Race

Patrick B. Pexton: Worst Ombudsman Ever

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Interestingly, you can find Patrick B. Pexton's picture in the dictionary under both "bad ombudsman" and "bad hair."

Well, at least we know that the Washington Post’s new ombudsman, Patrick B. Pexton (who apparently escaped from a Charles Dickens novel) is a dud. That’s one good thing that came out of his column about his employer’s unethical coverage of the “Niggerhead” rock, otherwise known as “Let’s smear that scary Republican, Rick Perry, so he’ll never come close to being President.” Other than that useful but unfortunate fact, however, Pexton’s piece represents the most incompetent and ethically clueless analysis by a media ombudsman that I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of them.

Pexton, who is supposed to present an objective and critical response to ethical issues in Post reporting and editing, instead adopts the stance of its partisan defender. Wrong. That’s not his job. His job is to keep his paper honest and to reinforce stringent journalistic ethical standards. Continue reading →

Why Lawrence O’Donnell’s Interview With Herman Cain Wasn’t Unethical Journalism

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Lawrence O’Donnell’s unconscionable roast of GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain —-no fair journalist would call it an “interview”—made me realize that broadcast journalism ethics have fractured to the point where it is unfair to apply the same ethics standards to different networks and programs. My initial reaction to seeing O’Donnell’s over-the-top performance was that it represented a new low in broadcast journalism interview ethics. Now I think that is unrealistic and unfair. O’Donnell’s conduct was what MSNBC’s audiences want to see, and what critics should expect to see. Herman Cain, the target in this case, consented to the abuse. Where’s the unethical journalism? There was no journalism. Continue reading →

The Washington Post, Rick Perry, and “Niggerhead”: A Confirmation Bias Conundrum

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

I'm bending over backwards trying to be fair about this...

The Washington Post splashed a strange front page story across its paper face on Sunday. I have no idea what to make of it, because I am trying as hard as I can to be objective, and the story repels objectivity like my cousin repels women. It is shot through with confirmation bias: what you think of it is hard to separate from what you already believe.

It appears that Rick Perry, early in his career (when he was a Democrat), used to host events at a hunting camp where there was a large boulder that had the word “Niggerhead” painted on it. Ranchers called the camp by that name—-once a common one for rock formations and creeks in Texas and other parts of the country—long before Perry and his father, Ray, began hunting there in the early 1980s. Perry’s father leased the property in 1983, and according to Perry, the first thing he did was to paint over the word on the rock.  Perry says that when he first saw the rock, it was already painted over. But the Post found seven individuals who say they remember seeing the name on the rock during the time when Perry’s father’s name was on the lease. Apparently the old name is still visible through the paint. Eventually, Perry’s family paid to have the boulder flipped over so it couldn’t be read. Meanwhile, the Post says,  “Longtime hunters, cowboys and ranchers said this particular place was known by that name as long as they could remember, and still is.”

What are we supposed to take away from all this? Continue reading →

The Media Pundits’ Bigoted Preemptive Attack on Chris Christie

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

THIS seems to be a logical method for choosing a President.

Democrats and progressives are apparently terrified that a Republican will enter the presidential race who isn’t a religious zealot, a libertarian ideologue, a political tyro, a Mormon or a Texan, but a charismatic governor of a big northeastern state who is pragmatic, credible and successful. That would be Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey, who may be about to throw his hat in the ring. So the word has gone out to the media, or the media is just sufficient trained to protect Democratic presidents without further instruction, that it needs to define Christie before the American public has a chance to form its own opinion, and the definition it has arrived at is fat.

You know, fat. As in Rush Limbaugh fat, fat like the political cartoonist Herblock always drew lobbyists and “Big Business.” Diamond Jim Brady fat; fat like Sydney Greenstreet, the villain in all those Humphrey Bogart movies. Fat means bad; fat means lazy; fat means unhealthy, and ugly. Fat people consume more than their share, and are disproportionately responsible for global warming and soaring health care costs, don’t you know. They  have no self-control; they don’t have self-respect. We dread being stuck next to one of these porkers in an airplane. You can’t trust fat people. That’s really all you need to know about Chris Christie. This is America—we worship beautiful people. Fit people. Thin people….like, say, President Obama. Do we want to be led by someone who is fat? Of course not! Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Author Karen Hunter

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

In a jaw-dropping example of naked bias, dishonesty, and Bizarro World journalistic ethics, African-American author Karen Hunter complained on MSNBC that the Associated Press was racist by transcribing President Obama’s speech to the Congressional Black Caucus without restoring his intentionally dropped dropped G’s, as other services—unethically—did.

Here’s part of the AP version:

“Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,” he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. “Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.”

Hunter said the AP’s version was “inherently racist.” Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Actor Morgan Freeman

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Ah, God...you disappoint me.

As long as shameless, irresponsible race-baiters keep attributing opposition to President Obama’s presidency to bigotry, I’ll keep naming them Ethics Dunces.

The latest in this disgraceful parade is distinguished African-American actor Morgan Freeman, who told CNN’s Piers Morgan in an interview that the Tea Party and the Republican Party antipathy to the President is motivated by racism, saying…

“Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What’s, what does that, what underlines that? ‘Screw the country. We’re going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here’…It is a racist thing…it just shows the weak, dark, underside of America. We’re supposed to be better than that. We really are. That’s, that’s why all those people were in tears when Obama was elected president. “Ah, look at what we are. Look at how, this is America.’ You know? And then it just sort of started turning because these people surfaced like stirring up muddy water.” Continue reading →

Troy Davis, Lawrence Brewer and the Capital Punishment Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

At this point, nothing about the death penalty  in the United States makes any sense, logically or ethically, and that is true for all sides of the capital punishment debate. September 20 should be designated Capital Punishment Day in memory of the contradictions, absolutist pronouncements, convenient rationalizations and everything else that occurred in the years, days and hours before Troy Davis’s execution in Georgia. Then perhaps America as a society will devote one day a year to considering rationally and unemotionally how the death penalty should fit into its criminal justice system without having the discussion warped by the peculiarities of  individual cases. As it stands now, not only is capital punishment an ethics train wreck, the policy debate about it is an ethics train wreck. Everyone who even dips his toe into either becomes irresponsible, conflicted or intellectually dishonest.

Did you know that another inmate was executed yesterday? I didn’t, until this morning. In Texas, white supremacist gang member Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed Wednesday night for the horrific 1998 dragging death slaying of James Byrd Jr., a man from East Texas who had his head pulled off by a chain attached to a truck for the offense of being black. If death penalty opponents are serious and have any integrity, they needed to show it by protesting the execution of Brewer exactly as intensely as they opposed the death of Davis, but of course they did not. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Tavis Smiley

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Tavis Smiley believes in traditional American political values...like those of Boss Tweed.

Tavis Smiley, Black Educational TV’s provocative talk show host, unveiled remarkably shameless and divisive tribalism in his remarks to NBC’s Lester Holt.

“What is the presidency really worth? Is it worth not saying anything? Is it worth being silent when you’re catching the most hell, when you’re suffering the most pain? Especially, when you’re the most loyal part of the President’s base?” Smiley asked, speaking of the African-American electorate’s proper response to President Obama’s handling of the economy.

“That’s not hating on the President, it’s defending your own flanks. And whatever happened to that notion that to the victor goes the spoils? If anybody ought to be looked out for, it ought to be the persons who represent the most significant and the most loyal part of the base. That would be African-Americans.”

That would be Tavis Smiley, at his most irresponsible and racist. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Flying the Confederate Flag…”

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Blogger Edward Carney, who writes about the revelations of daily life (check out his blog here) put his finger on a central issue in the Confederate flag debate in his Comment of the Day.  Flying or displaying the provocative banner sends multiple messages simultaneously, and the individual responsible for the flag  is also responsible for the consequence of all of them. Claiming that one means no offense while knowing that one of the messages is unequivocally offensive is disingenuous,  naive, or willfully rude.

Here is the Comment of the Day on the post, “Flying the Confederate Flag..”:

“I’ll say this for those citizens and politicians who insist on flying the Confederate flag at local monuments and public events: at least they can make the argument that it represents history and a set of values that is still acceptable, even laudable, today. They can make that argument, however disingenuous it may be. The same cannot be said of everyone. Continue reading →

Flying the Confederate Flag: Protected Speech? Of Course. Unethical? Absolutely.

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Honor them for their valor if you must, but there was nothing honorable about their cause or their flag.

Once again, emerging from under-ground like a the seven-year locust, a controversy over the flying of the Confederate Flag is raging, this time in Lexington, Virginia, burial place of two Confederate heroes, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. A proposed city ordinance would prohibit the flying of the Confederate banner on downtown poles, and some Southern heritage buffs as well as Jackson and Lee fans are upset. “By all means [Jackson and Lee] should be honored,” said Brandon Dorsey, commander of Camp 1296 of the Stonewall Brigade of the Confederate Veterans. “I look at the flag as honoring the veterans.”

The problem is, Brandon, that a large number of Americans look at that same flag as honoring slavery and racism, and for good and historical reasons. Continue reading →