During the recent eruption of a national obsession with civility in the wake of Jarod Loughner’s shooting rampage—odd, because his actions had nothing whatsoever to do with civility—it became disturbingly evident that most journalists have only a vague sense of what incivility is. For example, using shooting or death metaphors and imagery are not uncivil. Criticism, even strongly-worded criticism, is not uncivil. Calling lies lies is not uncivil, nor is suggesting bad motives for official actions, if the critic believes that bad motives are involved. The fact that intense and passionate condemnation of an individual’s or a group’s actions angers or inflames others does not necessarily mean that the inciting words were uncivil, or even inappropriate.
Etiquette and manners
Unethical Quote of the Week: The White House
“Any suggestion that this was an insult to the United States is just flat wrong. As Lang Lang has stated before, he plays this song regularly because it is one of his favorite Chinese melodies, which is very widely known and popular in China for its melody. Lang Lang played the song without lyrics or reference to any political themes during the entertainment portion of the State Dinner. He simply stated the song’s title and noted it was well known in China.”
—White House Spokesman Tommy Vietor, arguing that Chinese pianist Lang Lang’s playing of a Chinese song that referred to Americans a “jackals” at a White House dinner was as innocent as the day is long.
The song was well-known in China all right—well-known as an anti-American song. Continue reading
China’s Secret White House Insult
Lang Lang, the Chinese pianist who played for guests the White House State dinner on Jan. 19 honoring Chairman Hu Jintao, apparently regaled the crowd with an unfamiliar melody (to the Americans) that was really a famous anti-American propaganda song from the Korean War, the theme to the movie “Battle on Shangganling Mountain.” Continue reading
To Edit, or Not to Edit: A Blogging Ethical Dilemma
I was just simultaneously reading an excellent, if not particularly revolutionary, article about blogging ethics and checking out the latest comments on the Immortal Tide (with Acti-lift!) Debate. Suddenly I found myself wishing that the author, whose essay concentrated on editing blog posts, had also addressed the issue of editing blog comments.
Unlike some blog platforms, WordPress does not have a feature that allows commenters to review or spell-check their own posts. Despite this, many of the regular commenters here have a better record of avoiding typos than I do, and I have preview and spellcheck features. When they make a spelling or grammatical error (and I notice it), I will fix it for them: WordPress allows me to edit comments. Sometimes a commenter will e-mail me personally and request an edit, and I am happy to oblige.
A while ago, one new commenter whose post was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors accused me of letting her errors stand to make her look unintelligent because she had disagreed with my original post, while I continued to edit comments that were more friendly. In her case, I actually hadn’t read the previous typo-infested comment that she was referring to, and treated her complaint as a request to edit it, which I did. But it was a mess, and I wondered then if it made sense, or was even fair, to turn an inarticulate, careless comment into a clear and persuasive one.
Today I have read several posts on the endless Tide commercial thread from a 15-year-old girl. The post is in text-speak, essentially, without capitals, punctuation or any attention to style. It is a clear comment, however,even if it is obviously the expression of a 21st Century teen. Should I edit her comment to give it more credibility, by punctuating it, for example?
What is an ethical editing policy regarding comments on an ethics blog? The options, as I see them, with their ethical pros and cons: Continue reading
Keith Olbermann: An Ethics Cautionary Tale
At the risk of being accused of proving the old proverb that when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, let me offer the observation that the apparently acrimonious departure of Keith Olbermann from MSNBC, despite being the cable channel’s biggest star, is a cautionary tale about ethics.
The lesson: the absence of respect for the opinions of others, accompanied by a lack of humility and a surplus of contempt for fairness and civility, will doom even intelligent, talented and hard-working individuals to inevitable failure, because they cannot be trusted, not by employers, not by colleagues, not by friends.
This is why ethical values are valued: they are essential to individual success, because they contribute to societal and social success. This is, I believe, the fourth time an Olbermann show has ended like this, and like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day,” he is doomed to repeat the pattern until he learns how to be a more caring, more trustworthy human being.
I hope he makes it. Keith Olbermann has the ability to help make this a better country, instead of a nastier, meaner, more divided one. I hope he gets another chance, and that this time, he figures out how to use his abundant talents to do it.
Unethical Quote of the Week AND Unethical Apology of the Month: Rep. Steve Cohen
First, the quote:
“I said Goebbels lied about the Jews, and that led to the Holocaust. Not in any way whatsoever was I comparing Republicans to Nazis. I was saying lies are wrong…I don’t know who got everybody’s panties in a wad over this statement.”
—–Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), in his initial dismissal of criticism over his rant on the House floor regarding Republican characterizations of the health care bill.
This quote is really remarkable, for it is hard to pack so many kinds of dishonesty into so few words.It’s hard to know where to begin. Continue reading
CNN and John King, Endorsing “Newspeak” and Disgracing American Journalism
And so it begins.
CNN’s John King: “Before we go to break, I want to make a quick point. We were having a discussion about the Chicago mayoral race. My friend Andy Shaw used the term ‘in the crosshairs’ in talking about the candidates. We’re trying, we’re trying to get away from that language. Andy is a good friend, he’s covered politics for a long time, but we’re trying to get away from that kind of language.”
What “kind of langauge”? Oh, you know: vivid language. Metaphors. Similes. Can’t have that on CNN, because, as everyone knows, a completely unrelated use of a cross-hairs graphic on a Sarah Palin campaign map had nothing to do with the shooting of Rep. Gaby Giffords and 19 others, but the media decided to make everyone think it was the fault of the map anyway. So now a news network, which is supposed to convey information, is apologizing for a guest’s use of the word “cross-hairs” in a context that had nothing to do with violence. Continue reading
The Lost Flashdrive and Presumed Consent
“Lose a flashdrive here? Call the Arboretum if you’re one of the visitors in this photo, or phone these guys if they are friends of yours. A flashdrive packed with photos and software has been in our lost-N-found for at least a month — Store manager Lynnea suggested we post a photo from the drive and see if someone cla…ims it. Describe the drive and its contents accurately & provide your postal — we’ll happily return it.”
The Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior Arizona recently posted this notice on its Facebook page, along with one of the photographs a staff member took off the lost flashdrive. Obviously the material on the drive is private; just as obviously, the flashdrive is lost. Is the Arboretum within reasonable ethical boundaries to examine and publicize private information without the permission of the flashdrive’s owner to help the owner recover his lost property? Continue reading
Speaker Boehner’s Sensitive/Cowardly Removal of Harmless/Violent Wording in Response to a Trumped-up/Genuine Problem
One of the characteristics of a true Ethics Train Wreck (or ETW for short) is that it eventually reaches the point where unethical and ethical responses to it are indistinguishable. The Tucson shooting ETW officially reached that point today, when Speaker of the House John Boehner apparently yielded to the complaint that referring to the health care reform law as “job killing” was inappropriate in light of Jared Loughner’s near-murder of Rep. Giffords along with killing or wounding 19 other victims.
In a post on his official blog, Boehner referred to the law as “job destroying” and “job crushing,” an apparent concession to critics like Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree, who argued that the House bill called the “Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Law Act” should be renamed something without “killing” in it, “for Gabby’s sake.” By doing so, the Speaker of the House gave credibility to an argument that… Continue reading
Golden Globe Ethics: Ricky Gervais’s Hosting Dilemma
Hollywood is buzzing and griping about the manner in which Ricky Gervais chose to host the Golden Globe Awards last night. The L.A. Times pronounced him “too nasty,” and it was clear as the night went on that his pointed and often personal jibes at the film and television egomaniacs filling the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton were often infuriating or embarrassing his targets. There was even speculation during the show (via Twitter) that he had been fired mid-ceremony. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 