Business & Commercial

Accountability Alert: The “Embarrassment” Was the Nation’s, Not Colbert

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

In a stunning failure of perception, accountability and responsibility, the second most powerful Democratic House leader, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, actually had the gall to criticize Stephen Colbert for Hoyer’s own party’s disgraceful conduct, which was egregious enough to humiliate the institution of Congress, the democratic process, and the nation as well.

“I think it was an embarrassment for Mr. Colbert more than the House,” Hoyer told “Fox News Sunday.”
“What he had to say was not the way it should have been said.”

Unbelievable. Hoyer’s party’s own committee invited Colbert, a comedian whose shtick is mocking conservative Republicans, to testify about the wisdom of allowing illegal migrant workers to harvest crops despite the fact that he has no special expertise or credibility on the subject whatsoever. Continue reading →

Katy Perry’s Cleavage and Sesame Street Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“Sesame Street’s” producers yanked pop songstress Katy Perry’s upcoming appearance on the iconic PBS children’s show after parents complained about her low-cut dress. They had seen a preview of her duet with Elmo on YouTube, and were scandalized.

The complaint, to put it mildly had no merit. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Rep. Zoe Lofgren

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, chairman of the House immigration subcommittee, has called Comedy Central’s Stephen Cobert to testify before the committee on illegal immigration policy. Colbert, who reportedly will testify as his TV persona, a pompous, none-too-conservative talk-show ideologue, has no particular expertise in the topic, other than a gag interview he had with United Farm Workers (UFW) President Arturo Rodriguez on his show. Continue reading →

Stupid Ethics Tricks: Buns, Mascots, Mottos and Maher

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Advertising Ethics: KFC is marketing its new “Double Down” chicken sandwich by paying college co-eds—who must  meet some secret standard of butt-comeliness—to wear sweat pants with “Double-Down” printed on the seats. The National Organization of Women objects: “It’s so obnoxious to once again be using women’s bodies to sell fundamentally unhealthy products,” says Terry O’Neill, NOW’s president. What an odd comment: is it all right in NOW’s view to use women’s body to sell healthy products? Is O’Neill saying that (not to give KFC any ideas) paying buxom co-eds to wear tight T-shirts advertizing fried chicken breasts would be wrong, but the same campaign for healthy, broiled breasts would be just fine?

I am tempted to say that any ethical condemnation of the “buns as billboards” method is attributable to the “Ick Factor,” not ethics. Continue reading →

Guest Commentary: “When Children Work; A Dialogue”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

By Paul Petersen

[Paul Petersen is the founder and president of A Minor Consideration, a non-profit advocacy group that seeks to protect the welfare of juvenile performers. Mr. Petersen was a prominent child star himself, most famously as “Jeff Stone” on the long-running TV comedy, “The Donna Reed Show.” The following commentary, also posted on his website, is inspired by the hearings this week on proposed child labor legislation in Pennsylvania, where “Jon & Kate Plus 8” was filmed. The legislation proposed  by State Representative Tom Murt defines reality television and would require all minors to have work permits issued by the state Department of Labor and Industry to ensure all adequate provisions have been made for the minor’s educational instruction, supervision, health and welfare. The bill also provides that minors can only work between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., and sets guidelines for the amount of hours, work, recreation, school and activities per day. A certified teacher would be required on the set of any production to monitor working conditions, and the bill would require 15 % of a child actor’s gross earning be set aside by the employer in a trust.]

Imagine if your boss unilaterally declared that your time spent in a commercial workplace wasn’t work at all but merely “participation.” That might be said of the drug store cat, or a barnyard animal, but to say that about a living, breathing, conscious human being passes all understanding. Yet that is precisely the position taken by reality show Producers and the Networks that broadcast commercial products called “reality shows” that feature children. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: What Do the Gulf Oil Spill, Pearl Harbor, Bernie Madoff, 9-11,Tyler Colvin’s Chest Wound Have in Common?

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Answer: They all are the inevitable consequences of the human conduct known (on “Ethics Alarms,” at least) as the “Barn Door Fallacy”—the irresponsible and unethical tendency to allow a dangerous situation to persist until it actually causes catastrophic damage, thus giving the decision-makers sufficient support to spend the money or cause the systemic disruption necessary to address the problem, too late, of course, to save the victims of the catastrophe. They lock the barn door, but after the horse is gone, and perhaps has trampled someone to death while leaving.

Who is Tyler Colvin? He is a major league baseball player in the employ of the Chicago Cubs. His season, and almost his life, ended yesterday: Continue reading →

“The Ethicist” and His Definition of “Unethical”

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Eureka! Bingo! At last!

While explaining in this week’s column why he hesitates to label a manifestly unethical practice unethical, The New York Times Magazine’s ethicist, Randy Cohen, clarified a couple of questions that have been bothering me for quite a while. Why do so many people react so violently to my conclusion that they have done something unethical? And why does Randy Cohen, a.k.a. “The Ethicist” so frequently endorse unethical conduct, especially dishonesty, when he believes it is motivated by virtuous motives? Continue reading →

Ethics Field Trip: People, Planes, Prosthetics and Problems

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

It’s an occupational malady: if your work involves thinking and talking about ethics, the increasingly unpleasant experience of travel becomes an ethics field trip. More than twelve hours spent in four airports and planes prompted these observations: Continue reading →

Fake or Real, “I’m Still Here” is Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Now, having had his film reviewed by most major critics as a genuine documentary and being widely assailed as an exploitive creep (including here), Casey Affleck is telling the media that the film is a put-on. If it is (and why anyone should believe a liar when he admits he is lying is an unanswerable question), then he exploited the audience and defrauded them into seeing a film under false pretenses. The movie isn’t funny, like “Borat,” and there is no legitimate entertainment purpose in staging a fake portrayal of a drugged out,  self-absorbed jerk, who is really only a lying, self-absorbed jerk. Just as James Frey’s  A Thousand Little Pieces was a lousy novel that attracted interest because he falsely represented it as non-fiction, “I’m Still Here” only could attract an audience if they were lied to—because nobody would care about Juaquin Phoenix’s idea of satire. Andy Kauffman he’s not. They will, however, pay to watch a human train wreck. Is Affleck trying to make the audience feel foolish? They are only foolish for trusting him. They won’t do it again.

I still think it’s 50-50 whether the hoax admission is another hoax, as a desperate effort to gin up box office. But it really doesn’t matter. Whether the film is truth or fabrication, Phoenix and his pal Affleck are despicable…just for different reasons.

Casey Affleck, Worst Brother-in-Law of the Year

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Imagine that your wife’s brother, who is also one of your best friends, is in trouble. He is ruining his health, career and reputation with habitual drug use and other self-destructive behavior. He seems to be deluded, yet his business associates and friends are enabling his behavior. A tragedy is  unfolding, and no one seems to care.

What do you do? Continue reading →