As an old fundraiser, I hold the ethics of charitable giving near and dear to my heart. Null Pointer knocked the Ethics Quiz about the outrage surrounding the revelation that Fox News matches donations to some of the same organizations and causes it purports to abhor on the air out of the metaphorical ballpark with this Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quiz: Fox News’ Charitable Gifts”:

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People have the right to donate to whatever charitable cause they want. When it comes to corporations, they have an ethical obligation to not undermine the value of the company for the shareholders.

Charitable causes have become vectors for weaponized discrimination against certain groups in the United States. Look at the statement “The Fox’s donation policy states: “FOX will not match or provide volunteering rewards to : Donations to organizations that discriminate on the basis of a personal characteristic or attribute, including, but not limited to, age, disability, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity characteristics or expression, marital status, … pregnancy or medical condition either in its selection of recipients of the organization’s services, funds, or other support; in delivery of services; or in its employment practices.”

That statement sounds innocuous if you take it at face value. In practice, however, the statement actually implies a variety of discriminatory values. When they say they don’t discriminate against ethnicity, they could mean they support illegal immigration. When they say they don’t discriminate against gender or gender identity characteristics, they could mean they support transgender ideology. When they say they don’t discriminate against sexual orientation, they could mean they discriminate against fundamentalist Christians. When they say they don’t discriminate against religion, then, they are lying. When they say they don’t discriminate against pregnancy, they could mean they support abortion.

So, this anti-discrimination boilerplate is potentially chock full of discriminatory ideological positions against particular groups, many of whom are stereotypically conservative. They hold themselves out as providing balance to the leftist networks, while simultaneously taking positions that undermine conservative policy and ideological positions. This will harm their business and lower the value of the company. It is, therefore, unethical.

Fox News has a duty to at least be neutral in its political matching. By agreeing to support left wing causes and discriminating against right wing causes, they have failed in that duty.

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I’m back for a brief observation. Fox News’ journalism ethics watchdog Howard Kurtz has somehow missed this story so far. How odd! Ah, but how his now-departed successor at CNN, Brian Stelter, would have been all over it, though to Stelter his own network was the epitome of trustworthiness and ethical purity.