No.
But NBC’s David Gregory thinks so. Here was his exchange with Republican Speaker John Boehner on “Meet the Press” yesterday: Continue reading
Keith Olbermann
Keith Olbermann: An Ethics Cautionary Tale
At the risk of being accused of proving the old proverb that when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, let me offer the observation that the apparently acrimonious departure of Keith Olbermann from MSNBC, despite being the cable channel’s biggest star, is a cautionary tale about ethics.
The lesson: the absence of respect for the opinions of others, accompanied by a lack of humility and a surplus of contempt for fairness and civility, will doom even intelligent, talented and hard-working individuals to inevitable failure, because they cannot be trusted, not by employers, not by colleagues, not by friends.
This is why ethical values are valued: they are essential to individual success, because they contribute to societal and social success. This is, I believe, the fourth time an Olbermann show has ended like this, and like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day,” he is doomed to repeat the pattern until he learns how to be a more caring, more trustworthy human being.
I hope he makes it. Keith Olbermann has the ability to help make this a better country, instead of a nastier, meaner, more divided one. I hope he gets another chance, and that this time, he figures out how to use his abundant talents to do it.
The Second Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The Worst of Ethics 2010 (Part 2)
The final categories in the Worst of Ethics 2010. Coming up: The Best of Ethics, 2010.
(If you missed Part 1 of the Worst, go here.)
Worst Ethics Presentation: “Ethics in Politics: An evening with Former Governor Rod Blagojevich” (Presented to its students by Northwestern University) Continue reading
MSNBC Case Study: When the Media Decides To Tell The Whole Truth
Yesterday, as she fumed at President Obama’s compromise with Republican to preserve most of the Bush tax cuts for two more years, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow did something she has scrupulously avoided doing in the past: she actually called the President on an outright lie. Mocking Obama’s claim that he got major concessions from Republicans, Maddow read a series of reports proving that the “Child Tax Credit,” which Obama had said was something he had to bargain to get included in the package against GOP opposition, was in fact something the Republican leadership always supported. Good for her…except…. Continue reading
Flunking the Keith Olbermann Test
Every so often there is a news story that exposes the serious deficiencies in the ethics comprehension in the public and the media. The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal was one such story; Major League Baseball’s steroid controversy was another. I confess: I didn’t see the Keith Olbermann suspension for making political donations as having the potential to be another test of ethical competence, but it is. And almost everyone is flunking it.
The facts of the Olbermann incident are deceptively simple. The rant-prone, self-annointed champion of the Angry Left violated an NBC ethics policy that forbade its reporters and commentators from making political contributions, on the theory, absurd when applied to Olbermann, that it compromises their reputation for objectivity. Olbermann has no objectivity, or reputation for it either. Nonetheless, he intentionally and flagrantly violated his employer’s policy. That alone justifies his suspension, whether or not the policy is idiotic. And it is.
But Olbermann’s fans and critics alike are all over the internet attaching rationalizations and flawed ethical reasoning to the episode. Such as: Continue reading
Olbermann’s Donations: A Breach of Ethics Policy, But Not Unethical
I’ll make this short, but I can’t pass up the chance to come to MSNBC host Keith Olbermann’s defense when he deserves one. It may never happen again.
Politico is reporting that Olbermann made campaign contributions to two Arizona members of Congress and losing Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway beforeTuesday’s election , which is a violation of NBC ethics policies.
Olbermann made the maximum legal donations of $2,400 apiece to Conway and to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. Grijalva appeared as a guest on Olbermann’s “Countdown” show the same day that Olbermann made the gift. NBC, like most news organizations, has a policy against employees contributing to political campaigns on the theory that it indicates a breach of journalistic independence and a lack of objectivity.
Yes, Keith broke the rules of his employer. That is wrong, no matter what the rule is, and justifies whatever punishment NBC deems appropriate.
The rule, however, is itself unethical, because its objective is to deceive the public into believing that reporters who are anything but objective, are. It isn’t a contribution that makes a reporter partisan and biased, it is wanting to make the contribution that shows his bias, whether he makes it or not. The rule prohibits reporters acting in a way that alerts the public to what their biases are. But I want to know what they are. Don’t you? Continue reading
Keith Olbermann’s Alan Grayson Imitation
As bad as it is for an elected official like Rep. Alan Grayson to say publicly that “Republicans want you to die,” at least his status as a politician (and Grayson’s record as a politician lacking rudimentary respect, fairness, and honesty) alerts most listeners that his statements cannot to be trusted. Such statements are more harmful and less tolerable when they come from media commentators, however, even shameless partisan blow-hards like Keith Olbermann.
Olbermann began his coverage of the fire department in Tennessee that allowed a man’s home to burn down by calling it “a preview of an America as envisioned by the Tea Party…just a preview of what would come in a kind of a la carte government.” Continue reading
CNN’s Rick Sanchez Firing Statement: Fair or a Missed Opportunity?
CNN promptly fired “Rick’s List” host Rick Sanchez after a bizarre satellite radio rant in which he accused “The Daily Show” host John Stewart of being a “bigot” (presumably because he often picks on Sanchez, who is a Cuban-American) and insinuated that both Stewart and bigwigs at CNN were not inclined to give Sanchez a fair shake because they are Jews.Of course he had to go.
The question is, how should the network have handled the firing? It opted for traditional: a straightforward statement that Sanchez wasn’t a CNN employee any more, and a gracious note of thanks and good wishes:
“Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well.“
Blogger Sam Rubin, however, feels that CNN “blew it.” Here is the statement Rubin feels CNN should have made, taking a stand and being aggressively critical while showing Sanchez the door: Continue reading
Ethics Rant: “Medal of Honor”, Rev. Jones, and Imam Rauf
Almost everything has been reminding me of the “Ground Zero Mosque” lately. It is driving me crazy, perhaps because the rhetoric of the pro-Cordoba House “You’re a bigot if you don’t think this is the best idea since Disney World” crowd is increasingly unfair and absurd, and getting worse by the minute. Or perhaps it is that the inconsistent reasoning and blindness to embarrassing analogies exhibited by just about everyone who comments on this issue has reached the detonation point. Continue reading
Ethics Dunce: Glenn Beck
No, it wasn’t a big lie, a harmful lie, or a malicious lie that Glenn Beck told at his recent rally. Beck had claimed that he held George Washington’s handwritten first Inaugural Address “in his hands” at the National Archives, but a spokeswoman at the institution denied it: they don’t allow that. After Keith Olbermann and other full-time Beck-bashers kept pressing the issue, Beck admitted that he had fabricated the story to cut through the extraneous details of the real process:
“…Yesterday I went to the National Archives, and they opened up the vault, and they put on their gloves and then they put [the document] on a tray. They wheeled it over and it’s all in this hard plastic and you’re sitting down at a table…you can’t actually touch any of the documents, these are very very rare. So … they have it in this plastic thing and they hold them right in front of you; you can’t touch them, but then you can say ‘can you turn it over,’ and then they turn it over for you and then you look at it.”
“I thought it was a little clumsy to explain it that way,” Beck told his cable audience, shrugging off the controversy. No, as lies go, it was about as harmless as it gets.
Except. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 