competence

Some Ethics Observations On A Ridiculous Sean Hannity Segment

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Last night, Fox New host and conservative radio talk show star Sean Hannity moderated what purported to be a debate on the topic of —guess what?— gun control on his cable TV show. The  guests were “civil rights attorney” Leo Terrell (I’ll explain the scare quotes in a second) and conservative lawyer Jay Sekulow. The two adversaries—and Hannity, who was hardly neutral—discussed The Journal News’ recent decision (Covered and criticized on Ethics Alarms) to publish the names and addresses of pistol permit holders in two New York Counties. The ensuing dialogue, if you can call it that, was painful to watch (but you’ll have to watch it to know what I’m referring to.)

Some observations on the miserable ethics of a nauseating episode: Continue reading →

Are Musicals Reviewed By Ignoramuses?

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments
STEPHEN SONDHEIM

OK, but Stephen: compared to you, everyone is an ignoramus!

Stephen Sondheim completed his personal memoirs about his career in American musicals more than a year ago, but they are so thoughtful, detailed and dense that I keep discovering new treasures, provocative observations by a first-rate mind. Yesterday, I found one that was buried in a footnote, in the middle of a technical tangent that most readers, like me in my first tour through the books, probably skimmed.

Sondheim pointedly did not use his erudite analysis and reflections in his two retrospectives (“Finishing the Hat” and “Look! I Made a Hat!”) to settle scores with critics, a group that obviously annoyed and to some extent handicapped him over the course of his long career. In this brief footnote, however, the composer/lyricist delivers a withering verdict:

“The sad truth is that musicals are the only public art form reviewed mostly by ignoramuses.”

At the end of the note, he repeats the indictment, this time changing the description to “illiterates.” Sondheim is accusing theater critics of engaging in professional conduct they are incompetent to perform, rendering expert opinions that are not really expert, and as a result, misinforming the public and undermining the efforts of serious artists, like him.  If he is right, not only are the critics unprofessional and unethical, the media organs that hire and publish them are unethical as well. Continue reading →

And An Irrational Perspective On Gun Control In The Unethical Cartoon of the Month: “America Reacts”

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

America_Reacts

Since most of the news media have been making fools of themselves with their over-heated, slanted and often hysterical reaction to the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, it was predictable that the odd corner of the commentariat occupied by political cartoonists would go even farther off the rails. For one thing, exaggeration is a tool of their trade; for another, they traffic in irony, satire and humor, giving them leave to jettison fairness and balance for a good laugh. Nonetheless, political cartoons appear on editorial pages. They express opinions that should be responsible opinions, and to the extent that they purport to represent facts, they are obligated to represent them with at least a minimal level of accuracy.

“America Reacts,” the work of Chattanooga Times-Free Press cartoonist Clay Bennett, appeared on December 18. I missed it; a letter to the Washington Post today complained about the Post re-printing it, which is how it finally came to my attention. I have admired Bennett’s work for a long time— I am critical of editorial cartoonists, but I respect and enjoy the good ones—-but this particular cartoon crosses ethical lines right, left and center:

1. As the Post’s critic pointed out, it unfairly deals in gross stereotypes. “Bennett makes assumptions that guns are more important than kids to men while only women care about children. My husband has guns and loves to go shooting, but no way would he choose guns over his children,” Marie Miller wrote. The cartoon also suggests that only men appreciate guns, and that all men are irrational gun nuts. Adding gender bigotry to the gun debate is not a constructive contribution.

2. The cartoon dishonestly frames the issue at hand as a culture having to choose between children or guns. Plenty of talking heads have made the same false representation, and it is intentional distortion for the purpose of appealing to emotions over rational thought. Or it is evidence of brain damage or progressive dementia.

3. The cartoon is incompetent. What is the point that the cartoonist is trying to make? That women are ruled by maternal-instinct and men are gun happy, rendering both stupid and useless? That women’s values are spot on, and men are mad fools? That every family’s children are really at risk because of guns? Is he advocating gun bans? The message is completely incoherent. It’s just a bad cartoon….on a serious and complex subject that could benefit from a good one.

If all a political cartoonist can contribute to an important national debate is the equivalent of a stink bomb tossed into a room, he should resist the urge.

________________________________

Pointer: Marie Miller

Source: Times-Free Press

Why Professionalism Is Essential: TSA Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments
The man behind the curtain is pointing and laughing....

The man behind the curtain is pointing and laughing….

Taking Sense Away is a fascinating blog operated by a former TSA screener. It is essential reading for air travelers, libertarians, critics of the TSA and anyone else interested in the strange, often infuriating  airport security procedures that have evolved since the events of 9/11/2001. His perspectives are not universally accurate in all cases (he reminds us frequently), but it can’t make air travelers happy to read the following, which he recently revealed as part of his answer to an inquiry from a reader about the unseen aspects of screening:

“Now, the I.O. Room (the image operator room, where your nude images are viewed at airports that still use the backscatter x-ray full body scanners), that, my friend, is a whole different story. In the image analysis room, no one is permitted to leave or enter without ample warning (part of TSA’s promise to the public that officers “would never see the passenger whose nude image they just viewed,” although I did occasionally witness this being violated, see Confession #1) and, like the private screening room, recording devices of any kind are prohibited. So in summation: what you have are one to two to three TSA officers locked in a room, viewing nude passenger images, with a guarantee that no one can barge in on them, and that no surveillance cameras can legally be present.

“Just use your imagination on the stories among TSA officers of what has gone on in the I.O. room. Personally, in the I.O. room, I witnessed light sexual play among officers, a lot of e-cigarette vaping, and a whole lot of officers laughing and clowning in regard to some of your nude images,  dear passengers.  Things like this are what happens (at the very least) when you put people who are often fresh out of high school or a GED program (although there are actually a few TSA screeners with PhDs, which I guess is sad on so, so many levels) with minimal training and even less professionalism, into the position of being in charge of analyzing nude images of people in a hermetically sealed room.”

Nice, huh? Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.)

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

“Corrupt, mentally ill and absent is no way to go through Congress, son.”

Here are a few questions about Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., of the Illinois Second Congressional District:

1. Why is Jesse Jackson, Jr. still on the ballot as the Democrat running for Congress in Illinois’ 2nd District, when he himself admits that he is laboring under a disability that has prevented him from doing his job, and doctors tell him that the road to recover will be a “long one”?

2. Why didn’t Jackson resign his seat, which he has been unable to fill except in name for six months due to his illness?

3. Why are the mostly Democratic voters in his district preparing to return him to office, at a time when the United States, even more than usual, needs all of its members of Congress alert, trustworthy, stable and present, when Jackson is incapable of being any of those things? Continue reading →

Remember, This Is The Best Newspaper in America

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

All the News That’s Fit..oh, the hell with it.

From an editor’s note to the New York Times article, “Last Call for College Bars,” which originally ran on September 26:

“An article on Thursday described the effect of social media use on the bar scene in several college towns, including the area around Cornell. After the article was published, questions were raised by the blog IvyGate about the identities of six Cornell students quoted in the article or shown in an accompanying photo. None of the names provided by those students to a reporter and photographer for The Times — Michelle Guida, Vanessa Gilen, Tracy O’Hara, John Montana, David Lieberman and Ben Johnson — match listings in the Cornell student directory, and The Times has not subsequently been able to contact anyone by those names. The Times should have worked to verify the students’ identities independently before quoting or picturing them for the article.”

Think about this the next time you read a Times story from an anonymous source. Continue reading →

“Your Boss Is Insane”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

On the site Learn Stuff, Sarah Wenger has produced an infographic with a strong ethics message, aimed at the vast number of people in management and supervisory positions in business who abuse their position and power, making those they lead miserable, unproductive, and insane themselves. How many horrible bosses inflict themselves on the nation? That is a mystery, though we know it’s a lot. Incompetent, unfair and irresponsible supervisors at all levels,  as the feature states,

“cost their employees their health and the U.S. economy some serious cash. Employees with bad bosses can lose their hair, gain weight and up their chances of heart disease by a whopping 25%. And to top it all off, poorly managed workplaces are less profitable and have lower levels of productivity. Psychopathic bosses: bad for you, bad for the economy.”

The problem is that management is hard, leadership is harder, formal training in either cannot cure personality defects that make being successful in these two endeavors unlikely, and because truly talented managers and leaders are so rare, most people rise to positions of power without ever experiencing what effective leadership is. A good starting point for any boss is a commitment to fairness and respect, as well as an understanding of what responsibility and accountability mean. That, of course, means ethics.

Here is Sarah Wenger’s infographic, “Your Boss is Insane,” re-published with her permission: Continue reading →

The State of Our News Media in a Nutshell

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Preparing for an early legal ethics program for Virginia CLE, I made the mistake of tuning in to Headline News’ morning show hosted by chirpy eye-candy Robin Meade. Breathlessly, she announced that an amazing baseball game had occurred last night in Seattle that ended at 4 AM! What followed was a three-minute routine with Robin’s sports guy, who pattered on about how long the game was, how the Beatles sang the National Anthem, how FDR threw out the first ball, showing his high school yearbook photo to show what he looked like when the game started, on and on. None of this was funny, of course, because it made no sense: the fact that the game lasted a long time didn’t send the beginning of the game back in time. The CNN editors somehow thought this was so hilarious that it justified taking up the time that Headline News could have devoted to actual news of substance, which was once the point of the channel, a compressed summary of breaking stories. That was the least of the problems with the segment, however:

  • The 18-inning game was about 5 hours long, which is noteworthy but hardly remarkable. It ended at 1 AM, however, not 4 AM. The time is measured in the time zone in which a game takes place, not whatever time zone the copywriters think will make it sound longer.
  • The sports guy announced the final score as 2-1. It was not. The score was 4-2. After an extended routine about how amazing and long the not-very-amazing and not especially long game was, the CNN team was obligated to at least get the key fact right: the score.
  • That’s not all. Perhaps in homage to the late George Carlin, who in his pre-hippie days used to do a sportscaster routine in which he said, “And now last night’s baseball scores: 4-3, 8-1, and in a real squeaker, 2-1!” , neither Robin nor her colleague ever revealed who won the game. (The Baltimore Orioles won.)

So, in summary, Headline News took almost three minutes to highlight a baseball game in order to make lame jokes, then failed to accurately inform the audience of the game’s score or winning team. The game, by the way, was an important one, as it allowed the Orioles to tie the New York Yankees for first place in the American League East.

This is, in a nutshell, the state of broadcast news today: sloppy, self-indulgent, unprofessional, incompetent, and untrustworthy. If they can’t give the results of a baseball game accurately, why in the world would we trust their coverage of anything?

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Exposing the Fact Check Game

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Ethics Alarms generally doesn’t deal in links alone, but I just had the experience of working for several hours on an ethics issue only to see an excellent post on the same tipic pop up on my computer screen, rendering my work both moot and inferior.  James Taranto, the sharp, funny, perceptive Wall Street Journal political blogger and wag  has long been fuming about the bias and incompetence of so-called “fact-check” features, as have I. He has never before done as thorough an analysis of their performance, however, as today, and it bears reading.

Taranto is a conservative, and the charge of leftward bias accompanies his commentary, but I don’t see how it could be otherwise. If there is a right-leaning fact-check feature, I haven’t encountered it. I continue to respect the Annenberg Foundation’s Factcheck.org, as it does the best job of controlling its own liberal bias and generally avoids the devices Taranto flags in his article. Still, its bias is often detectable, as I told its managing editor a few years ago when she addressed a luncheon I attended. She denied it; I had examples. She was not happy with me. Continue reading →

MDA Walks Alone

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

They miss you Jerry.

Last year at this time, the hot news was how the Muscular Dystrophy Association had unceremoniously dumped Jerry Lewis from the organization’s annual Labor Day telethon, it highest profile event and the centerpiece of its fundraising efforts for medical research. The telethon, shortened and without Jerry’s bombast and bathos, went forward, and MDA announced that it had brought in  $61 million, 4 percent more than 2011 when Lewis was still around. I was skeptical.  The MDA had violated core ethics rules that apply all organizations: Never cut yourself off from your roots. Honor your founders. Pay your debts. Keep peace with your past.  An organization that is estranged from its past heroes is estranged from itself.

I wrote, while designating the MDA an Ethics Dunce: Continue reading →