fairness

Teaching Racial Distrust in D.C.: “Trayvon Martin Day”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

“Now children , what does the fact that Trayvon Martin was carrying Skittles prove? That’s right! It proves he was racially profiled!”

Combine one of the worst school systems in the country with race bias and ignorance, and you get “Trayvon Martin Day.”

In Washington, D.C, Malcolm X Elementary in Southeast D.C. declared this Friday “Trayvon Martin Day.”  The nearly all-black school is using the case of Martin’s shooting death in his confrontation with George Zimmerman as part of its “Let’s Keep Our Children Safe” seminar, “to better educate students and their parents about race relations and social injustice,” and to help reduce the needless violence and bullying in the community, according the Principal J. Harrison Coleman.

That’s interesting. And how, exactly, does the death of a Florida teen in which the circumstances are still unknown and the facts have been polluted by race-baiting demagogues, news media sensationalism and a Congressional lynch mob warrant inclusion in a seminar with those lofty goals? Continue reading →

Integrity Check For Obama Supporters: Is This Really How You Want The Campaign To Go?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

On the heels of Newark Mayor Corey Booker’s criticism of the Obama campaign’s anti-Bain ad and his subsequent simpering recant, an interesting thing happened: some people actually checked the ad for fairness and accuracy…never mind that it was widely interpreted as an anti-capitalist statement in the world’s most successful capitalist nation. Part of the impetus for the check was loyal Democratic consultant and spin-master Lanny Davis announcing on television that the ad was deceptive in more ways than one.

If you have not seen the spot, here it is:

It tells the story of the demise of  GS Industries through interviews with sad-eyed, salt-of-the-earth workers who accuse Bain of buying their town’s small steel company to destroy it. 30-year steelworker Joe Soptic tells the camera,  “They made as much money off it as they could. And they closed it down, they filed for bankruptcy without any concern for the families or the communities.” Jack Cobb, a another steelworker, calls Bain “a vampire. They came in and sucked the life out of us.” Things were going fine, they all say, until Bain Capital, under the leadership of Mitt Romney, bought the company and soon sold them down the river, laying everyone off and pocketing a huge profit. How that would work…how buying a company and its equipment and then quickly shutting it down would be profitable….is never explained, because actual information is irrelevant to the makers of the ad. The point of the Obama campaign is to contrast the intercut video of Mitt Romney saying he created jobs with the weather-beaten faces of hard-working Americans who say he threw them out of work to funnel money to his rich friends.

Deceit, you’ll recall, is when one uses facts to deceive, usually by omitting other facts that make the revealed facts understandable. Deceit is a form of lying, a very effective and insidious form. President Obama’s anti-Bain ad is, beyond question, deceitful, and deceptive, which means that in this instance at least, so is he. For he, Barack Obama, “approved this message.” Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms Lubricant 2: Ken at Popehat on Integrity and Free Speech

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Today has been designated “Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day,” and unlike the last declared day of mass web defiance, “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day”, which was really “Everybody Go Out of Their Way To Insult All Muslims Because Some of Them Are Violent Fanatics And Comedy Central Didn’t Have The Guts To Stand Up To Them Day”, I support this one fully. Kimberlin is a violent far Left activist, the founder of the group Velvet Revolution, and a convicted terrorist who, in 1978, set off eight bombs in Speedway, Indiana, earning him the title of “The Speedway Bomber.”

When bloggers like Aaron Worthing and Robert Stacy McCain in Maryland wrote about  Kimberlin’s past, and his current involvement with active progressive groups, he mounted a campaign to silence and harass them, filing law suits and engaging in other tactics far more menacing, if not as expensive. You can read Worthing’s harrowing tale of Kimberlin’s campaign against him here.

The web’s most tireless crusader against free speech suppression by litigation, threats and harassment is, of course, the Ethics Alarms 2012 Blogger of the Year, Ken at Popehat. He has already blogged about Kimberlin, who fits nicely with the other Internet Furies and speech bullies that he has exposed, like Crystal Cox. But his theme this week was broader, and it is one that constantly troubles me. Taking off from blogger Michelle Malkin’s post declaring that there should be solidarity for targeted conservative bloggers, Ken protests that since free expression is the objective, the ideology of the bloggers being bullied shouldn’t matter. He writes: Continue reading →

Anderson Cooper vs. “Human Barbie”: A Double-cross Masquerading As Integrity

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Sarah Burge, a.k.a “Human Barbie,” who actually contains more plastic than Plastic Barbie, who, come to think of it,  is quite possibly a better human being than “Human Barbie.” It’s complicated.

One of the wonderful things about the Internet is that somewhere out there is always someone who has seen through the fog of lies, spin, misrepresentations and conventional wisdom, and is writing about it. The first trick, of course, is finding such individuals, who may be part of the spin and confusion the very next day. The next one is getting the truth to as many people as possible.

When I heard that Anderson Cooper had kicked the plastic-surgery mutant named Sarah Burge off his show on the air, I was ready to give him an Ethics Hero award. Not only has Burge, who is known as “Human Barbie”, * indulged her pathological obsession with plastic surgery to spend almost a half-million dollars making herself look like the iconic Mattel doll, she is trying to make sure her daughters are similarly afflicted. She told Cooper she wants to botox her 15-year-old daughter, and she is setting up a trust for her 7-year-old so she can start mutilating herself when she turns 18.

Suddenly Cooper stopped the interview, saying, “I gotta be honest, I gotta just stop. I’m sorry. I try to be really polite to all my guests, but I just think you’re dreadful. I honestly don’t want to talk to you anymore.” Continue reading →

Insidious Bias: CNN’s “Question of the Day”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

“Today’s CNN Question of the Day: Do zombies make good Presidents?”

It is increasingly obvious that as President Obama’s re-election prospects appear more perilous, the mainstream media will throw objectivity, fairness and journalistic ethics to the winds in order to improve his prospects. Is this unfair, irresponsible and dishonest? Of course.

The trend is only beginning, but it is alarming to speculate how much worse it will get. It is only May, and the Washington Post has already published anti-Romney hit-pieces based on a prep school hazing incident and, this week, an 1897 massacre perpetrated by Mormons on Arkansas settlers. Yes, that’s “news” if you are dedicated to protecting your favorite President, and the fact that his Justice Department appears to be engaged in an illegal cover-up and obstruction of justice isn’t.

CNN’s mornings, meanwhile, are fast becoming the site of blatant and insidious Democratic Party propaganda. I swear, it wasn’t my fault: I have sworn off watching CNN’s twin Obama operatives, Soledad O’Brien and Carol Costello, for their routine pro-Democratic bias and sly Republican bashing, but my wife had switched on CNN just as I came into the living room to drink my first cup of coffee. Just as I reached for the remote, Costello made my head start to explode one more time, announcing, “The Question of the Day for viewers: Do CEO’s make good Presidents?” Continue reading →

Now THIS Is An Unethical Lawsuit (And a Bonus Ethics Quiz!)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

A perfect lawsuit for Jackie!

Not legally unethical, mind you, oh no no no! Remember, a lawyer is not unethical when he brings a crack-brained lawsuit as long as he can muster some vaguely plausible theory to support it. Even if he thinks the case is a long-shot of long-shots, if the lawyer has a good-faith belief that it could prevail without violating the natural laws of time and space, it’s “ethical.” Thus it is that the lawyer for the victims of a car crash caused because the teenaged driver of the other vehicle was reading a text message from his girlfriend can ethically bring a lawsuit against both the driver, Kyle Best, and his girl friend. Continue reading →

Racism, the Media, and Reverend Wright Distortions

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

He’s b-a-a-a-a-a-c-k! (Sort of….)

This has been happening to me a lot lately. I see a political story with ethical implications, and decide to pass. I think, “Nah, this is another ‘the news media is in the tank for Obama story”—it’s pretty obvious; I don’t need to go there.” Then the story starts to churn, the news media, left and right, distorts it thoroughly through spin and stupidity, and pretty soon I can’t stand it any more.

The controversy over a proposed, and rejected, Super-Pac ad blitz focusing on the President’s controversial relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright—demagogue, radical, racist—began when a leaked copy of a proposal prepared for conservative billionaire Joe Ricketts was leaked to the New York Times. The Times’ decision to put the proposal on its front page was sadly typical, and irresponsible. We don’t what wacky proposals circulate in the back rooms of both parties and their allies, and I don’t see why we would want to know, unless, as in this case, the objective was to suggest a series of things that aren’t true. Prime among them was that the Romney campaign was preparing to mount a full-bore attack on the President’s character. Nothing has suggested that, except the Times, whose story forced the presumed GOP nominee to apologize for a mode of attack 1) he had nothing to do with and 2) had never been approved anyway.

This was unfair, slanted and biased conduct by the Times, and the point at which I decided, “Oh, heck, we’ll be seeing the Times and the Washington Post, not to mention the broadcast media, pulling this until November. People either will recognize it for the partisan bias  it is, or they won’t.”

Then came Carol Costello on a typical morning for CNN, when she or the regular morning host Soledad O’Brien spend every AM sneering at Republicans and looking at the camera all dewy-eyed whenever President Obama’s name comes up. Costello, who I have concluded sets my teeth on edge even worse than the smug O’Brien, began her day with this: “Today’s question: Will racial politics work in 2012?” Continue reading →

When Unethical Approaches Evil: The Clarence Aaron Pardon Fiasco

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Clarence Aaron, waiting for justice

I read about Clarence Aaron four days ago. It has bothered me ever since. The short version of this horror story is that a young man, outrageously sentenced to three consecutive life sentences for a drug offense despite being a first offender, was poised to receive a pardon from President Bush but did not, because the Pardon Attorney charged with job of presenting the case to the President inexplicably left out critical  information that would have all but guaranteed his freedom. The attorney’s name is Ronald Rogers: he was the Pardon Attorney under Bush, and is still in that post today.

I have been trying to figure out what ethical breach would describe what Rogers did, a difficult task in the absence of an explanation from him. Was this incompetence? Laziness? Was it a lack of diligence—was he careless? Did Rogers sink Aaron’s case because he doesn’t like blacks, or doesn’t like drugs, or doesn’t like pardons? Does he lack empathy? Sympathy? A heart? Continue reading →

Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck Update: An Integrity Test For The Lynch Mob

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments

As Emily used to say, “Never mind!” Al? Spike?

The news coverage of the  emerging evidence in the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman was slow in coming this week, perhaps because it makes the news media look bad. Reluctantly, however, it is finally getting out, though perhaps not with the breathless urgency the media mustered when it was actively manufacturing fake evidence—-a doctored 911 tape, a grainy film showing no injuries to Zimmerman’s head—so Martin’s shooter could be pronounced a killer-racist before he was even charged.

ABC News, perhaps attempting to atone for its disgraceful coverage of the case in March, released a through report on its website of latest developments, revealing that:

  • “Two police reports written the night that George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin said that Zimmerman had a bloody face and nose”
  • “Zimmerman seemed to have a battered nose and bloodied face…and the back of his clothing was soiled with wet grass…Zimmerman was also bleeding from … the back of his head.”
  • “Two witness accounts appear to back up Zimmerman’s version of what happened when they describe a man on his back with another person wearing a hoodie straddling him and throwing punches.”
  • “The documents state that Zimmerman can be heard yelling for help 14 times on a 911 call recorded during the fight.” Continue reading →

Editor, Plagiarist and Ethics Dunce Extraordinaire Robert Ripley Meets His Worst Nightmare…

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

….and that nightmare is Duane Lester, a hard-working, honest, courageous, organized and determined blogger who wasn’t going to let a newspaper rip him off and get away with it. Lester researched and posted an original local news story, a true scoop, and days letter was shocked to find that a local paper, the Oregon Times Observer, had lifted his entire post and put it on the paper’s front page, without credit, permission, or attribution. Shocked and unprepared for such flagrant and shameless appropriation of his labors, he researched the issue, wrote a letter, and then visited the paper to demand payment. Brilliantly, he also brought along a friend with a video camera.

The whole story, as well as the enlightening and satisfying confrontation between the Blogger and the Word Thief, is on the resulting video. There is a lot to see here.

Continue reading →