integrity

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 →

“Pow Wow Chow” Follow-Up: My Breitbart Interview On Harvard and Professor Plagiarism

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Michael Patrick Healy, an author and conservative activist, interviewed me today regarding what Harvard Law School’s response ought to be if indeed Elizabeth Warren engaged in plagiarism with her contributions, as “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee”, to the cookbook “Pow Wow Chow.”

His article, including the interview, are on the Breitbart Big Government site, here.

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 →

Comment of the Day: “Ethical If We Want It To Be: NBA Flopping and Fooling the Ref”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

This is a wonderful comment by Dwayne N. Zechman, which goes to the heart of what makes sports ethics so perplexing. Let me leave it to Dwayne now, and I’ll have some comments at the end. Here is his Comment of the Day on the post Ethical If We Want It To Be: NBA Flopping and Fooling the Ref:

“I admit I’m having a little trouble with this one.

“If I understand correctly, your premise is that each sport has its rulebook, and what’s ethical or not is mostly determined by what’s in that rulebook. The outside margins of “mostly” come from long-standing traditions, and de facto rules related to safety or practicality. The game isn’t life–it’s a distinct “closed system” if you will, and the rules about life might not apply. Or perhaps it’s better to say that we can choose to declare (in the rulebook or through tradition) that certain rules of life do not apply within the game and that’s okay. Doing so diminishes neither the ethical rule nor the game itself.

“So the beginning of my trouble is that this smacks a little of a combination of “Everybody does it”, “If it isn’t illegal, it’s ethical”, and The Compliance Dodge. Okay, I can accept that, though, because we’ve already stipulated that specific ethical principles can be exempted from a game/sport.

“Next comes my own dissonance in trying to reconcile this article with other recent articles here on Ethics Alarms about pro football, where the same exemption of ethical principles is applied, but somehow shouldn’t be. Okay, I can accept this, too. There is a distinction in that an ethical principle shouldn’t be exempted from the game when there are clear, demonstrable consequences to the player that persist after the game is over and the player’s real life resumes. In a situation such as that, it’s impossible to exempt an ethical principle JUST for the game because the exemption itself renders the game no longer a “closed system”. Continue reading →

Ethics Round-Up in Race, Religion and Sex: GOP Bigotry, Georgetown’s Integrity, and Warren’s Absurdity

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Help! I’m buried in great ethics stories!

This is one of those periods in which there are so many juicy ethics stories that I am falling far behind. Here are three that are worthy of longer treatment that I can’t allow to get lost in the crowd: Continue reading →

The Yahoo! Mess

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Yahoo’s CEO, Scott Thompson, just “resigned” from his post after it was clear that he was going to be sacked. He had been on the job just four months. Why the sudden exit? A simple Google search by a Yahoo! board member revealed that Thompson had lied on his résumé, claiming to have a degree in computer science. This opened a can of worm, Pandora’s box, and an ethics cornucopia, all wrapped in one:

  • Thompson’s initial response was that the mistake was “inadvertent,” and that he regretted not having caught the error. This attempt t0 brass his way out of deception of his own making should probably ensure that he never leads another company. If he had taken 20 seconds to think about it, Thompson would have realized that using a second lie to try to cover the first would only make it clear that his curriculum vitae fabrication was not an aberration. Naturally, it was quickly discovered that he had the same fabrication on his résumé when he had applied for his previous job. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: “Chronicle of Higher Education” Editor Liz McMillen

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

“A Note to Readers: When we published Naomi Schaefer Riley’s blog posting on Brainstorm last week (“The Most Persuasive Case for Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations”), several thousand of you spoke out in outrage and disappointment that The Chronicle had published an article that did not conform to the journalistic standards and civil tone that you expect from us. We’ve heard you, and we have taken to heart what you said. We now agree that Ms. Riley’s blog posting did not meet The Chronicle’s basic editorial standards for reporting and fairness in opinion articles. As a result, we have asked Ms. Riley to leave the Brainstorm blog. Since Brainstorm was created five years ago, we have sought out bloggers representing a range of intellectual and political views, and we have allowed them broad freedom in topics and approach.  As part of that freedom, Brainstorm writers were able to post independently; Ms. Riley’s post was not reviewed until after it was posted. I realize we have made mistakes. We will thoroughly review our editorial practices on Brainstorm and other blogs and strengthen our guidelines for bloggers. In addition, my Editor’s Note last week inviting you to debate the posting also seemed to elevate it to the level of informed opinion, which it was not. I also realize that, as the controversy unfolded last week, our response on Twitter did not accurately convey The Chronicle’s message. I sincerely apologize for the distress these incidents have caused our readers and appreciate that so many of you have made your sentiments known to us. One theme many of you have sounded is that you felt betrayed by what we published; that you welcome healthy informed debate, but that in this case, we did not live up to the expectations of the community of readers we serve.”
You told us we can do better, and we agree.”

—Liz McMillen, editor of the highly respected Chronicle of Higher Education, tossing away the integrity of her publication in a complete and cowardly capitulation to political correctness and enforced academic dogma, while trashing the principle of academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas which her publication is supposed to champion.

The big ‘C’ stands for “chicken.” Or maybe “choke.”

Riley, the fired blogger, is a well-established iconoclast and critic of liberal arts institutions, which is undoubtedly why she was recruited as a blogger in the first place.  Her post was a reaction to an earlier Chronicle article about rising scholars in “black studies,” and she took to the the blog to point out that the summaries of their scholarly topics in that article’s sidebar showed what was wrong with the field, at least as it was currently taught.  She concluded, Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Connecticut Lawmakers

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Hayes and Komisarjevky, the Cheshire, Conn. killers

Good thinking, Connecticut!

  • With home invaders/multiple murderers/ rapists/sadists Stephen Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky duly convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection, the state legislature passed, and the Governor signed, a law making Connecticut the latest state to ban the death penalty.
  • Since a majority of the public, the legislators and virtually everyone aware of the horrendous facts of the infamous home invasion murders that Hayes and Komisarjevsky unquestionably committed think these two creatures deserve to die, the legislators made the law prospective only, meaning that it only would apply to those convicted of future crimes.
  • Despite the legislative intent, the obvious Equal Protection challenge to a law that treats two sets of citizens—current convicted murderers and future ones—differently may save the lives of Hayes and  Komisarjevsky,  the other 9 residents of the state’s death row, and such likely future residents as Richard S. Roszkowski, convicted of murder for gunning down a man, woman and 9-year-old girl on Sept. 7, 2006, but still facing a second death penalty phase trial, after his first one was overturned on a technicality.

It would have shown integrity for Connecticut lawmakers to have the courage of its supposed convictions, and to abolish the death penalty while having in its custody as perfect candidates for capital punishment as have ever been captured, Stephen Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky. In case you have forgotten the details of their June 23, 2007 invasion of the Cheshire, Conn. home of the Petit family, or were lucky enough to miss that horror story until now, here are is a mercifully brief summary. Continue reading →

NOW the New York Times Is Going To Be Fair And Objective?

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I nearly entitled this “Jaw-Dropping Confession Of The Decade.”

Stop, you're killing me! My drink just came out my nose!

In his column today, Arthur Brisbane, The New York Times’ timid ombudsman (the Times calls him its “public editor”), writes a long post about widespread accusations that the Times has not applied the same objective rigor to Barack Obama that it could have, should have, and typically has done to other politicians despite its openly liberal tilt. Oh, Arthur’s defensive about it, all right, but his defense boils down to “it wasn’t intentional.” Brisbane appears to be convinced by an assortment of media scholars he respects that the accusations on the Right that the Times has been “in the tank” for Obama is not that far from the truth after all. Bias can be overcome, though, he concludes. Yes we ca…uh, well, you know.

Brisbane writes, Continue reading →

Umpire Accountability, As The Day of the Robots Fast Approaches

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

If Robby replaces you, Larry, it's your own fault.

Are baseball’s umpires trying to get themselves replaced by machines? Or perhaps baseball’s brass are conspiring to allow incompetent and lazy umpires to do themselves in, as their miserable work wins over the traditionalists and the Luddites to mechanical ball and strike-calling and their overseers refuse to take decisive action against the worst officials they have. Whatever the explanation, today’s debacle ending the Tampa Rays-Red Sox game in Boston showed an appalling lack of accountability and professionalism in a segment of the game that is critical to its credibility and integrity. Continue reading →