The extent and sheer audacity of the 2009 Atlanta schools testing scandal, now resulting in teachers and administrators facing prison time, shows (or perhaps I should say “should show”) the complete folly of calling for more funding as the solution to the rotting U.S. education system. Indeed, I would argue that budgets should not be increased one penny anywhere until the educational establishment demonstrates that it is capable of policing itself, holding members of its profession to higher standards, which is to say, standards, of ethical conduct and professionalism, and can prove that it is more interested in the goal of teaching students than it is in pensions, job security, and cash. Continue reading
professionalism
Ethics Note To Paul Krugman: The News Media Isn’t Your Toy
Not bankrupt, at least, not financially…
The crippling lack of respect and contempt our warring ideological factions have for those on the other side is never better illustrated that when one partisan believes a satirical negative story about an adversary stalwart that any unbiased observer whose brain wasn’t partially melted by hatred would have flagged as false in a heartbeat. Thus do our biases make us stupid. The phenomenon was the basis of some well-derived mockery last month, when Washington Post blogger Suzy Parker fell for the silly published on the parody website The Daily Currant that Sarah Palin had joined Al-Jazeera, and used the obviously phony tale to hammer Palin for hypocrisy. I suggested that a journalist this gullible and biased wasn’t qualified to practice her craft, as she was obviously incapable of overcoming her prejudices and personal dislikes so that she could distinguish truth from comforting fiction.
The Right mocked Parker and the Post hardest of all—suuure there’s no liberal bias in the media!—- especially the Bad Boy of rightward blogs, Breitbart. Then along comes another gag story from the same source, The Daily Currant, announcing that New York Times tax-and-spend advocate, progressive cheerleader and Pulitzer prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has declared for bankruptcy, and Brietbart, for exactly the same reasons Parker believed that Palin would go to work for the Arabs, couldn’t figure out that it wasn’t true. Breitbart published this: Continue reading
Just What Every President Doesn’t Need…A Traitor
“My observations while serving in the President’s trust are held in strictest confidence, and…HOW much? Damn! Sure, I’ll write a book!”
President Obama is hardly the first President to be blind-sided by a “tell-all” exposé authored by someone who had an obligation to keep his mouth shut and his keyboard quiet. The unethical practice of a President’s former advisors, cabinet members, secret security agents, servants and others who held his trust cashing in and publishing often bitter, agenda-driven books detailing juicy and uncomplimentary details of what went on behind closed doors began gaining steam during the Reagan years (something else to detest David Stockman for) and has accelerated in every administration since.
The latest sniper shot from a grassy knoll is the work of Vali Nasr, a professor and former senior State Department adviser who worked with Richard Holbrooke, previously Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. In his new book, which, of course, had to be published while Obama was still in office to have a chance of making the former advisor the money he craves, Nasr relates details of what he regards as the incompetent White House foreign policy decision-making apparatus, in which vital calls that should have been left to experts were run through Obama’s political team, whose judgment was based on polls and narrow, short-term political considerations. Continue reading
Ethics Quiz: Which Reporter Would You Fire?
If this box of hammers can do their jobs as well as they can, should they really be journalists?
Stipulated:
- The U.S. media establishment is in horrendous shape.
- Its news coverage is untrustworthy, because so many of its members are untrustworthy.
- The field of journalism is polluted with shallow, self-righteous, biased, narrow-minded hacks, and whatever genuine insight, ethics and talent the profession contains is usually overwhelmed by mediocrity.
- Any hope of addressing the current grim state of the news media must begin with ejecting prominent reporters and journalists who have proven beyond a reasonable doubt the lack of temperament, standards, skills or values to practice responsible journalism.
With this as background, behold today’s Ethics Quiz, which is…
Which journalist, CBS News reporter Major Garrett, Washington Post reporter Suzi Parker, both, or neither, deserves to be asked to seek a career elsewhere? Continue reading
The Saga of the Entrepreneural Legal Mentor
“OK, now pay attention. I’ll teach you to hunt, but it will cost you…”
Attorney Kenneth Beck is reeling from a barrage of criticism he has received for placing this ad on Craig’s List:
ARE YOU RECENTLY ADMITTED TO THE BAR, OR AWAITING BAR RESULTS, BUT NEED EXPERIENCE FOR THAT FIRST JOB?
General practice attorney with more than twenty years of experience is willing to train a small number of recently admitted attorneys, or those awaiting bar results. For a monthly fee, you will be able to shadow the experienced attorney, and learn by watching the day to day practice of law. Observe the following types of proceedings, as they occur; Civil Short Calender motion arguments, foreclosure mediation’s, pre-trial conferences, Workers Compensation and Social Security hearings, real estate closings, discovery proceedings and compliance, research and general office operations. …
The unprecedented ad, now pulled, prompted nasty e-mails from his target audience and a lot of ridicule on various legal blogs. Beck hit a nerve, obviously, in fact several: the perceived venality of the profession, the desperate plight of recent law grads in a tight market, the lack of practical training students receive in law school. Some even suggested that the ad rose, or rather fell, to the level of professional misconduct. “Will this kind of revenue producer be censured by the state bar association?”, asked the blog Law and More.
That one is easy: no, because nothing about the ad raises legitimate questions about Black’s trustworthiness or honesty, and there is no clear violation of any existing rules inherent in his proposition. Still, the question lingers: even if this doesn’t nick the Rules of Professional Conduct, is it ethical? Continue reading
Ethics Quote of the Month: Jodie Foster
Why is Jodie Foster’s stream of consciousness speech as she accepted the Golden Globe’s lifetime achievement honor, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, worthy of praise for its ethical values?
- It was genuine, open and honest. Celebrities are paid to live their lives in public, and all of them struggle to find the proper, fair, and sane balance between what they are obligated to show the world, and what they keep secure in their private lives. Nobody has struggled with this balance more than Foster, or suffered moire because of it. A performer since she was a toddler, she never really had a choice to live a normal life. Her speech was a gift to the public revealing inner thoughts and emotions about someone it cares about but has never known as well as it would like to. Continue reading
“Should CNN Fire Piers Morgan?” It Should, But It Can’t.
If only.
In the wake of the tsunami of criticism directed at CNN talk show host Piers Morgan for his anti-gun rantings, particularly during his interview with Gun Owners of America president Larry Pratt, Slate posted a Quora response to the question, “Should CNN Fire Piers Morgan?” from internet entrepreneur Mark Rogowski, who begins his answer (summary: “no”) with the rejoinder, “For what? For having an opinion?”
No, Morgan should be fired for allowing his opinion to lure him into thoroughly rude, unprofessional, abusive and inappropriate interview practices, which a major news network like CNN shouldn’t permit, endorse, tolerate or risk recurring. That’s why. Continue reading
Why Professionalism Is Essential: TSA Edition
The man behind the curtain is pointing and laughing….
Taking Sense Away is a fascinating blog operated by a former TSA screener. It is essential reading for air travelers, libertarians, critics of the TSA and anyone else interested in the strange, often infuriating airport security procedures that have evolved since the events of 9/11/2001. His perspectives are not universally accurate in all cases (he reminds us frequently), but it can’t make air travelers happy to read the following, which he recently revealed as part of his answer to an inquiry from a reader about the unseen aspects of screening:
“Now, the I.O. Room (the image operator room, where your nude images are viewed at airports that still use the backscatter x-ray full body scanners), that, my friend, is a whole different story. In the image analysis room, no one is permitted to leave or enter without ample warning (part of TSA’s promise to the public that officers “would never see the passenger whose nude image they just viewed,” although I did occasionally witness this being violated, see Confession #1) and, like the private screening room, recording devices of any kind are prohibited. So in summation: what you have are one to two to three TSA officers locked in a room, viewing nude passenger images, with a guarantee that no one can barge in on them, and that no surveillance cameras can legally be present.
“Just use your imagination on the stories among TSA officers of what has gone on in the I.O. room. Personally, in the I.O. room, I witnessed light sexual play among officers, a lot of e-cigarette vaping, and a whole lot of officers laughing and clowning in regard to some of your nude images, dear passengers. Things like this are what happens (at the very least) when you put people who are often fresh out of high school or a GED program (although there are actually a few TSA screeners with PhDs, which I guess is sad on so, so many levels) with minimal training and even less professionalism, into the position of being in charge of analyzing nude images of people in a hermetically sealed room.”
Nice, huh? Continue reading
Ethics Dunce: Piers Morgan
Hoping to someday be as professional as Larry King.
I know, I know. It is hardly worth the effort to point out that Piers Morgan is an unprofessional, biased and narrow-minded hack who has accomplished the impossible and managed to make Larry King seem like the late Tim Russert by comparison. Morgan’s recent demonstration of his ethical and intellectual deficiencies as an interviewer, however, is too extreme to ignore.
Morgan was interviewing Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America regarding the Newtown massacre and discussing possible measures to prevent such tragedies. Angered and frustrated by Pratt’s insistence that eliminating so-called “gun-free zones,” such as the one where the fatal shooting took place, and arming teachers would do more to prevent future such tragedies than tougher gun laws, Morgan suddenly resorted to name calling and insults, such as…
- You are talking complete and utter nonsense….
- You’re an unbelievably stupid man, aren’t you?…
- What a ridiculous argument. You have absolutely no coherent argument whatsoever. You don’t give a damn, do you, about the gun murder rate in America. You don’t actually care….
- It’s complete nonsense….
- I know why sales of these weapons have been soaring in the last few days. It’s down to idiots like you….
- You are a dangerous man espousing dangerous nonsense, and you shame your country. Continue reading
Ethics Dunce: Matt Lauer
It’s lucky you’re dead, Dave, because this would kill you…
Matt Lauer, as the primary host of the “Today” show, reigns where once distinguished journalists and professionals like Dave Garroway, Bryant Gumble, Tom Brokaw and Frank McGee made the show a morning oasis of news and pleasant banter. Yesterday Lauer, who has already revealed himself beyond any reasonable argument as a hack (yes, “Today” has had other hacks), showed himself to be an unmannerly creep as well. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 