Barbara Walters

Ethics Dunce: Brooke Shields

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Brooke-Shields-barbara-walters

This post pains me. I am a long-time admirer of Brooke Shields. She navigated the perilous waters of child stardom as well as anyone, survived an overbearing (and often unethical) stage mother, and managed to turn her childhood and teen super-modeling career into long and variegated show business success that included several Broadway shows and a successful TV sitcom, all while appearing to maintain at least the appearance of sanity and good sense. However, during a recent interview with Dax Shepard on his “Armchair Expert” podcast, Shields decided to attack legendary broadcast journalist Barbara Walters for an interview she did of the then-15-year-old in 1981.

The podcast was following the trail of an October interview the current version of Shields, the one that is 56, did for Vogue. In that one, Shields expressed anger at the famous Calvin Klein ad that immediately preceded her intense cross-examination by Walters, the naughty TV spot that had the leggy teen clad in skin-tight jeans saying provocatively, “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”

In Vogue Shields said of the ad, “I was very naive. I didn’t think it had to do with underwear. I didn’t think it was sexual in nature. I’d say that about my sister, nobody could come between me and my sister… they didn’t explain [the double-entendre] to me.” As for the interview discussing the ad with Walters, Shields described her questions probing Shields’ sexuality as “practically criminal.”

Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month: A Reporter At The Press Conference By Dr. Ronny Jackson,The President’s Personal Physician.

/ Jack Marshall / 56 Comments

“Did you tell the current president about his predecessors’ exercise routine and does this president ask you about how he could follow his predecessors’ example to be as fit as Barack Obama was?”

—Unidentified reporter at today’s press conference by Dr. Ronny Jackson regarding President Trump’s physical.

It doesn’t matter who this particular biased, incompetent, unethical journalist was. It is impossible for an objective individual—that is, one who is not totally  unhinged by the Trump Presidency like the “resistance” fanatic who told Nancy Pelosi  at her Q and A session over the weekend,

“The idea that we are going to put all our eggs in the basket of the 2018 midterm election is seriously delusional…[he is] “threatening the whole world with nuclear weapons, right, plundering our precious ecosystems, now opening up our coastline right now, accepting the fact that we are going to have a white supremacist in power for four years and Nancy Pelosi has said impeachment is off the table.”

—to have retained any respect for or trust the rotting profession that has so obviously abandoned all shreds of its traditional ethics. If the idiot who asked that question of Dr. Jackson was an outlier, or an imposter, or a performance artist, one could ignore it. But the assembled journalists didn’t laugh, or jeer. They probably all thought it was a fair question. It wasn’t. It showed that the news media’s absurd and crippling infatuation with Obama is still choking its collective brain by the stem.

Obama is a decade and a half younger than the President, so one possible answer to the query would be,  “I told him to find Doc Brown’s DeLorean.” There is also scant evidence that Obama was especially fit. Unlike Trump, the President was (and perhaps is still) a smoker. He used recreational drugs, and he uses alcohol, none of which are activities that Trump ever engaged in. Unlike Obama’s predecessor, President Bush, he was not a conspicuous exerciser. He was younger and thinner than Trump, that’s all, and his medical condition was as vaguely described to the public as Trump’s was. Based on family history, Trump is a good bet to live longer than Obama. “It’s called genetics,” Jackson said.  “Some people have great genes. I told the President if he had a healthier diet over the next 20 years, he might live to be 200 years old.”

The translation of the foolish question that I highlight today is, essentially, “We all like Obama much better than Trump. Why can’t be more like our idol?” That’s all. The news media should be embarrassed, but they are not.  In 2013, Barbara Walters told an interviewer regarding Obama, Continue reading →

The Fifth Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The Worst of Ethics 2013 (Part Two of Three)

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Snowden

The Ethics Alarms review of a truly disheartening year in ethics continues with fallen heroes, ficks, fools and follies with Part Two of the 2013 Worst of Ethics awards….and there’s one last section to come. Be afraid..be very afraid:

Fallen Hero of the Year

Edward Snowden, whose claim to civil disobedience was marred by his unwillingness to accept the consequences of his actions, whose pose as a whistle-blower was ruined by the disclosure that he took his job with the intention of exposing national secrets, and whose status as a freedom-defending patriot lies in ruins as he seeks harbor with not only America’s enemy, but a human rights-crushing enemy at that. The NSA’s over-reach and mismanagement is a scandal, but Snowden proved that he is no hero.

Unmitigated Gall of  The Year

Minnesota divorce lawyer Thomas P. Lowes not only violated the bar’s ethics rules by having sex with his female  client…he also billed her his hourly fee for the time they spent having sex , a breach of the legal profession’s rule against “unreasonable fees.” Yes, he was suspended. But for not long enough…

Jumbo Of The Year

(Awarded To The Most Futile And Obvious Lie)

Jumbo film

“Now, if you had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed.”

—–President Obama

2013 Conflicts of Interest of the Year Continue reading →

Melissa’s Apology, Take #2: Much Better!

/ Jack Marshall / 96 Comments

Melissa finally realized that this photo isn't funny.

Melissa finally realized that this photo isn’t funny.

I posted earlier about the sub-par apologies offered by the infamous MSNBC Three, who decided to indulge their hate for Mitt Romney and Republicans by ridiculing the fact that Romney’s family now includes an adopted African American infant. Either Melissa Harris-Perry got a Martin Bashir memo, or she sincerely decided that she had not adequately communicated regret for the ethically indefensible segment. What she delivered, on the air this time rather than through Twitter, arguable qualifies as a Level #1 apology [“An apology motivated by the realization that one’s past conduct was unjust, unfair, and wrong, constituting an unequivocal admission of wrongdoing as well as regret, remorse and contrition, as part of a sincere effort to make amends and seek forgiveness.”]:

“Without reservation or qualification, I apologize to the Romney family. Adults who enter into public life implicitly consent to having less privacy. But their families, and especially their children, should not be treated callously or thoughtlessly. My intention was not malicious, but I broke the ground-rule that families are off-limits. And for that I am sorry. Also, allow me to apologize to other families formed through trans-racial adoption, because I am deeply sorry that we suggested that interracial families are in any way funny or deserving of ridicule. On this program, we are dedicated to advocating for a wide diversity of families. It is one of our core principles. And I am reminded that when we are doing so, it must always be with the utmost respect. We’re genuinely appreciative of everyone who offered serious criticisms of last Sunday’s program, and I am reminded that our fiercest critics can sometimes be our best teachers.”

Harris-Perry deserves special credit for the last sentence. She didn’t have to say that, and it is an excellent point for her to make, especially on her network, where some critics have been told that someone needs to shit in their mouths. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Actress Jennifer Lawrence

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

Walters and Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence is a young break-out movie star. She’s talented and charismatic. Now she need to learn that people pay attention to what celebrities think and say, too much so, in most cases, and she either needs to improve her knowledge base to say, 7th Grade level, exercise judgment by not spouting irresponsible and ignorant opinions as if the national media was a typical blog comment thread, or shut up about anything weightier than what it is like to work with her co-stars and what she eats on location.

I point this out because, in a regrettable instance of the aged fool interviewing a newly-minted one, Barbara Walters—who just told Piers Morgan, on the topic of Barack Obama,  that “We thought that he was going to be – I shouldn’t say this at Christmastime, but – the next Messiah“—-interviewed Lawrence for Barbara’s upcoming  “Most Fascinating People of 2013” TV special, and Jennifer opined,

“I just think it should be illegal to call somebody fat on TV. If we’re regulating cigarettes and sex and cuss words because of the effect it has on our younger generation, why aren’t we regulating things like calling people fat?” Continue reading →

Joy and Whoopi’s Unethical Bully Tactic

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

To have seen it live, you have to watch The View, which is not good for your brain or digestion, and be willing to watch Bill O’Reilly, which requires a tolerance for arrogant certitude that is only present in certain genetically gifted individuals. But on the video clip, you can see O’Reilly explaining why about 70% of Americans think that the Muslim center being planned for construction near the site of the September 11 terrorist is “inappropriate,”  saying “Muslims killed us on 9/11.” The View’s co-host Whoopi Goldberg took violent offense at the statement, exclaiming, “No! Not, oh, my god. That is such bullshit!” [Note: It is not “bullshit.” Muslims indeed performed the attack, in the name of Muhammad no less. ] O’Reilly, understandably confused, said, “Muslims didn’t kill us on 9/11? Is that what you’re saying?” Continue reading →

Cowardice Trumps Duty: The Oprah Bio Freeze-Out

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Sometimes professionals reveal the flaws in their ethical armor in their handling of the little things.

Celebrity shark Kitty Kelley, who has wounded other celebrities with dirty-linen airing, unauthorized biographies (supposedly her hatchet job on Frank Sinatra caused Ol’ Blue Eyes to consider having her whacked), has sunk her teeth into Oprah Winfrey. The usual, well-worn method that get such bio-trash sold is a media tour, and Kelley is a veteran of it, having used interviews and talk-show experiences to make best-sellers out of her bios of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan, the British Royal Family, and the Bushes. But these were just icons, super-stars, idols, royalty and world leaders; now that Kelley is taking on the Big O, all bets are off. It has been reported in multiple sources that the usual facilitators of Kelley’s book plugging efforts have been turning Kelley’s publicist down. They don’t want to cross Oprah. Continue reading →