Conan O’Brien went on CBS’s “60 Minutes” this week, and managed to carefully trash NBC and Jay Leno without crossing the boundaries laid out in his agreement with NBC, which prohibited him from “disparaging” the network that treated him so abysmally and paid him 30 million dollars in the bargain. I sympathize with Conan. A “60 Minutes” softball interview (CBS is a competitor of NBC, remember, so it likes Conan, an NBC casualty and victim; “60 Minutes” only does tough interviews with people they don’t like) is good for Conan’s image, helps him publicize his national comedy tour and his new deal with TBS, and best of all, allows him to stick it to the people who did him dirt. This would be hard for anyone to resist, and obviously Conaa couldn’t. Still, it would have been better if he had. Continue reading
CBS
Ethics Dunce: ABC News
Watching the ethical standards of the major network news department crumble away is like watching a sand castle on the beach disintegrate with each new wave. There really is no resistance, or hope. It is just a matter of time.
Thus the announcement that ABC News paid $200,000 to Casey Anthony, the Florida woman who is accused of killing her two-year-old daughter, Caylee, comes as not so much of a surprise as just a further peak at the inevitable. Critics are pointing with outrage to the fact that ABC announced that it is cutting hundreds of jobs, as if this is somehow hypocritical. In truth, they are two sides of the same coin. Journalistic ethics have always been the most fragile of professional ethics systems, more dependent on success than principle. When there was limited competition, the networks could burnish their images by conforming to ethical standards and making sure everyone knew it. Now, however, web-based news, blogs and cable news networks are carving up their pie. Most of the consumers of news don’t care about ethics, and the National Enquirer, which has always practiced checkbook journalism, is up for a Pulitzer. Continue reading
After the Tebow Ad
The Super Bowl ad featuring Tim Tebow and his mother that caused so much angst and controversy before it aired turned out to be mild, understated and forgettable. Now we know why CBS felt it could use the spot to move away from its long-time ban on issue advertising during the NFL’s big game. We also know that the actual ad made the argument by abortion rights groups that the ad would be inappropriately “divisive” for an American sports ritual designed to bring us together seem even more ridiculous than it was—no mean trick.
In the ad, Quarterback Tebow and his mother never did tell the story of his birth after Pam Tebow had been counseled to terminate her pregnancy. You had to go to a website to read about it. Indeed, had the various advocacy groups that opposed the ad just kept their collective rage to themselves, few viewers would know about the pro-life aspects of the Tebow story. All of the ad’s work was done before it ran, thank to the pre-Super Bowl sputtering of NARAL, NOW, and their colleagues. Continue reading
More Tebow Ad Ethics: Allred’s Complaint
The much-anticipated Super Bowl ad telling the story of how quarterback Tim Tebow was born because his mother rejected a doctor’s advice to have him aborted for medical reasons is spinning off ethical issues at a dizzying rate.
Some are easily settled, as Ethics Alarms has already noted. There is nothing wrong with a Super Bowl ad raising substantive issues in the middle of beer commercials and tackles, as some have (incredibly) argued. There is nothing unethical about CBS changing its policy regarding issue-oriented commercials. The fact that the network rejected such ads in the past does not make it hypocritical now. CBS, having ended a blanket prohibition, must now be fair and reasonable in deciding which issue ads to accept. Let’s see how it goes before we cry foul.
And there is nothing “anti-choice” about a woman’s story of how she chose not to abort her son, and is glad she did. It is not even an anti-abortion ad, unless the pro-abortion movement literally believes that it is wrong not to have an abortion. She had a choice, and she made it. The message of the ad does encourage thought about the consequences of having the procedure, which is unequivocally good.
Now, however, Hollywood lawyer and woman’s rights advocate Gloria Allred has suggested that Tebow and his mother are spinning a tale that is inspiring, powerful, and full of baloney, and she has sent CBS a letter of protest. Continue reading
Ethics Conundrum: Poll Finds Fox News Most Trusted!
A new poll released today says that Fox News is the most trusted television news network in the country.
What?? Fox? The network with the tongue-in-cheek “fair and balanced” motto? The network of Glenn Beck? The network the Obama Administration says it considers “the communications wing of the Republican party”? How could this possibly be? Yet a Public Policy Polling nationwide survey of 1,151 registered voters Jan. 18-19 found that 49 percent of Americans trusted Fox News, which was 10 percentage points more than any other network.
I think there are several reasons for this result. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 