fairness

Carolyn Hax Tackles An Ethics Classic

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

What do you do when you find out that the husband or boyfriend of one of your friends is cheating on her with another one of your friends?

This perennial advice column ethics teaser has been botched in more columns than I can count, so it was a pleasure to read the response to the dilemma by Carolyn Hax, the syndicated relationship advice columnist whose ethical instincts are invariably superb. Here was the substance of her answer:

“…to the husband or husband-poacher (whoever’s the closer friend), say something akin to: “I’ve heard this is happening, which means others have, too. That’s Issue 1. Issue 2: I want no part of this — I don’t even want to know what I already know. Issue 3: If Wife asks me something, I won’t lie. As someone who stands to lose friends in this mess, I hope you’ll clean it up.” Then butt out, knowing that if someone forces your hand, your next move has been declared in advance — and if your friend finds out that you knew, you can say: “I’m sorry. I did what I felt I could.” Continue reading →

The Supreme Court Upholds The Individual Mandate and Obamacare: The Ethics Opinion

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

This morning the Supreme Court announced its decision upholding the key provision in the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a Obamacare. It is apparently a huge and complex decision, and is now available in text form online here.

The political and legal analysis will be coming soon from others far more qualified than I [UPDATE: The legal dissections have begun, and you can’t do better than to start here] , and while I am deeply interested in them, that’s not my job. I won’t be able to read the opinions and the various concurring opinions and dissents, not to mention digest them, for quite a while, but some ethical verdicts are already evident from what I do know: Continue reading →

A Trivial But Vivid Case Study In Unethical Journalism

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“Wait…did we leave out something from that story?”

Yes, I know: it’s another Boston baseball story (“Yoooouk!”), and I’m sure there are similar stories from other cities. And yes, I know that the journalists at issue are sports writers, which have traditionally been to journalism what a Big Mac is to gourmet cuisine. Nonetheless, this is an instance where some members of the Boston media have gone out of their way to misrepresent the facts of a story specifically to impugn the character of an innocent athlete and to rile up people  –in this case, Boston Red Sox fans, who often mutate into something far scarier than “people”—who depend on them for information, and who can be counted upon to over-react to everything.

Red Sox starting pitcher Clay Buchholtz recently ended up in the hospital and on the disabled list with a dangerous episode of internal bleeding. After a few days he was released, weak and medicated, and told that he could resume normal activities immediately. Baseball needed to wait a bit longer, understandably, and anyway, he isn’t eligible to play in a game for two weeks. Last night, he attended an event that he had committed to attend before his medical problem, a charity event to raise money for the Greg Hill Foundation. Lest there be any question, this is a good thing, and noble. Buchholtz could have begged off, for he was just hospitalized and surely doesn’t feel great, but he didn’t, choosing instead to assist a group that raises funds to help local families touched by tragedy.

And here is how this is being covered by some of the Boston sports media: Continue reading →

“Obamaphone” Paranoia

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

“Oh NO!!! It’s OBAMAPHONES!!!!”

The fevered delusions of the Rapid Right are even more wacky than the corresponding hallucinations of the Angry Left, and I can only stomach a limited dose of either until my mind shuts down and I find myself wanting to watch back episodes of “My Little Pony.” The recent hysterical column by bona fide Tea Party wingnut Gina Loudon, however, held special interest for me, first, because it is such a wonderful example of partisan paranoia gone to Cloud Cuckoo Land, and second, because it singles out Ethics Alarms. I’m so honored.

Let me try to explain this without giggling. There is a federal program that provides discounts on basic cell phone service to the indigent under certain conditions, and it has been around since the Clinton Administration. Some Tea Party zealots got the idea that the phones were an Obama Administration hand-out, and spread the rumor while calling them “Obamaphones.” Rush Limbaugh picked up the charge, and turned it into a rant on his radio show, saying… Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Quiz: The Bank, the Addict, and the Broken Egg.”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

The recent post about Ronald Page, the gambling addict given an open, no limits ATM privilege by Bank of America, with predictable results, suggests two opposite reactions. That’s why it was an Ethics Quiz. I expected my answer that it would be wrong to imprison Page for a crime committed because BOA’s negligence triggered his addictive behavior to be countered by the response Karl Penny expresses, persuasively, here. This is his Comment of the Day on “Ethics Quiz: The Bank, the Addict, and the Broken Egg.”

“Jack, I do volunteer work in prisons with people who have all sorts of substance abuse issues. In addition, I grew up in a family of alcoholics. I say that not to garner sympathy or whatever, but to establish credentials, however unofficial. Addicts know what they are doing, even while they are doing it, they know it. They know it when they are sober, and they know it when they’re drunk (alcoholics, gamblers, drug abusers, etc—they’re all drunks—not very PC, but brutally honest). They are human beings imbued with all that goes into being human and, as such, they command my compassion and concern. But. They know. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Bank, the Addict, and the Broken Egg

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

There was a little software problem when Bank of America acquired LaSalle Bank and the two were transferring account data. As a result, LaSalle depositor Ronald Page found that he could make unlimited ATM cash overdraft withdrawals, even though he had only $300 in his checking account.  This tempting state of affairs lasted for seventeen days, and then from December 1, 2008 to May 31, 2009, Page gambled like a man on fire.  Unfortunately for Page and Bank of America—but fortunately for several casinos—Page is a gambling addict. He withdrew, and gambled away, $1,543,104.00

Now the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit says he is seeking to send him to jail for 15 months  after he pleaded guilty to charges of theft of bank funds. He is also going to be required to pay back the money, with interest, guaranteeing poverty for life.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz question:

Is this fair? Continue reading →

The News Media’s Election Year Ethics, Part I: The Right and Neil Munro

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Shut up, Neil.

While some on the left were making the ignorant and race-baiting claim that reporter Neil Munro’s rude interruption of President Obama as he announced his end-around Congress on the Dream Act was inspired by bigotry, conservative media outlets were making the equally absurd, but perhaps less offensive, claim that criticism of Munro was another example of how Obama is accorded kid gloves treatment by his allies in the mainstream media.

The main piece of evidence presented for this is an old clip from a Reagan statement about the Iran-Contra affair, in which reporters shouted out questions to Ronnie as he ended his remarks and turned the mic over to Attorney General Ed Meese. It is a forced, dishonest and pointless comparison: Continue reading →

Roger Clemens Was Acquitted, Not “Vindicated”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

The first ethics breach is the utter incompetence of reporters who nonetheless are permitted to go on the air and mislead the public. A jury acquitted baseball great Roger Clemens  of 6 counts of perjury today, and I have just screamed in my car, frightening Rugby (my Jack Russell Terrier), after hearing three reporters on three radio stations say that Clemens was “vindicated.”

Incompetents. Ignoramuses. Continue reading →

Should Black Journalists Be Promoting Race Loyalty As a Virtue?

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Go Team!

On Sunday’s “Washington Watch with Roland Martin” on TVOne, host Martin questioned several black journalists about the support shown by the Obama administration and black leaders for Attorney General Eric Holder, currently stonewalling Congress regarding a full accounting of what occurred in the “Fast and Furious” debacle.

“Many Republicans are calling on him to resign by demanding he release more documents, also in the Fast and Furious case,” Martin said.  “So, I want to ask the panel, is this White House doing enough to protect the attorney general? And also, where is black leadership? I mean, here you have Eric Holder, who has been — first of all, he was a high-ranking official in the Justice Department under President Bill Clinton. He becomes the black, first African-American attorney general. He has been very aggressive on many issues. But some folks are saying that look, he’s been taken to the woodshed and he is not getting the kind of support that you would think he would be getting.”

This is a disgraceful question that assumes that unethical conduct—racial bias— is somehow admirable. What difference does it make that Holder is the first black attorney general? How could that justify the media, the White House, black leaders or Congress treating  a black Attorney General any differently than they would treat a white, Asian or Cherokee Attorney General? Isn’t the issue whether he is a competent and effective Attorney General? Shouldn’t that judgment be race blind? Aren’t black journalists, like white journalists, obligated to keep race out of their assessments of how public officials behave? Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Jeffrey Warren

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

You’ve probably heard or read the story by now.

Wait! Maybe he’s Cherokee!

17-year-old Jeffrey Warren rose to accept the $1,000 college scholarship awarded by the local Martin Luther King Senior Citizens Club during seniors night at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California, and provoked both laughter and awkward gasps. He was obviously white—as white as Elizabeth Warren—and the scholarship for intended for black students, though Warren didn’t know that when he applied.

Later, Warren decided to give back the money. His family said they didn’t want the African-American women who gave out the award to be foiled in their attempt to help young black scholars, and that it was the right thing to do. I would say that it was a right thing to do, and showed exemplary kindness, compassion, empathy, generosity, charity and altruism. Jeffrey had every right to accept the money. The Club’s requirements were vague, and did not make it clear that he was not eligible when he applied. If he and his parents had wanted to make a political and philosophical statement about the hypocrisy of a race-based scholarship in the name of Martin Luther King, this was an ideal opportunity, and an argument could be made that this would have been the “right” thing to do as well, if not “righter.” Continue reading →