integrity

One More Addition to 2010’s Worst in Ethics: Sen. John McCain

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I inadvertently left a category out of the Ethics Alarms year end awards for 2010, perhaps because it is such a discouraging one. I just remedied the omission, and added this:

Integrity Meltdown of the Year: Sen. John McCain. A sad spectacle indeed: since losing his run for the presidency in 2008 and having to face a strong challenge from the Right in seeking re-election to the U.S. Senate, the celebrated Arizona maverick reversed long-held positions in favor of creating a route to citizenship for illegal immigrants, reversing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and ending the low Bush tax rates on upper-income Americans. He didn’t change his mind because of sudden epiphanies of clarity, either. He just wants to stay in the Senate. True, McCain held fast to other principles, like opposing earmarks, but those were the ones his critics on the Right supported too. Integrity means being true to your core values even when it is inconvenient or unpopular. Once upon a time, that description fit Sen. John McCain. As of 2010, this was no longer true.

The Second Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The Worst of Ethics 2010 (Part 1)

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Happy New Year, and welcome to the Second Annual Ethics Alarms Awards, recognizing the Best and Worst of ethics in 2010!

This is the first installment of the Worst; the rest will appear in a subsequent post. (The Best is yet to come.) Continue reading →

SyFy and the Absence of Integrity: A Case Study

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

At TV.com, there is a fascinating account of the evolution of the Sci Fi Channel, once cable’s reliable source for science fiction programming, into SyFy, which is nothing of the sort. As the article points out, the two individuals who have run the channel since 2002, Bonnie Hammer and Dave Howe, appear not to like, understand, or trust the genre their channel supposedly was dedicated to advancing. Now, having cancelled the two shows its science fiction fans most enjoyed, “Caprica” and “Stargate Universe,” SyFy is a bona fide whatsis, with a schedule that includes professional wrestling, cheesy horror movies, ghost hunter and psychic reality shows, and whatever else Hammer and Howe think will attract what they regard as a non-geek audience.

Here is the problem: Continue reading →

Gee, Thanks a Bunch, Chris…Big Lie Ethics and Obama’s Birth Certificate

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Great. Now Chris Matthews is giving support to the birther conspiracy theory.

The excitable MSNBC host recently asked why President Obama doesn’t just put the suspicion and rumors to rest by giving the OK for Hawaii to release his original birth certificate, thus proving that he was born a U.S. citizen and ending the claims that Obama is really foreign-born and never was eligible to become President of the United States. By lending his credibility and perceived legitimacy to the lament of the birthers, Matthews has engaged in irresponsible conduct and done a disservice to the President, the office of the President and the nation. Continue reading →

Observations on “The Psychic’s Code of Ethics”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I was surprised to find a long dissertation about ethics posted on a website for self-designated psychics. [UPDATE: The link that I originally supplied here no longer works.] The post itself was also full of surprises, such as the revelation that there is a “Tarot Certification Board of America’s Client Bill of Rights,” which declares, among other things, that…

“Tarot readers are not qualified to give medical advice unless they are physicians. Tarot readers are not qualified to give financial advice unless they are qualified financial advisors. Tarot readers are not qualified to give legal advice unless they are attorneys.”

This is all good ethical advice. Notably missing, however, is the statement that “Tarot readers are not qualified to tell individuals what the future holds in store for them since it is impossible to discern this from reading novelty playing cards.” Continue reading →

Lindsay Lohan Has Privacy Rights Too

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Lindsay Lohan brings enough problems on herself. She doesn’t need unethical professionals to make her life even more chaotic by violating her privacy rights. Continue reading →

As Winter Strikes, Inconvenient Truths…Again

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

In the midst of what is being called the coldest winter in Great Britain since records began being kept, some wags have been unkind enough to tweak the “you’re all idiots for not agreeing that only world government can save us” climate change zealots by circulating a 2000 article that ran in the Independent, the nation’s most enthusiastic pro-global warming newspaper. Some excerpts: Continue reading →

Hypocritical Quote of the Year: John Avlon

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

“That’s why it’s a little absurd to hear Limbaugh point out disapprovingly that my book Wingnuts itself uses a label to describe the use of fear and hate by hyper-partisans. Its funny how quickly people who throw around labels for a living (“feminazi,” for example) cry foul when a term like “wingnut” is directed at them. But bullies are always shocked when you punch back.”

—Author and “No Labels” co-founder John Avlon, in his essay, “My War With Rush Limbaugh”

John Avlon has recently joined with a mostly moderate Democratic group to launch the “No Labels” movement, supposedly dedicated to moving political debate away from uncivil name-calling and personal demonization. This is awkward for a pundit who has thus far made his reputation with a book called Wingnuts, which is a dismissive and derisive L-A-B-E-L he attaches to politicians he disagrees with, mostly Tea Party members and any elected official who opposes abortion. Continue reading →

“Lie of the Year”? Hardly.

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

PolitiFact, the political fact-checking website, has once again announced its “Lie of the Year”:

“PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen “government takeover of health care” as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats’ shellacking in the November elections. Readers of PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Times’ independent fact-checking website, also chose it as the year’s most significant falsehood by an overwhelming margin. (Their second-place choice was Rep. Michele Bachmann’s claim that Obama was going to spend $200 million a day on a trip to India, a falsity that still sprouts.)”

This tells us a lot about PolitiFact. Continue reading →

Stupid Unethical Reporter Tricks

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

If true, what Sports Illustrated reporter Jon Heyman is being accused of by his colleagues is a major ethics breach. The context—a free agent baseball star’s negotiation with teams competing with each other for his services—is a narrow one, but it challenges us to ponder how often the same dishonesty occurs in other news reporting contexts. Continue reading →