New York Times

More Integrity Test Results: The Bad, The Cynical, The Desperate, The Ugly And The Mind-Blowingly Stupid

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

denial1The last couple of days have added more embarrassing examples of desperate supporters of the Democrats, President Obama and/or the Affordable Care Act thoroughly disgracing themselves by adopting rationalizations, distortions, denial, tortured reasoning and worse to avoid holding President Obama accountable for intentionally misleading the American people for more than three years regarding whether they could keep their healths plan if they liked them, “period.”

Two aspects of this disgusting spectacle are remarkable. One is that there is such a wide and creative variation among the integrity-defying tactics taken by this distinguished assortment of pols, elected officials, hacks, flacks, pundits and journalists. The other is that after this is all over, nearly half the American public will still loyally insist on trusting the promises and pronouncements of this very same group, though they proved themselves, in this episode, untrustworthy beyond a reasonable doubt. The first of these developments is surprising. The second extinguishes all hope.

Now the latest additions to the list of shame:

  •  David Axelrod, Obama political advisor. Today on “Meet the Press, ” Axelrod chose as his truthbuster the rationalization that since the President wasn’t lying to all of the Americans he was addressing, he wasn’t lying at all. Continue reading →

The Progressives’ Attacks On Shelby County v. Holder: Unethical and Ominous

/ Jack Marshall / 67 Comments
How DARE the Supreme Court not defer to Congressional judgment when it knows Congress is incapable of competent decision-making!

How DARE the Supreme Court not defer to Congressional judgment when it knows Congress is incapable of competent decision-making!

After reading more of the hysterical, sneering attacks on the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, I have concluded that I initially neglected to recognize the deep bias and contempt for basic rights that underlie them. The critics have no legitimate arguments to support allowing the current formula set out in the Voting Rights Act to continue, except that they believe trampling on innocent citizens’ rights is acceptable government practice if it makes the civil rights establishment happy, and allows the myth to be perpetuated that Republicans sit up late at night trying to figure out ways of stopping blacks from voting. “It may be unconstitutional, but it works!” is the best of their claims, a pure embrace of that hallmark of corrupted ethics, the ends justify the means. Note that this is also the justification being offered by the Obama Administration for drone strikes, PRISM, and tapping the phones of reporters. This isn’t an argument but a philosophy, and one that is offensive to core American values.

The Times, no longer the premiere news source in the country but certainly the premiere Democratic Party ally masquerading as a news source, clinched it for me. In its scathing editorial condemning the decision, the only arguments it could come up with were… Continue reading →

“The Ethicist” Gets Lost: Bad Advice, Worse Defense, In The Case Of The Self-Plagiarizing Student

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments
Oh, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck...

Oh, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck…

Chuck Klosterman,The New York Times’ third “Ethicist,” ruffled ethics feathers last week when he decreed that submitting the same paper to multiple college courses was ethical. (You can read his advice to a guilty-feeling student here.) Essentially, his argument in the column came down to three rationalizations, The Compliance Dodge (No rules were broken!), the Trivial Trap (It’s no big deal, and nobody was hurt ) and my least favorite of all, The Comparative Virtue Excuse ( “You’re not betraying the public’s trust,” Klosterman says—in other words, “At least you didn’t kill someone.”),with nods to several more. On the first, which is a close relative of Marion Barry’s Excuse, so you know what I think of it, Klosterman essentially argues that following formal rules constitutes sufficient ethics, which is the hallmark of the unethical. On the second, he himself cheats: he says no one was harmed, yet he ignores the fact that the student intentionally kept the fact that he used one paper for two assignments from the professors involved. Why was that? The student didn’t tell the professors because he knew they wouldn’t approve. Thus the student withheld information that was material, that would have resulted in negative consequences, and that the professors making the assignment had a right to know. That’s a failure of candor and a breach of the duty of honesty in communications. That’s unethical. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: The New York Times

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Late to the party

“Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights. Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability. The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it.”

—–The New York Times, a largely passive Obama cheerleader and enabler for the past four years, in an editorial regarding the revelations of NSA monitoring of personal phone calls of American citizens, The Times approvingly quoted Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, (R-WI), who introduced the Patriot Act in 2001, that “Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.”

There is not much that needs to be added to this, except… Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: CNN’s Jake Tapper

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“Even if you side with this president over those of us in the media who challenge him in his administration, it is important to remember the precedent these actions set going forward, perhaps when it’s not your guy in the White House.”

–—Jake Tapper, former ABC reporter turned CNN headliner, warning knee-jerk Obama defenders that there are rather significant risks in supporting leaders and their governments when they obstruct basic rights, just because you like their policies and don’t like the citizens who are being mistreated.

Martin Niemöller said it better, but some people need the reminder...

Martin Niemöller said it better, but some people need the reminder…

I’m not especially enamored of  Tapper’s quote, and the fact that such a statement is noteworthy coming from a major news media figure is depressing. Tapper introduced his warning by admitting that he was biased himself, “but.”  I suppose admitting a presumably leftward bias is worthy of praise for transparency’s sake—and Tapper has copped to being biased before—yet it also reminds us how truly untrustworthy our supposed bulwark against tyranny (that is, the news media)  is, siding as it does with the party currently in charge with such consistency.

His is also not truly an ethical statement, as it relies on a non-ethical argument, the equivalent of “Hey, we probably shouldn’t kill that guy, because then his gang will be coming after us.” There’s no ethics at all in Tapper’s argument, except that the conduct he’s attempting to encourage, responsible citizenship and the refusal to tolerate the abuse of power, is more ethical than the alternative, which is what we’ve been seeing for almost five years. The Golden Rule, in other words, in not “Do unto others because if you don’t it’s very possible that the soon the others may be doing the same thing to you.” Continue reading →

Media Bias At Work: A Smoking Gun From The New York Times

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Brava to blogger/ law professor Ann Althouse for catching this one.

Smoking gunYesterday, the New York Times, reporting the news, published this item:

“The inspector general… divulged that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel he was auditing the I.R.S.’s screening of politically active groups seeking tax exemptions on June 4, 2012. He told Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin “shortly after,” he said. That meant Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.”

This is not good, you know. This means that the fact that the I.R.S. was suspected of targeting conservative groups was known in time for the knowledge to give voters second doubts about the President’s trustworthiness and veracity, not to mention judgment in signing a bill that gives that same agency massive power in distributing health care. Given the choices among revealing it as a “transparent” administration should, claiming it was the fault of a YouTube video, or suppressing the facts, the Administration chose the latter. Thus the New York Times’ website’s headline, “Treasury Knew of I.R.S. Inquiry in 2012, Official Says,” was appropriate. No spin there, just the “news that’s fit to print.” Let readers decide whether they are satisfied allowing their leaders to parcel out information so as to make sure voters are only as well-informed as its convenient for them to be. Headlines are especially important, because many readers skim the news, and the headlines are all they read. Continue reading →

Picking Through The Wreckage of An Ethics Tesla Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments
The wreck participants. Not pictured: the Tesla.

The wreck participants. Not pictured: the Tesla.

There was questionable ethical conduct galore in the recently-stilled ethics wreck sparked by a New York Times review of the new Tesla electric car, the Model S. Times reporter John Broder test drove the car from Washington, D.C., to Boston, using the  charging stations Tesla has opened along the way.  Broder’s Tesla ran out of juice, and the article concluded with a sad photo of the highly-anticipated Model S  on a tow truck. In short, it was not a positive review.

In response to the review, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk called it a “fake” on Twitter, then wrote a rebuttal using the data logs of the vehicle Broder tested. Broder wrote a rebuttal to the rebuttal, and eventually the Times “public editor” (others would call her its ombudsman), Margaret Sullivan, was drawn into the battle, performing an investigation and concluding that…

“…I am convinced that [Broder]  took on the test drive in good faith, and told the story as he experienced it. Did he use good judgment along the way? Not especially. In particular, decisions he made at a crucial juncture – when he recharged the Model S in Norwich, Conn., a stop forced by the unexpected loss of charge overnight – were certainly instrumental in this saga’s high-drama ending. In addition, Mr. Broder left himself open to valid criticism by taking what seem to be casual and imprecise notes along the journey, unaware that his every move was being monitored. A little red notebook in the front seat is no match for digitally recorded driving logs, which Mr. Musk has used, in the most damaging (and sometimes quite misleading) ways possible, as he defended his vehicle’s reputation…People will go on contesting these points – and insisting that they know what they prove — and that’s understandable. In the matter of the Tesla Model S and its now infamous test drive, there is still plenty to argue about and few conclusions that are unassailable.”

Perhaps realizing that his vigorous defense of his car had triggered the Streisand Effect, Musk took to Twitter again, this time saying that the ombudsmadam’s article was “thoughtful” and that his faith in the Times was hereby restored. This put a nicely disingenuous spin on the whole episode.

Here is the final ethics tally: Continue reading →

If Self-Plagiarism in Editorial Cartoons Is Bad, How About NY Times Editorials?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Times recycledA couple of weeks ago, Ethics Alarms gave political cartoonist Ted Rall an Ethics Hero designation for calling out his own profession for the practice of lifting the work of other cartoonists, as well recycling their previous cartoons as new. I hadn’t been aware of the problem, but apparently Rall wasn’t the first in his field to condemn it. Now James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal blog “Best of the Web” has found evidence of self-plagiarism in actual editorials…those of the New York Times! Taranto, who has been on a real roll lately, reveals of the Times editors…

“In a Jan. 8 editorial in praise of Hagel’s nomination, they wrote:

“On national security policy, there is much to like about Mr. Hagel, one of a fading breed of sensible moderate Republicans.”

“In a  Feb. 1 editorial after the hearings, they had a slightly different take:

“There is much to like about the approach to national security policy taken by this decorated Vietnam veteran and former senator who is among a fading breed of sensible, moderate Republicans.”

“The Jan. 8 editorial also included this trenchant observation:

“The opponents are worried that Mr. Hagel will not be sufficiently in lock step with the current Israeli government and cannot be counted on to go to war against Iran over its nuclear program if it comes to that.”

“And here’s what they said after the hearing:

“Mr. Hagel’s opponents fret that he will not be sufficiently in lock step with the current Israeli government and cannot be counted on to go to war over Iran’s nuclear program if it comes to that.” Continue reading →

Fair Is Fair: The Times Isn’t Perfect, But It’s Time I Paid For It

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

nyt-paywallEver since the New York Times instituted its paywall system, which forces you to subscribe to its cyber-version once you use the site more than 20 times in a 30 day period, I have been economizing on my Times use rather than pay its (reasonable) subscription fee. One reason was money; one reason was that I usually don’t have to use the Times more than 20 times a month, with other good news sources out there that charge nothing at all; and a last reason is that the Times annoys me with its hard left-wing bias, well to the left of the Washington Post, which is hardly balanced, and inappropriate, in my view, for the publication that holds itself up as the exemplar of American journalism. The exemplar of American journalism should be objective and non-partisan, damn it, or at least try to be.

I have to admit, however, that even with its biases, the New York Times is still the best news source I know. I get the Post delivered to my door every day, and read the print copy of the Times only when I am on the road. I am always struck at how often a Times story or feature is directly relevant to my work, compared to any of its competition, including the acclaimed publication I read every day. Yesterday I learned that the Times has scheduled yet another round of lay-offs and buy-outs. It is in financial trouble, like all newspapers, and I can no longer justify refusing to do my part to help it survive as long as it can. The Times has given a lot to me, my readers and my field, and what it has provided has come with tangible expenses that are becoming more difficult to cover. The paper drives me crazy sometimes, but it remains a vital resource; it is unfair to focus my disillusionment with the journalistic field at the best of it, much as I would like to see the Times set an even higher standard. Right now, the battle is to allow the Times to maintain the journalistic standard, however flawed, that it sets now.

I just signed up for a cyber-subscription. The Times has earned my support, and with it struggling to keep the print flowing, I can no longer justify taking my 19 free articles a month and giving nothing back in return.

Remember, This Is The Best Newspaper in America

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

All the News That’s Fit..oh, the hell with it.

From an editor’s note to the New York Times article, “Last Call for College Bars,” which originally ran on September 26:

“An article on Thursday described the effect of social media use on the bar scene in several college towns, including the area around Cornell. After the article was published, questions were raised by the blog IvyGate about the identities of six Cornell students quoted in the article or shown in an accompanying photo. None of the names provided by those students to a reporter and photographer for The Times — Michelle Guida, Vanessa Gilen, Tracy O’Hara, John Montana, David Lieberman and Ben Johnson — match listings in the Cornell student directory, and The Times has not subsequently been able to contact anyone by those names. The Times should have worked to verify the students’ identities independently before quoting or picturing them for the article.”

Think about this the next time you read a Times story from an anonymous source. Continue reading →