During the 1930s, President Roosevelt and New York Mayor La Guardia frequently read the morning newspaper to radio audiences. Convicted Watergate conspirator E. Gordon Liddy managed to have a popular conservative radio talk show for years that mostly consisted of his reading articles from the newspaper. Today’s Times had many statements that made the ethics mines in my head explode repeatedly, so I feel compelled to share:
- Headline: “Cities Reverse On Police Cuts As Crime Rises.” My reaction: “Morons.” What did the “defund the police” activists think would happen? This goes beyond incompetence to criminal incompetence.
- This front page story contained one botch after another. The black superintendent of schools reacted to the George Floyd episode by sending a message to the parents of all 7,700 students in the district in which she labeled “a reality check” her conclusion that “Racism is alive in our country, our state, in Queen Anne’s County, and our schools.” Here’s a reality check that I am pledged to note every time anyone uses the Floyd death to show racism by police, the law, or the United States in general: there was and is no evidence that the episode involved racism. There is every reason to believe that Derek Chauvin would have treated a white perp who behaved like Floyd in exactly the same brutal manner. That a school superintendent would leap to the conclusion she did marks her as uncritical and irresponsible, governed by confirmation bias bias, and unqualified to lead a school district. As usual, the Times report never mentions that Floyd’s death was not am incident of racism except to those who wanted it to be, presumed it to be, or dishonestly used it for political gain. There are other unethical statements in the story, like”The debate has sometimes focused on K-12 curriculums after conservative activists began branding a range of topics including history lessons and diversity initiatives as “critical race theory,” an academic framework that views racism as ingrained in law and other modern institutions. The term is now often deployed to attack any discussion of race and racism in American classrooms — pitting educators who feel obligated to teach the realities of racism against predominantly white parents and politicians who believe that schools are forcing white children to feel ashamed of their race and country.” This is pro-critical race theory propaganda. Many non-conservative parents object to this indoctrination trend, and many black parents as well. It is an especially ironic statement in the context of an article about how one educator falsely interpreted a non-racial incident a proof of racism. How can such educators teach “the realities of racism” when they are biased and using false information? They can’t.
