censorship

“Everybody Beat A Dead Horse Day” Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Cartoonist Jeff Hibbert's conception of Muhammad

I was stunned to discover that “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day,” last year’s mass warped exercise in going out of the way to insult the religious beliefs of fine, upstanding, moral Muslims world-wide,  is supposed to be an annual event. I would have thought that the justifiable abuse heaped on serial Islam-provoker Rev. Terry Jones would have shown the organizers of EDMD the error of their ways (which I correctly pointed out to them here, and here). But no. The self-styled defenders of the undoubted right to use freedom of expression recklessly and badly still claimed to be standing up for the sullied rights of  the “South Park” creators, who last year had their show censored by cowardly and hypocritical “Comedy Central” suits after a threat by some Muslim nut-jobs. For their part, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have happily moved on to the more profitable work of making fun of Mormons on Broadway, because they won’t kill you. Continue reading →

Abuse of Power and Press Intimidation At The White House

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

"Hey, Herald! Get with the program!"

In response to a complaint by the Boston Herald about the limited access its staff would have to President Obama during his visit to Boston,  Matt Lehrich, an Obama aide, attributed the treatment to the White House’s objections to a front page opinion article by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in which he attacked the administration’s job-creation record. “I think that raises a fair question about whether the paper is unbiased in its coverage of the president’s visits,”  Lehrich told the Herald in an email.

And maybe it does. Then again, there is a mountain of evidence that hundreds of media outlets, including four of the five major TV news organizations, the New York Times, The Washington Post, and many others, are also biased in their coverage of everything this president does–favorably. Apparently the White House, which has already disgraced itself by repeatedly attacking the one critical network by name for the state offense of not falling into line, can’t abide the fact that some print journalists are as prone to be critical of him as Chris Matthews is likely to get tingles up his leg every time Obama opens his mouth. Their response? Make it harder for the unfavorably biased journalists to cover the news. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Tucson’s NBC Affiliate KVOA

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Next  Monday night’s“Law & Order: LA” episode involves “a crazed gunman” who “goes on a rampage at a political rally, killing a state senator.” Sound’s upsetting. Hmmmm...where have I heard of something like that happening?

Oh, right.

Tuscon, Arizona, where the NBC affiliate, KVOA  has decided that residents are not only too traumatized  to view such an episode “ripped from the headlines,” but apparently to be in the same city where anyone else can view it. Station president and general manager Bill Shaw explains that “the Tucson community is still going through the healing process” and NBC’s show has too many similarities to “that horrible day.” KVOA will broadcast the episode on May 17 starting at 1:05 a.m, because…gee, I can’t figure out what the logic is. To make the show as difficult and inconvenient as possible to see for those in the Tucson area who want to see it?  To punish NBC for broadcasting it at all? This is paternalism of the most offensive and insulting kind.

The censorship of the TV episode is an abuse of the station’s responsibility to the community, and if I was in a position to do so, I’d pull KVOA’s license. Who are the station execs to decide what network fare is or isn’t too traumatic for its viewers? Why would a Tuscon resident who would be traumatized by a fictional drama based on January’s tragic events in the city watch the show? Why shouldn’t a viewer who feels up to the task be allowed to see what everyone else in the country is watching? If the episode is a masterpiece, or sets off a national debate, what right does Bill Shaw have to take Tucson citizens—of all people— out of the debate?

The station’s decision is unfair, disrespectful, presumptuous, an abuse of power and, as is often the result of such ingredients, utterly, utterly stupid.

What Do you Call A Newspaper That Defends Outrageous Journalistic Practices? How About “Di Tzeitung”?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

If Di Tzeitung had covered the Civil War

If I could pronounce it, the Brooklyn-based Hasidic newspaper Di Tzeitung would be useful shorthand  for “shamelessly using rationalizations to defend indefensible conduct.”

Last week, the newspaper ran the now-familiar photo of President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and others in the White House Situation Room, except that in Di Tzeitung’s version, Clinton  and the only other woman present, Director for Counter-terrorism Audrey Tomason, had magically vanished. Di Tzeitung had airbrushed them out, Politburo-style.

Of course, publishing the photo of a historic news event and altering it to convey misleading or false information (in this case, “Hillary wasn’t there”) is a substantial and wide-ranging violation of core journalism ethics, a breach of the reader’s trust, unfair, dishonest, misleading, incompetent and disrespectful. The altered photo was alternately condemned and mocked all over the media and blogosphere. Yet Di Tzeitung is largely unapologetic, and made it clear that it would do the same thing again if the opportunity arose. In a prepared statement, the editors explained why they did nothing “wrong”…well, almost nothing…challenging the Olympic record for rationalization by a news organization along the way: Continue reading →

Chicago’s Anti-Abortion Billboards

/ Jack Marshall / 107 Comments

The new billboards, soon to be 30 strong in Chicago,  feature an image of President Obama next to the words, “Every 21 minutes, our next possible leader is aborted.”

The campaign has pro-abortion advocates in full attack.  “Racist Anti-Abortion Billboards Hit Chicago” declared the Today’s Chicago Woman blog. Hmmm. Racist, eh? Would the billboard still be racist if we had a white president? If the same billboard was displayed in an all-white neighborhood? How is that message racist?

It isn’t. But if there’s one lesson the past few years have taught, it is that crying racism is as effective a way of stifling open debate as ever was. Continue reading →

Civility, Stupidity, Art, and “The King’s Speech”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

"Frankly, my dear, I don't!" (United Airlines version)

I was stunned and amazed to find that United Airlines was uncharacteristically showing a good movie on my six-hour flight, the Academy Award-winning “The King’s Speech.”

Good, and in the case of “The King’s Speech,” arguably great, movies, however, are owed some respect.  If United is going to show it, United has an obligation to be fair to the film and fair to its audience by not showing it in a manner that diminishes the movie’s quality or the audience’s enjoyment. Thus I was also stunned and amazed when the famous sequence in which the Duke of York, soon to be King George VI, angrily demonstrates that he does not stammer when swearing by shouting “Fuck!” repeatedly, was mangled by United’s language police. Continue reading →

Announcing: The Incompetent Elected Official of the Month

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

"What, me legislate?"

With this post, Ethics Alarms announces a new continuing category for ethics infamy: Incompetent Elected Officials.

We tend to focus on corruption, dishonesty, conflicts of interest and lies when identifying unethical public officials, but it is the wildly incompetent of the breed who might carry the most ethics baggage of all. An incompetent elected official not only is irresponsible for taking on leadership that he or she is unable to deliver due to a lack of brains, skill, experience or judgment, but also keeps a more deserving and able individual from a distinguished position that needs him, jeopardizes the public, and undermines trust in the government generally. The public’s ethics are also implicated by the incompetent official’s ascension to power, as the truly inept can usually be identified with a modicum of diligence and care. Incompetent and irresponsible officials require the assistance of incompetent and irresponsible voters.

Thus incompetent elected officials warrant special attention. And the first incompetent elected official to be honored as the Ethics Alarms Incompetent Elected Official of the Month is….Alabama Republican State Senator Gerald Allen! Continue reading →

Mr. Friedkin? Mr. Hawks? Meet Mr. Madison and Mr. Twain

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

It was Saturday Censorship at the Movies last night in Cable Land.

First, I got to watch that manly channel, Spike, blanch at showing a possessed 12-year-old girl use the work “fuck”, which, as you horror devotees know, is a word rather central to showing how she has been taken over, like Helen Thomas, by the demon Pazuzu. There was Linda Blair, as the suddenly possessed Regan O’Neill, bouncing rhythmically on her bed as her horrified mother and physician looked on, shouting “—Me!—Me!—Me!”, apparently horrifying them with a noisy outbreak of egocentricity. The later scene in which the Demon Child is found masturbating with a crucifix was also clumsily chopped up so it was impossible to figure out what was going on. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Mr. Madison, Meet Mr. Twain”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The Comment of the Day is from Tom Fuller, regarding “Mr. Madison, Meet Mr. Twain”: Continue reading →

Mr. Madison, Meet Mr. Twain

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Whitewashing America’s past doesn’t honor it, burnish it, or repair it. All it accomplishes is making present-day Americans ignorant, naive, cocky and shallow. American society deserves respect for recognizing its ethical and moral errors and misconceptions, debating them, and remarkably often, fixing them. This is another reason why the new volume of Mark Twain masterpieces omitting his pointed use of the word “nigger” does damage to history and culture. It is also the reason why the Republican-led reading of the Constitution should have included all of the Constitution, including the document’s initial support of slavery.

It didn’t. Continue reading →