. That’s been my habit for a long, long time. Yes, I never miss inaugural addresses, and I always watch the State of the Union speech, though that commitment is on life support. The rest? If there is a genuine and immediate crisis, an announcement of war or something similarly earth-shattering, I’ll be in the TV audience. Addresses like last night’s, however—-vaguely political speeches calculated to bolster support, spin bad news or bash the opposition—-those I just can’t tolerate, and haven’t for decades. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Month: The Producers of HBO’s “Game of Thrones”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

“We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can’t afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush. In the DVD commentary, we mentioned this, though we should not have. We meant no disrespect to the former President and apologize if anything we said or did suggested otherwise.”

—– David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the producers of HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” explaining how a replica of former President George W. Bush’s head came to be placed on a pike in one episode. HBO had previously apologized for the display as “in very bad taste.”

Stay classy, Hollywood.

I detest public lies that the liars know nobody in their right mind will believe, as they are insulting, dishonest (obviously) and degrade the culture by sending the message that lying is just a game., and being a liar is nothing to be ashamed of. I also detest fake forced apologies, in which  individuals have been ordered by some authority to issue mea culpas or else, and the result is  apologies so insincere that they border on parody.

This statement by the producers of “Game of Thrones,” then, is especially objectionable, because it meets both criteria. Continue reading →

Funny, Clever, Convenient, And Wrong: Housebites

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

“Your dirty pans, sir…just as you ordered them!”

Normally I wouldn’t post about the practices of a U.K. company, since there are already too many U.S. stories involving ethics for me to keep up with. The innovation added to the world of deception by Housebites, however, has United States written all over it, and I predict it will travel across the pond in about a minute and a half.

The British company will not only cook and deliver a gourmet meal to order for your dinner party or romantic evening…it will deliver dirty pots and pans, to give your claims of hard labor in the kitchen that extra believability. From the company’s press release:

“Housebites.com, the takeaway service that delivers restaurant quality food has today announced a service called ‘pretend you cooked’ that allows customers to pretend they have slaved away at a hot stove more convincingly by delivering dirty pans alongside the food. Cooked by a professional chef and delivered to your door, Housebites main courses cost on average between £10 and £12, and now for an additional £5, customers can request the pans used to cook them for added authenticity. Collection of the pans is then arranged as easily as the original delivery slot.”

How nice. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Fashion Model Melissa Stetten

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Hideous.

We have covered this territory before: the unethical conduct of the cruel and arrogant conversant or correspondent who publicizes private communication over the internet in order to embarrass someone whose only offense was social awkwardness or a moment of bad judgment, and whose biggest mistake was trusting a heartless jerk.  It is the Golden Rule breach of breaches, and is social misconduct that shows a serious deficit in kindness, fairness and decency.

Model Melissa Stetten, however, takes the cake, except that models aren’t allowed to have cake. Flying in First Class  from New York to Los Angeles, Stetten found herself next to actor Brian Presley, who was apparently rendered weak-kneed and stupid in the proximity of such beauty, plus he was a little drunk. His flirtatious chit-chat was both awkward and  pompous, so Stetten, who, like most models, undoubtedly has the conversational skills of Dorothy Parker, decided to  live-tweet their conversation to her 30,000 followers.

Brian Presley, naturally, was humilated. His wife was probably furious with him. His fans now know him as a dork who trots out the lamest pick-up lines ever devised. He also, apparently, was in the midst of an alcoholic relapse, so naturally Stetten mocked him for that too in her tweets. (Her entire performance is available on the web; I’m not going to circulate it. Unlike the New York Timse, jI don’t believe that just because I have access to information  I should magnify the harm it can do by helping to circulate it.) Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Are Fake Dwarves Unethical?

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Remember, Disney didn’t cast little people as the dwarfs either…he cast ink.

The advocacy group “Little People of America” is crying foul because the seven dwarves (or dwarfs, if you’re Walt Disney) in “Snow White and the Huntsman” were played not by real little people (who don’t like being called dwarves, just playing them for money) but by digitally-altered normal-sized actors.

A representative of the group told the gossip web site TMZ that the studios should be “casting people with dwarfism as characters that were specifically written to be played by little people … and other roles that would be open to people of short stature.”

Your Ethics Quiz of the Day: Do movie makers have an obligation to cast small people in small people’s roles? Is it unethical to use special effects to do avoid casting them? Continue reading →

How Consequentialism Leads To Bad Ethics: An Illustration

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Tgt passes along this cartoon by Zach Weiner. He knew why I would like it: I am often railing about the misuse of consequentialism, justifying an act as ethical after it has produced desirable results. This fallacy bolsters “the ends justify the means” reasoning and makes every act, even clearly wrongful ones, theoretically redeemable in retrospect, after the results are in (although, of course, all the results are never in. That’s Chaos for you!)  The defense of torture by Bush administration defenders on the grounds that it may have uncovered valuable intelligence is the most recent example. Had the unconstitutional imprisonment of Japanese-American citizens in World War II  prevented some Japanese undercover plot by imbedded traitors, undoubtedly that fact would be used to justify an unjustifiable and disgraceful breach of American law and values. Looking backward creates this ethical distortion.

It is equally infuriating, to me at least, when good and ethical decisions are judged, usually by the media or by political pundits, as “wrong” or ” mistakes” because of bad results that could not have been foreseen when the decision was made or the act undertaken.

Weiner’s cartoon nicely marks the logical flaws in backward ethics, for those for whom the word “backward” is an insufficient clue.

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Spark and Pointer: tgt

Source: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.

 

A Golden Rule Tutorial By Martin Short

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Boy, Kathy Lee, are you lucky!

Visiting the late version of the Today Show to plug a film, actor/comedian Martin Short was not expecting to have to answer awkward questions about his wife, Nancy Dolman, who, after all, has been dead since she succumbed to ovarian cancer two years ago. Then again, he might have, since his host, the flighty Kathy Lee Gifford, could not reasonably be expected to uphold the basic standards of professional journalism, which include knowing whom you are interviewing and avoiding mortifying one’s guests. Sure enough, Gifford left her index cards to wax enthusiastic about her “good friend’s” marriage, as if she and the Shorts regularly hung out together. Kathy Lee said, “He and Nancy have one of the greatest marriages of anybody in show business. How many years now for you guys?” Short, who is a pro, managed to conceal his discomfort and pleasantly responded, “We … for 36 years.”

Gifford then went into full Kathy Lee mode, which resembles a boa constrictor squeezing a goat.  “But you’re still, like, in love?” she asked. Short responded, “Madly, madly in love.” Continue reading →