Character

Brian Williams’ Suspension

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

smoke-n-mirror

Nope.

This is smoke and mirrors.

From Politico:

“NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has been suspended for six months without pay following his false claims about an experience he had during the Iraq war, NBC News president Deborah Turness announced Tuesday night.”

Observations:

1.  An untrustworthy anchorman does not turn into a trustworthy one because he hasn’t worked for 6 months.

2. NBC apparently thinks, or hopes the public will think, that the issue is punishing Williams. Undoubtedly, there are (ethically obtuse, ignorant) people who think this way, but the issue is trust. Williams has shown, by lying to the public for more than a decade about his Iraq experience and probably more, that he cannot be trusted to do what his job requires: truthfully and reliably telling the public what happens in the world.

3. That an organization allegedly dedicated to broadcast journalism doesn’t understand that, or worse, does understand it and will retain an untrustworthy anchor anyway because he might still be profitable—after the heat is off, that is—is an indictment of that organization’s lack of courage, integrity, honesty, professionalism, and respect for its audience.

4. NBC says that its investigation of Williams will continue. I think it is possible, even likely, that he will not return. That means that this half-measure’s main result may be to mark NBC as a cynical, venal organization for which journalism is neither a calling nor a profession, but a sham and a profit center.

5. We will see if NBC’s audience is as gullible, foolish, and easily manipulated as this action suggests the network believes it is. If viewers just return to Williams like sheep, it is difficult to see why any news organization would value honesty and integrity, since its market doesn’t.

UPDATES (2/11)…

From Althouse:“I guess they want to see if we’ll forget why he left and start wondering why he’s gone, so they can bring him back. That’s all very lame and pathetic, and I don’t watch the nightly news, so there’s a limit to my outrage about NBC’s wan interest in the truth.”

From Ruth Marcus (WaPo): “Some discussion of Williams’s fate has involved his central role at NBC and whether the network could “afford” to lose its most recognizable franchise. This is the network version of “too big to fail” — that Williams is too important to can. I see it the opposite way: Williams’s elevated status subjects him to a higher standard of behavior, and more rigorous consequences. The face of NBC News cannot afford to be so scarred.”

 

Brian Williams Ethics Train Wreck Update: David Brooks’ Ethics Confusion

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments
Huh?

Huh?

David Brooks’ New York Times op-ed column decrying the widespread criticism of Brian Williams’ serial lying show us that Brooks himself is frighteningly confused regarding such basic ethical values as accountability, trust, trustworthiness and accountability. That’s good to know, don’t you think? Now the question is why anyone in their right mind would care what such an ethically muddled political and cultural analyst thinks about anything.

Yesterday, the Washington Post revealed yet another example of Williams’ fabulism: his bizarre story about roaming gangs at the local Ritz Carlton in the wake of New Orleans’ devastation by Katrina. Never mind, argues Brooks: the problem isn’t with Williams, it’s with his critics.

Brooks’ New Times column begins with a strange, exaggerated and unethically inclusive first paragraph about how  fame drives people to wrongdoing. “The desire for even more admiration races ahead. Career success never really satisfies. Public love always leaves you hungry,” he writes. “Always?” Who is he talking about, himself? The famous people being described here are emotionally and spiritually unhealthy famous people–addicts to fame, narcissists, desperate hostages to celebrity. I have no doubt that Williams fits that description,  but many prominent, accomplished and celebrated people do not. They are known as “trustworthy.” Having impugned many thousands of well-adjusted pubic figures past and present to lay the groundwork for an “everybody does it” defense of Williams (EDI is running neck and neck with the other favorite rationalization being used by Williams enablers: “It’s not the worst thing.”), Brooks attacks anyone not famous who resents being lied to:

“The barbaric part is the way we respond to scandal these days. When somebody violates a public trust, we try to purge and ostracize him. A sort of coliseum culture takes over, leaving no place for mercy. By now, the script is familiar: Some famous person does something wrong. The Internet, the most impersonal of mediums, erupts with contempt and mockery. The offender issues a paltry half-apology, which only inflames the public more. The pounding cry for resignation builds until capitulation comes. Public passion is spent and the spotlight moves on.”

This paragraph is astounding, and embarrassing too. Someone violates a public trust, and the public has the audacity not to trust him any more! What barbarism! Is Brooks even passing familiar with the concept of accountability? Not on the evidence of this drivel, he isn’t. An honorable man or woman in a position of trust who so publicly disgraced himself as Brooks has should immediately and voluntarily resign. Once, long ago, that was the natural, traditional, expected and required response to such a scandal, but this was in the days when celebrity and power was not so frequently accompanied by greed. Williams is paid about ten millions dollars a year, and that’s apparently too much to give up merely to demonstrate integrity, remorse and acceptance of responsibility for wrongdoing, especially when there are allies like Brooks out there ready to shift the blame.

There would be no need to purge someone who has proven themselves untrustworthy in a high position of trust if the individual would be accountable and courageous and purge himself, as he (or she—I’m looking at you, Kathleen Sibelius) is obligated to do. How can Brooks not understand this? The offender offers a “paltry apology,” and Brooks blames the public for correctly concluding that such an offender doesn’t understand the seriousness of what he did, isn’t really sorry, and will do it again. So the “pounding cry for resignation builds until capitulation comes.” Yes, David, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. This isn’t barbarism. This is civilization. This is enforcing standards. This is ethics, this is accountability.

Brooks doesn’t comprehend any of it, apparently:

“I do think we’d all be better off if we reacted to these sorts of scandals in a different way. The civic fabric would be stronger if, instead of trying to sever relationships with those who have done wrong, we tried to repair them, if we tried forgiveness instead of exiling.”

We’d all be better off if we let people who lie to us stay in the position that will allow them to keep lying to us? Continue reading →

Now THIS Is An Unethical Principal…Ridiculous Too

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments
The principal and her gym

The principal

Principal Jazmine Santiago heads PS 269 in Flatbush, New York, a troubled elementary school where last year only 16 percent of the students passed state English exams and only 12 percent passed math. Yet she used scarce school funds to install her own private gym on the third floor, complete with a bench press, pull-up bar, treadmill, elliptical machine and thigh exerciser.

Questioned about the gym by her staff, Santiago claimed she allowed older students to use the equipment. That would be the K through 5 school’s eleven-year-olds, most of whom are under five feet tall. The adult-sized exercise gear in the principal’s work-out palace would be almost impossible, not to mention dangerous, for children to use.

Santiago has had her job for four years and now makes $124,319 annually. Jonathan Turley notes that since the gym is technically a school improvement and not personal enrichment, she has avoided criminal liability. Well, that’s nice. She is still spectacularly unethical: selfish, irresponsible, incompetent, unfair, wasteful, untrustworthy.

State Department of Education spokesman Harry Hartfield said the matter of the principal and her private gym will be investigated. It shouldn’t take long: the photo above should tell them everything they need to know.

______________

Pointer: Res Ipsa Loquitur

Facts: New York Post

The Brian Williams Affair Is Now Officially An Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

trainwreck6

…and almost all the passengers so far are journalists.

An Ethics Train Wreck is an episode involving unethical conduct that rapidly exposes ethical flaws, if not an outright lack of ethics, in a steadily widening group of participants, commentators and stake-holders and even victims. The Brian Williams Ethics Train Wreck, like most of them, could have been averted early in the  journey, if, for example, NBC had immediately acted responsibly and suspended Williams when the facts of his 13-year-long fable about being in a wounded helicopter over Iraq were exposed by Stars and Stripes. It did not however, and now NBC executives have First Class seats after apparently knowing about Williams’ lies and doing nothing. It is Williams’ colleagues and compatriots in journalism, however, who are rapidly filling up Coach. In doing so, they are demonstrating that even some of the most famous names in the field have the under-developed ethical instincts of an 11-year-old, and that when substantive ethical analysis is required, they resort to rationalizations. This is discouraging, if not surprising. For example:

Bill Moyers.

Here is liberal lion and lengendary PBS commentator Bill Moyers  on Twitter:

Moyers-RS

That’s the depth of analysis we get from Moyers: flat out Rationalization #22, Comparative Virtue, #2, The “They’re Just as Bad” Excuse, and  “Everybody does it.” So what counts most in “journalism excellence” to this multiple Peabody Award winner isn’t that a journalist tells the truth, but that he doesn’t lie about the things Moyers cares about.

Piers Morgan

The ex-CNN talk-show host, whose credentials as an ethical and trustworthy journalist are, well, non-existent, penned a sarcastic attack on Williams’s critics called “Do we want to tar and feather Brian Williams or let him be the BETTER journalist this ‘scandal’ will make him? And trust me, I’ve been there.” As you can see, his argument begins with a straw man, and a cheaply made one at that: No, we don’t want to tar and feather Brian Williams, we just don’t think liars should be paid millions to tell the nation what happened in the world when he can’t be trusted to be truthful about what happened to him. It goes on to mass a pile of juvenile rationalizations, all of the Biblical rationalizations for example, which is a terrific example of someone projecting his own highly dubious career onto every other journalist. Yes, Piers, we get that someone with your dubious past would have trouble being taken seriously “throwing stones” at another journalist’s ethics, but not everyone is you. Then Morgan repeatedly says that Williams is being pilloried because he isn’t perfect [ #19 “Nobody’s Perfect!” and #20. The “Just one mistake!” Fantasy], and this is so unfair because he’s wonderful and should be given a break [ a classic #11. The King’s Pass, The Star Syndrome, or “What Will We Do Without Him?” and #38. The Miscreant’s Mulligan or “Give him/her/them/me a break!”] Continue reading →

“Maybe Republicans should just keep their mouths shut whenever rape is being discussed” (Cont.)

/ Jack Marshall / 67 Comments
To go into the "Gallery of Republicans Who Say Offensive Things About Rape Making The Whole Party Look Stupid." The sad part is, the gallery is filling up...

To go into the “Gallery of Republicans Who Say Offensive Things About Rape Making The Whole Party Look Stupid.” The sad part is, the gallery is filling up…

I just wrote the quote in the title a couple hours ago, and now this.

Rep. Brian Kurcaba of the West Virginia House of Delegates was involved in the body’s debate over a proposed bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and that does not allow an exception in cases of rape. He said:

“For somebody to take advantage of somebody else in such a horrible and terrifying and brutal way is absolutely disgusting. But what is beautiful is the child that could come as a production of this.”

I’m sorry to be uncivil and blunt, but he’s an idiot, the comment is signature significance of a near-clinical deficit of compassion and common sense, and any man this dull should not be allowed within 50 yards of a legislature. Continue reading →

The Ethics Scandal Is No Longer About Brian Williams. It’s About NBC, And Journalism

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments
"Uh, do you think we should say something to Brian?"

“Uh, do you think we should say something to Brian?”

Yesterday Brian Williams announced that he was removing himself temporarily as anchor of the NBC nightly news broadcast, as NBC revealed that it was conducting an independent investigation, which certainly sounds like eyewash to me (and others.) The ethics issue, however, has expanded rapidly to the point where Williams’ fate—and at this point, I think he’s doomed—is almost incidental to the larger broadcast and news media ethics issues involved.

Maureen Dowd and others have revealed that NBC executives had been well aware that Williams was, to put it kindly in Dowd’s terms, “inflating his resume” and yet declined to stop it. In other words…

…they were aware he was lying to the public, which means that

…they were aware that he lies in public, which meant that

…their face, voice, anchor and head of their news division was a liar, indeed perhaps even a pathological liar, meaning that

…Williams was unquestionably  untrustworthy, and

…a constant risk to misinform the audience, and

…they still didn’t remove him because his ratings were good and he was making money for the company.

Continue reading →

Verizon Joins The Effort To Coarsen The Culture

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

When did the writers of advertising copy decide that catch phrases devised to sound like vulgar slang are appealing devices to sell services or merchandise? If you are so devoid of wit and civility that you find Verizon’s new campaign hilarious, Sponge Bob is over your head. Oscar Wilde this isn’t. What it is is one more gratuitous coarsening feature of the public square and common discourse. Now we are teaching children that it’s cool to speak rudely, as long as you pretend that you aren’t intending to. Look! The grown-ups are doing it!

It’s an insult. It’s an insult to the target audience that is supposed to clap like seals at a play on words that would have rejected by the most desperate night club comedian 20 years ago. It’s an insult to the craft of marketing, to which this is what farting on key is to singing. Most of all, it’s an insult to society, the culture, and the United States of America. No wonder Muslims think our way of life is disgusting. It is.

I couldn’t bring myself to post on K-Mart’s abysmal “ship my pants” ad in 2013; I thought it was an aberration. OK, I hoped it was an aberration. Now comes Verizon to sell its FIOS by having actors complain that their internet is half-fast. Half-fast, get it? GET IT???

I’m not offended by the phrase—heck, I scream things ten times as ugly at my computer every day. No, I’m offended that there not only is no respect for others in public discourse, the entire idea that there should be is considered old-fashioned. This began with badly raised kids spouting obscenities in movie theaters, then began metastasizing as TV comedians, Vice-Presidents, Oscar-winning actresses, rock stars and others lacked the inhibitions to keep them from whispering, speaking or shouting obscenities into open mics, and now has gone mainstream. Fortune 500 companies run by Harvard Business School grads believe that promoting their business with coded vulgarity is cute and responsible. Well, it isn’t. It just makes the world we live in a little uglier, and it’s more than ugly enough.

Ethics Dunce: Mediate’s Matt Wilstein

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

logo-nbcnews

It’s so discouraging. What chance has Ethics Alarms to help people learn the art of sound ethical analysis and problem-solving when the web is teeming with prolific ethics dunces like Matt Wilstein?

On Mediaite, which is supposed to specialize in news media commentary, analysis and criticism, staff writer Wilstein has delivered an archetype of atrocious ethics reasoning, packaged as a rationalization-fest to save Brian Williams’ imperiled job. It’s called Why NBC Shouldn’t Even Think About Firing Brian Williams, and the title is the most ethical thing about it. After all, it fairly and openly informs anyone tempted to read this trash that the writer is addled. It’s bad enough to argue that NBC News shouldn’t fire the man who is its public face after he proves that he cannot be trusted to convey facts accurately, but to argue that a network shouldn’t even consider ridding itself of such a public relations and professional disaster requires a naive, cynical and illogical view of business, the media (Wilstein’s field!) ethics and life.  Anyone reading such a headline is duly warned not only not to read what follows, but to avoid any website that would allow such an author to pollute its pages and its readers’ minds.

Here are Wilstein’s reasons NBC should not fire Williams, and I’m not making this up:

1. His ratings have been good. (A non-ethical consideration)

2. He’s funny. That’s right: Viewers won’t care if they can’t believe the head of your news division and anchorman, as long as he’s amusing.

3. “Besides his “Slow Jam the News” segments and edited rap songs on Jimmy Fallon’s show, Williams has also leant his talents to other NBC properties by hosting Saturday Night Live and appearing on 30 Rock.” Translation: Versatility is what you look for in a journalist, not integrity or competence at reporting.

4. NBC has had to replace other key personnel lately, like David Gregory. In other words, convenience trumps trust. Or perhaps Wilstein is making the dubious argument that you shouldn’t replace your car’s defective engine right after you re-lined the brakes. It’s hard to tell.

5. Lots of people want to fire Williams, but lots of people want to fire most news anchors. Wilstein really writes this. He is arguing that 70% of his own website’s readers wanting to fire Williams for serious professional misconduct is meaningless because so many people want to fire other anchors for other reasons.

6. Maintaining  a network’s integrity alone is not sufficient reason to fire your news anchor. Well, I guess in today’s journalistic environment, where integrity means nothing, he has a point.

7. Here’s the jaw-dropper: Continue reading →

It Serves Me Right: I Don’t Watch The Super Bowl To Avoid Supporting The NFL As It Cripples Young Men, And Miss A Player Pretending To Poop A Football…

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

doug-baldwin

Did you and your kids miss the magic moment in the Super Bowl when Seattle’s Doug Baldwin celebrated a touchdown by miming the act of crapping out a football? You may have, because the broadcast’s director, undoubtedly primed for Seattle’s various crotch-grabbing antics—this is the biggest family TV event of the year, don’t you know—was on the alert for something ugly and snapped his cameras away.

But Baldwin still did it, and everyone in the stadium saw it. There was a penalty, and now Baldwin has been fined $11,000, the equivalent of a jay-walking ticket, the smallest fine for on-field misbehavior there is in the NFL. I tried to imagine, as a baseball fan, what would have happened in the World Series if, say, Pablo Sandoval had pretended to poop on home plate after scoring a key run. My guess is that he would have been thrown out of the game, suspended, fined, and instantly reduced his value as a free agent by 30% or more. Last season, Jonathan Papelbon, a moron, grabbed his crotch the way Seahawk Marshawn Lynch has been doing all season as he left a regular season game, was ejected, and suffered a wave of columns condemning him. How many columns have you read about Baldwin? See, the culture of football, and the standards of its fans, are so abysmal that a player embarrassing the league, the game, his team and the broadcast, not to mention parents watching the game with their children by pretending to poop out a football isn’t even a big deal now. After all, he didn’t cold-cock his girl-friend, beat a four-year old, murder someone, try to use doctored balls or deceive people into liquifying their brains: what’s the big deal? Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Case Of The Fabricating Anchorman

/ Jack Marshall / 51 Comments

The key question in any ethics problem is usually “What’s going on here?” With Brian Williams’ bizarre admission that he had been telling a false story involving his experience covering the Iraq War for over a decade, it’s impossible to say with confidence what is going on.

We know this: Williams told viewers on his evening news broadcast last week about an incident when he was covering the Iraq war, saying that a helicopter he was flying in was hit and forced down by an RPG. After the broadcast, soldiers began complaining on Facebook:

Screen-Shot-WilliamsScreen-Shot-Williams 2

“Stars and Stripes” noticed, investigated Williams’ account and found it to be false. Williams quickly apologized, both on Facebook and in his Wednesday broadcast. Here is his Facebook recant:

“To Joseph, Lance, Jonathan, Pate, Michael and all those who have posted: You are absolutely right and I was wrong. In fact, I spent much of the weekend thinking I’d gone crazy. I feel terrible about making this mistake, especially since I found my OWN WRITING about the incident from back in ’08, and I was indeed on the Chinook behind the bird that took the RPG in the tail housing just above the ramp. Because I have no desire to fictionalize my experience (we all saw it happened the first time) and no need to dramatize events as they actually happened, I think the constant viewing of the video showing us inspecting the impact area — and the fog of memory over 12 years — made me conflate the two, and I apologize. I certainly remember the armored mech platoon, meeting Capt. Eric Nye and of course Tim Terpak. Shortly after they arrived, so did the Orange Crush sandstorm, making virtually all outdoor functions impossible. I honestly don’t remember which of the three choppers Gen. Downing and I slept in, but we spent two nights on the stowable web bench seats in one of the three birds. Later in the invasion when Gen. Downing and I reached Baghdad, I remember searching the parade grounds for Tim’s Bradley to no avail. My attempt to pay tribute to CSM Terpak was to honor his 23+ years in service to our nation, and it had been 12 years since I saw him. The ultimate irony is: In writing up the synopsis of the 2 nights and 3 days I spent with him in the desert, I managed to switch aircraft. Nobody’s trying to steal anyone’s valor. Quite the contrary: I was and remain a civilian journalist covering the stories of those who volunteered for duty. This was simply an attempt to thank Tim, our military and Veterans everywhere — those who have served while I did not.”

Research has revealed that Williams has been telling various versions of the story for over a decade, sometimes saying he was in a helicopter behind the one hit by fire, sometimes saying, as he did on the David Letterman show last year, that he was actually a passenger on the helicopter forced down. Thus his Facebook apology is misleading, and the one he gave last night even moreso. At Powerline, John Hinderaker explains:

This is the statement that Williams read on-air tonight:

“After a groundfire incident in the desert during the Iraq war invasion, I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago….”

No: Williams has been telling the false story since shortly after the incident occurred. He told it for the last time, not the first, last week.

“It did not take long to hear from some brave men and women in the air crews who were also in that desert….”

Not since last Friday, but it took a decade or more since Williams first told the false story.

“I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by [rocket-propelled grenade] fire. I was instead in a following aircraft. . . .”

Again, Williams tries to mislead: his “following aircraft” landed an hour after the one that took the hit from the RPG.

“This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and, by extension, our brave military men and women, veterans everywhere, those who have served while I did not…”

A bungled attempt last Friday evening at the Rangers game. Williams implies, once again, that this was the first time he has told the false story. But he is on video telling the same story at least 13 times since 2003.

Williams’s on-air apology, like the Facebook version, was disingenuous. I doubt that it will help him in the long term.

Hinderaker, a prominent conservative political blogger, believes that Williams is certain to be fired as a result of the controversy, the convoluted details of which you can read about here, here, and here in addition to the Washington Post story linked above.

I’m not so sure that he will. Should he?

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz is…

“Can Brian Williams be trusted after this?”

Continue reading →