Journalism & Media

Unethical Trio: An Ambush, An Incompetent Diagnosis, and Partisan Journalist Hackery

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Doctors and Kurtz

There were three notable unethical performances last week from professionals who should know better:

I. Dr. Benjamin Carson, neurosurgeon. Carson was invited to give the keynote speech at the National Prayer Breakfast (don’t get me started about why there even is a National Prayer Breakfast, and why the President should feel obligated to attend it) last week and turned what is traditionally understood to be a non-partisan, non-political speech into a direct attack, without explicitly designating it as such, on President Obama’s policies. Yes, it was a well-written, well-reasoned and well-delivered speech, but it was an ambush. Many conservatives were pleased to have President Obama  subjected to an articulate complaint that “spoke truth to power,” yet the objectives and specific content of the speech doesn’t matter: that wasn’t what Carson was invited to do, and it wasn’t what he should have done. Dr. Carson has subsequently justified his actions in self-congratulatory terms as an act of courage, but in reality it was an instance of a citizen seizing an opportunity to grab national attention and a prominent soapbox that weren’t his to grab. His actions made the President of the United States a captive audience to his amateur analysis of national affairs. It was disrespectful, and because it was given under false pretenses, dishonest. Continue reading →

Drone Ethics: The Policy and the Memo

/ Jack Marshall / 68 Comments
Hey, Fox News! INCOMING!!!

Hey, Fox News! INCOMING!!!

With the leak of the Obama Administration’s Justice Department memo laying out  alleged legal and Constitutional justification for targeted drone killings abroad, the ethical debate over this practice finally began in earnest. Back in October of 2011, I visited this topic in a post titled, “The Ethically Messy, Legally Muddled, Drone Killing of Anwar al-Awlaki,” who was an American citizen and also an al-Qaida leader and terrorist, and wrote…

“I am far less confident of a conclusion that the killing was legal than I am that the killing was ethical in a situation where traditional rules and considerations don’t fit the situation well, meaning that decision-makers must go outside the rules to find the right, meaning ethical, course of action.  And I’m even not 100% confident of that.”

This still accurately encompasses my view, although my confidence in the position has declined materially, in part because of the memo. However, my position in 2011 was based on the assumption, using the Bush Administration’s position, that the United States was engaged in a de facto war with al-Qaida, and as a tool of war, killer drones  are within ethical bounds by my analysis. The leaked memo, however, begins with the assumption that the drone strikes are not part of ongoing declared warfare, but rather a new variety of cross-border lethal intervention that has no legitimate statutory basis. I think that under those assumptions, targeting drone killings are illegal, unethical, and to the extent that they give the President of the United States the power to kill someone in any nation based on his assessment that person needs killing, ominous.

I’ll leave the legal analysis of the memo to others. For now, other than pointing readers to my earlier analysis of drone killings in the context of warfare, I just have some observations: Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms Banishes “The Smoking Gun,” Unethical Website of the Month

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments
"This? Sure, this fits our mission. Post it!"

“This? Sure, this fits our mission. Post it!”

“The Smoking Gun” website has been linked on Ethics Alarms from the start, as its published documents from various sources can be an invaluable resource in uncovering unethical conduct in business, government, and popular culture.  Being linked here, however, carries an implied conviction that a site is itself ethical, or at least makes a good faith effort to be so. I can no longer say this with confidence about the “The Smoking Gun,” and thus am deleting its link while designating it the Unethical Website of the Month. Let’s not forget that it is owned by Time-Warner.

Why the ban? A hacker by the name of Guccifer hacked into Bush family AOL accounts, stole private messages and photos and posted them online  to embarrass the Bush family and violate their privacy. “The Smoking Gun” then re-posted all of it, including a private letter from George W. Bush to his family about planning the funeral of his father. Continue reading →

“Free Wi-Fi” And Journalism’s Flagrant Untrustworthiness

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

You’ve probably memorized that State Farm TV commercial where the woman tells her friend that she believes everything on the internet because it has to be true, and introduces her “French model” date—a grotesque geek wearing a belly pack who can barely manage “Uh..Bonjour!”—whom she met on the internet. Well, last week we were treated to a lesson in how the mainstream media, even its most prestigious and trusted members, are about as trustworthy as her date.

None other than the exalted Washington Post breathlessly reported last week, in a front page story, that “the federal government wants to create super Wi-Fi networks across the nation, so powerful and broad in reach that consumers could use them to make calls or surf the Internet without paying a cellphone bill every month…If all goes as planned, free access to the Web would be available in just about every metropolitan area and in many rural areas.”

The story was stunning and worrisome–Why is the government competing with private enterprise? How can it undertake such a sweeping discretionary initiative with the Treasury deep in debt? Wait, what??—and rapidly spread all over the 24-hour news media, including cable, radio and the internet (Uh..Bonjour!). It is there still, largely uncorrected. The story, meanwhile, was essentially untrue, a mistake. Yet as of yesterday, it was still being reported and argued about as fact on such respectable and trusted websites as Salon, Reason, UPI, Business Investor, The Daily Caller, NPR and many more. The Post, meanwhile, has still not published a clear and prominent retraction, and the reporter who wrote the erroneous story is still spreading misinformation. Continue reading →

Stop Picking On Mike Tyson

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments
This time, it wasn't your fault, Mike.

This time, it wasn’t your fault, Mike.

“Law & Order: SVU” cast former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson as a prisoner and past victim of child abuse victim, who murdered one of his abusers. The episode bombed for the NBC show during the crucial “sweeps” ratings period, and Washington Post TV writer Lisa De Moraes attributes the failure to the show’s insensitivity in casting Tyson.  She wrote in today’s Post,

“Before the episode aired, about 7,000 people signed a petition asking NBC to recast the role. The petition was created by an ardent “SVU” fan who is a rape survivor and who said she felt betrayed by the stunt casting. Among those who signed the petition: “NCIS” star and abuse survivor Pauley Perrette. Tyson was arrested in 1991 and charged with raping then-18-year-old Miss Black America pageant competitor Desiree Washington; he was convicted and served three years of a six-year prison sentence.”

If the “Law and Order” producers erred in casting Tyson, it was in under-estimating the fecklessness, bias and hypocrisy of the viewing public.  Continue reading →

Dog Racism Update: A Definitive Defense of Pit Bulls

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Nanny dog1

Ethics Alarms has discussed the unfairness, bigotry and ignorance behind the vilification of pit bulls and related breeds on many occasions: here, here, here , here, and here. Now Joshua Holland has written an excellent primer in Salon for the pit bull-phobics to chew on, and he did a superb job of debunking the illusion that this is a monstrous breed rather than what it really is, an uncommonly delightful one.

Among the highlights…

  • “Pit bulls are the dog of choice for irresponsible breeders, dog-fighters, people who want a tough-looking dog to tie up in their yard and those who refuse to have their male dogs… 86% of fatal canine attacks involve an unneutered male, according to the American Humane Society.”
  • “A 2009 study in the Journal of Forensic Science, found that the owners of vicious dogs, regardless of the breed, had “significantly more criminal behaviors than other dog owners”…According to the ASPCA, “Pit Bulls often attract the worst kind of dog owners.”
  • “We have tragically betrayed our children’s beloved nanny-dogs, raising them irresponsibly, training them to be aggressive and then turning them into pariahs when they behave as any dog would in similar circumstances.” Continue reading →

Soccer, Sports, Corruption, and Cultural Rot

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Bitter rot After a moment’s reflection, I realized that it was inevitable that international soccer would be rocked by a match-fixing scandal. If I should have seen it coming, and I care as much about soccer as George S. Kaufman cared about Eddie Fisher’s social life*, then the officials of the sport should have seen it coming too.

From the New York Times:

“…A European police intelligence agency said Monday that its 19-month investigation, code-named Operation Veto, revealed widespread occurrences of match-fixing in recent years, with 680 games globally deemed suspicious. The extent was staggering: some 150 international matches, mostly in Africa, Asia and Latin America; roughly 380 games in Europe, covering World Cup and European championship qualifiers as well as two Champions League games; and games that run the gamut from lower-division semiprofessional matches to contests in top domestic leagues.”

Thus soccer, the most played, most followed, most passionately cheered of all major team sports has been rigged. It doesn’t matter that all the games weren’t rigged; what matters is that now nobody can be sure that a game isn’t rigged. How can a fan care, deeply care, about the outcome of an athletic contest when there is always a lurking, justified suspicion that victory is undeserved and that defeat is unfair? In the span of just a few weeks, we have heard the golden boy of American and international cycling admit that he was at the center of a cheating conspiracy, and that he used lies, influence and financial power to make his sport a contest of which competitor could break the rules most effectively. New revelations from Miami, meanwhile, indicate that Major League Baseball’s so-called steroid era, which supposedly had been vanquished forever, may never have gone away at all: several current stars, like the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez and 2011 National League MVP Ryan Braun, have been linked to treatments at a clinic known for human growth hormone therapy. Big sports mean big money, and where there is big money, there will always be clever, dishonest people willing to crush laws, ethics, sportsmanship and public trust in order to get more of it. Continue reading →

If Self-Plagiarism in Editorial Cartoons Is Bad, How About NY Times Editorials?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Times recycledA couple of weeks ago, Ethics Alarms gave political cartoonist Ted Rall an Ethics Hero designation for calling out his own profession for the practice of lifting the work of other cartoonists, as well recycling their previous cartoons as new. I hadn’t been aware of the problem, but apparently Rall wasn’t the first in his field to condemn it. Now James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal blog “Best of the Web” has found evidence of self-plagiarism in actual editorials…those of the New York Times! Taranto, who has been on a real roll lately, reveals of the Times editors…

“In a Jan. 8 editorial in praise of Hagel’s nomination, they wrote:

“On national security policy, there is much to like about Mr. Hagel, one of a fading breed of sensible moderate Republicans.”

“In a  Feb. 1 editorial after the hearings, they had a slightly different take:

“There is much to like about the approach to national security policy taken by this decorated Vietnam veteran and former senator who is among a fading breed of sensible, moderate Republicans.”

“The Jan. 8 editorial also included this trenchant observation:

“The opponents are worried that Mr. Hagel will not be sufficiently in lock step with the current Israeli government and cannot be counted on to go to war against Iran over its nuclear program if it comes to that.”

“And here’s what they said after the hearing:

“Mr. Hagel’s opponents fret that he will not be sufficiently in lock step with the current Israeli government and cannot be counted on to go to war over Iran’s nuclear program if it comes to that.” Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Fox News Anchor Chris Wallace

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

It has come to this: a journalist doing his job properly and meeting his professional duties now qualifies as exemplary conduct.

To hear the White House tell it,Fox News is nothing but a shill for conservative positions and anti-Obama criticism. This has always been an exaggeration, but especially so with regard to the Fox starting line-up of news anchors—Chris Wallace, Shepard Smith, Greta Van Susteran, Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly, who are generally fair and professional. Wallace is the best of the lot, and showed why in an interview with Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association’s  CEO who has been the group’s public face during the post-Sandy Hook gun control debate.

Wallace raised the ill-conceived NRA  advertisement that criticized President Obama as a hypocrite for not supporting the NRA’s proposal to have armed guards in schools, while sending his own daughters to a private school that has exactly that.

“They also face a threat that most children do not face,” Wallace said, making the obvious distinction between the  daughters of the President and the average student. “Tell that to the people in Newtown,” was LaPierre’s facile response.

“You really think that the president’s children are the same kind of target as every other school child in America?” Wallace said, eyebrow arching right off his forehead. “That’s ridiculous and you know it, sir.” Continue reading →

Be Very Afraid: Why Fake Statistics Become “True”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments
"Those nachos were COLD!!!"

“Those nachos were COLD!!!”

Last week, I wrote about how fake statistics become “true,” after Gabriella Giffords’ husband Mark Kelly asserted as fact that “85% of all children killed by gunfire worldwide die in the U.S.” while ABC’s Diane Sawyer tut-tutted approvingly. Credible advocate, shocking statistic, passive, lazy and biased journalist, politically correct objective—all the elements were in place. We will hear this lie for decades now, probably in a future Presidential debate.

Now the perceptive and watchful James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal has found a smoky gun that tells us much about why we get so many bad statistics, and why the media supports them. A U.S. World and News Report article combined the recent passage of  the Violence Against Women Act with the upcoming Super Bowl, to get this:

“Urban myths rarely have a useful purpose other than to confound, outrage, and frighten people into passing them along. But there’s a silver lining to this one—the idea that Super Bowl Sunday is linked to the highest incidences of domestic abuse in the country. While experts in the field dismiss that theory, they value the increased attention paid to domestic violence on the occasion.

“‘The Super Bowl does not cause domestic violence, and it doesn’t increase domestic violence, but it does increase the public’s awareness of the issue, which will help victims learn about help and resources,” says Cindy Southworth, vice president of development and innovation at the National Network to End Domestic Violence.'”

Oh. Well then the lie is all right then! Continue reading →