Archive for the ‘Media’ Category
November 18, 2011
I’m back from my annual ballet trip to New York, and back to my computer. Along with four wonderful performances by American Ballet Theater I got to visit Park 51, the Islamic Center three blocks from Ground Zero (about which more soon), and Zuccotti Park, the home of Occupy Wall Street.
Zuccotti Park was a friendly place, surprisingly orderly, contrary to expectations from television. People sweeping, others staffing the free food tent, others reading or cheerfully chatting with visitors like me. There was a library, several pet dogs (apparently OWS is dog-, not cat-friendly) and a few baskets seeking donations. I saw lots of American flags and posters, but nothing ugly or much beyond run-of-the-mill progressive political ideas.
OWS aspired to being a good neighbor (photo): zero tolerance for alcohol, drugs, or abuse of people or public property. Everybody I saw seemed to be compliant with the proclaimed good neighbor policy.
But Mayor Bloomberg decided, reasonably enough, that Occupy Wall Street was becoming a nuisance and a threat to public health, and ordered the NYPD to evict the occupants from the park in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday. Most of OWS went peacefully, if sleepily; about 200 held their ground and were arrested. The park was cleared, cleaned, and the occupiers were readmitted, this time with tents and sleeping bags prohibited.
The police action may have reinvigorated a movement that had begun to bore the media and the public. Yesterday, the two-month anniversary of the start of the protest, the demonstrators (more…)
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Tags:99%, American Ballet Theater, ethics, good neighbor policy, Islamic Center, mass action, Mayor Bloomberg, New York Times, NYPD, Occupy Wall Street, Park 51, police action, zero tolerance, Zuccotti Park
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Media | 1 Comment »
November 2, 2011
The conservative media and some Republican politicians are accusing the mainstream (translation: liberal and biased) media of smearing Herman Cain by publishing, then blabbering continuously about, allegations of sexual harassment of subordinate employees when Cain headed the National Restaurant Association back in the 1990s.
Cain’s campaign early today called it an “appalling smear” by “inside-the-beltway media.” Later today the Cain campaign accused the Rick Perry campaign of tipping the story when Cain chief of staff Mark Block told Fox, “Rick Perry needs to apologize to Herman Cain and, quite frankly, to America.”
Cain has only himself to blame for the vultures circling overhead. His story has changed—materially—every day, and more than once most days. First he denied ever being accused of sexual harassment. Then he acknowledged that there had been a complaint but he turned it over to the association that he headed and he didn’t think anything had come of it. Then he said there had been no settlement paid to his accuser(s). Then he said, wait a minute I thought there had been an agreement, not a settlement.
It’s hard to keep up with the story, but a few facts are beyond dispute:
- Two complaints of sexual harassment were filed against Cain.
- The National Restaurant Association paid off the accusers in exchange for their silence.
- Cain first denied any such complaints had ever been made.
- Cain’s story has changed daily.
The original story in Politico would have been a one-day item. Cain’s serial lying has turned it into a media circus that may well destroy his campaign, and deservedly so.
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Tags:conservative media, ethics, Herman Cain, inside-the-beltway media, mainstream media, Mark Block, National Restaurant Association, Politico, Rick Perry, serial lying, sexual harassment, smears
Posted in Ethics-general, Media, Politics | 6 Comments »
October 17, 2011
Herman Cain has a plan for America’s tax system: junk the federal income tax and payroll tax, and substitute his 999 system, in which everybody pays 9% federal income tax and 9% federal sales tax, and corporations pay a 9% income tax.
Elegant in its simplicity. But a crusher for the working poor, who now pay 8% in payroll (Social Security and Medicare) taxes, but get a substantial credit via the earned income tax credit, or EITC.
Here’s how a single mother of two earning the California minimum wage of $8 an hour would fare under the 2011 tax structure and under Cain’s 999 plan.
2011 actual Cain 999
Earned income $16,000 $16,000
Less taxes:
Federal payroll tax 900 -0-
Federal income tax -0- 1,440
Federal sales tax -0- 1,440
State/local taxes 1,600 1,600
Subtotal taxes paid 2,520 4,480
Net income before EITC* $13,480 $11,520
EITC 4,800 -0-
Net income 18,280 11,520
So under Cain’s plan her actual taxes paid increase by 77% ($2520 to $4,480), and she loses the EITC of $4,800. Her net income is slashed by 37% ($18,280 to $11,520).
What does it say about the media and about Cain’s competitors for the Republican nomination that they let this barbarism go unremarked?
_______________
*Earned Income Tax Credit. Cain’s plan abolishes (“simplifies”) it.
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Tags:999, earned income tax credit, EITC, ethics, federal income tax, federal sales tax, Herman Cain, media, minimum wage, payroll tax, Social Security and Medicare tax, tax plan, working poor
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, hypocrisy, Media, Politics | 3 Comments »
September 30, 2011
If you’re unhappy with the liberal bias of the mainstream media, welcome to Fox News and to one of their sources, CNSNews.com, a conservative news service formed to provide more balance than spin: in its words, “an alternative news source that would cover stories that are subject to the bias of omission and report on other news subject to bias by commission.”
You would have read about President Obama’s Wednesday back-to-school speech, in which the President spoke about the importance an eighth grade ethics course had in his life, about how the questions raised in that ethics course “are still with me today. Every day, I’m thinking about those same issues as I try to lead this nation.
But that’s not what Fox and CNSNews reported. No, the headline was
Obama: ‘I Don’t Think Ethics’ Was My Favorite Subject
Here’s the lead paragraph, in toto:
President Barack Obama told an audience of high school students in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday that he was “not always the very best student” and that ethics “would not have made it on the list” of his favorite subjects.
Not a word in the entire article about how important the course—or ethics—was in his life. Just that he didn’t like it.
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Tags:back-to-school speech, CNSNews.com, eighth grade ethics course, ethics, Fair and balanced, Fox News, half-truths, liberal bias, mainstream media, Obama
Posted in Ethics-general, Media | 1 Comment »
August 29, 2011
Americans believe in fair play. That’s why we’re outraged when a ballplayer cheats. Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa went from American heroes to pariahs overnight when we discovered that they were juicing. That may be why voters switched from Kerry to Bush when we learned that The New York Times had used a forged document on the eve of the 2004 election to “prove” that President Bush had pulled family stings to escape being drafted for Vietnam.
Unfair play may account for some of Sarah Palin’s popularity, as we see her being treated shabbily by the media. And now the media seem set on building up sympathy for Michele Bachmann by distortions of her words.
Ironically, the disdain many rightfully feel toward Bachmann leads them to heap undeserved scorn on her, on top of the scorn her candidacy deserves. And this is helping her, not only with her right-wing base but also with moderate people who believe she’s being treated unfairly.
So some of the media are reporting that Bachmann blamed hurricane Irene on the big-government Democrats in—ugh—WASHINGTON, D.C. Here’s how it went at a widely covered campaign stop in Florida. (more…)
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Tags:2004 election, ABC, big government, CBS, CNN, D.C., ethics, fair play, forgery, hurricane Irene, Mark McGuire, Martin Bashir, media, Michele Bachmann, MSNBC, NBC-TV 4, President Bush, Sammy Sosa, Sarah Palin, St. Petersburg Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Nation, The New York Times., Time, Vietnam draft, Washington
Posted in Ethics-general, Media, Politics, Religion | 2 Comments »
August 13, 2011
Who would have thought that Fox News and MSNBC could raise us out of our funk over the hyper-partisan media and their destructive influence on political discourse in America?
First, Fox: As hosts of the Republican Presidential debate Thursday Fox might have been expected to throw fat pitches to the favored candidates. But reporters Bret Baier, Chris Wallace, and Byron York* would have made the legendary Martha Rountree—creator of Meet the Press and no gentle tosser of fat pitches—proud.
Chris Wallace asked Gingrich about his entire campaign staff resigning, then asked Herman Cain about his claim that “communities have the right to ban Muslims from building mosques.” Byron York asked Bachmann to explain her statement that she was following biblical guidance to “Be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands.”
And Baier may have settled the 2012 Presidential contest when he asked the candidates to raise their hands if they would walk away from a deal to balance the budget with a ten-to-one ratio of spending cuts to tax increases. I haven’t seen hands shoot up so fast since I asked in a staff meeting who could use my tickets to Sunday’s Redskins game. Every single candidate claimed absolute dedication to not raise ANY taxes, not even on the super rich, not even on Big Oil, not even on tax-exempt GE. And we know it because of Brett Baier.
And MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow turned away from hyper-partisanship to recognize the courage of four prominent Republicans who defied (more…)
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Tags:be submissive, Bret Baier, Byron York, Chris Christie, Chris Wallace, civil discourse, courage, debt ceiling, essential air service, ethics, ethics heroes, FAA shutdown, Fox News, global warming, Jon Huntsman, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Martha Rountree, Meet the Press, Mitt Romney, mosques, partisan media, Rachel Maddow MSNBC, Republican Presidential debate, Sharia, ten-to-one ratio of spending cuts to tax increases
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Media, Politics | Leave a Comment »
August 2, 2011
Everybody talks about ethics but it seems nobody cares about it. The “ethics” talk is all about rules: bribery, conflict of interest, financial disclosure laws, nepotism, and the rest of the litany of rules of conduct that you can be fired or prosecuted for breaking.
If you subscribe to a Google alert for “ethics” you learned today that a key aide to the governor of Illinois was fined $500 and forced to resign for sending a campaign email on his state-issued cell phone. Or that the former Massachusetts State Auditor was fined $2,000 for by putting his unqualified 75-year-old cousin on the state payroll. Or that lobbyists are buying meals for Oklahoma lawmakers. That’s not about ethics, that’s about rules
Moreover, corporate ethics officers are so concerned with preventing criminal violations that they don’t have much (…any?) time for such things as the Golden Rule, arguing with the boss, or keeping one’s commitments. This became depressingly clear to me after I attended a meeting of ethics officers and academics. The meeting had focused on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it illegal for American companies to pay bribes overseas.
After the meeting I made an offer to the attendees that I thought they couldn’t refuse: (more…)
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Tags:bribery, campaign email, conflict of interest, corporate ethics officers, ethics, FCPA, financial disclosure laws, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Golden Rule, Google alert, lobbyists, Massachusetts State Auditor, Mick Ukleja, nepotism, Oklahoma lawmakers, Redlands School of Business, rules of conduct, Sarbanes-Oxley
Posted in Business ethics, Ethics-general, Media, Organizational | 9 Comments »
July 18, 2011
Ethics Bob is always on the lookout for fake apologies, so when CNN reported that News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch had made a non-apology my senses sharpened: who better to nail than Murdoch, the genius behind Fox News’s right-wing propaganda machine. I wanted to disbelieve Murdoch’s acceptance of any responsibility.
Here’s the ad he ran in British papers last weekend:
The News of the World was in the business of holding others to account.
It failed when it came to itself.
We are sorry for the serious wrongdoing that occurred.
We are deeply sorry for the hurt suffered by the individuals affected.
We regret not acting faster to sort things out.
I realise that simply apologising is not enough.
Our business was founded on the idea that a free and open press should be a positive force in society. We need to live up to this.
In the coming days, as we take further concrete steps to resolve these issues and make amends for the damage they have caused, you will hear more from us.
(signed) Rupert Murdoch.
One could quibble with Murdoch’s use of “wrongdoing that occurred” rather then “wrong that we did,” or “hurt suffered” rather than “hurt we caused,” but that’s only a small quibble. It looks to me, and I think will look to most people, that Murdoch is accepting responsibility. And by not putting the corporate name under his signature he’s signifying that the responsibility is personal. Hooray (gulp) for him.
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Tags:apology, CNN, fake apologies, Fox News, News Corp, News of the World, non-apology, phone hacking, police bribery, Rupert Murdoch, We are sorry
Posted in Apologies, Ethics-general, Media, Politics | Leave a Comment »
July 1, 2011
It’s always upsetting when one of your heroes turns out to be an unethical creep. I was sick when I learned—for certain—that Bill Clinton had lied to me on national TV, sad when I learned that my Dodger hero, Manny Ramirez, had used banned substances, and devastated when my biggest hero of all. Greg Mortensen (of Three Cups of Tea fame) had not really built girls schools in Taliban country and had in fact stolen millions from his non-profit.
Still, I’m not getting used to my heroes falling. Not even after the latest, Joe Scarborough, conservative ex-congressman (R-FL) and host of the fun morning political conversation, Morning Joe.
I posted yesterday about how Joe and his co-host, Mika Brzezinski, had goaded and cajoled Mark Halperin into expressing his honest opinion of President Obama’s performance at his press conference Wednesday. They assured him that any off-color remark would be bleeped by way of a seven-second delay. When the show’s producer pressed the wrong button, Halperin’s opinion, “I thought he was kind of a dick,” went out into the ether for all to hear. More giggles from Mika and Joe, then a heartbroken apology from Halperin, then Halperin was “suspended indefinitely.”
In urging him on, Scarborough had promised, “You fall down I’m going to catch you.” But he didn’t catch him. Not a word protesting the suspension or owning up to his responsibility. (more…)
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Tags:banned substances, Bill Clinton, cowardice, ethics, EthicsAlarms, Greg Mortensen, heroes, Jack Marshall, Joe Scarborough, Manny Ramirez, Mark Halperin, Mika Brzezinski, Morning Joe, Obama press conference, seven-second delay, Three Cups of Tea
Posted in Apologies, Entertainment, Ethics-general, Media, Politics | 2 Comments »
June 30, 2011
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning best-selling author and Time editor at large Mark Halperin was asked his opinion of President Obama’s behavior at yesterday’s press conference. Before giving it he asked if there was a seven-second delay and was assured by host Joe Scarborough that there was. Co-host Mika Brzezinski urged him on:
“Go for it, we’ll see what happens.”
Scarborough reassured Halperin:
“You fall down I’m going to catch you.”
Halperin gave his opinion:
“I thought he was kind of a dick yesterday.”
The hosts dissolved in giggles—shocked giggles when they learned that there had been no delay, “dick” had gone out on cable at (more…)
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Tags:Apologies, dick, ethics, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, Jay Carney, Joe Scarborough, Mark Halperin, Mika Brzezinski, Morning Joe, Obama press conference, obscenity, seven-second delay
Posted in Apologies, Ethics-general, Government, Media | 3 Comments »
I’m back from my annual ballet trip to New York, and back to my computer. Along with four wonderful performances by American Ballet Theater I got to visit Park 51, the Islamic Center three blocks from Ground Zero (about which more soon), and Zuccotti Park, the home of Occupy Wall Street.
Ethics Bob 