Category: Media Ethics

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, General Commentary, Media Ethics

If I’m a tad schizophrenic in my feelings toward search engine
giant Google, it’s because the company sometimes seems like a
many-headed hydra whose various heads have no clue what the others are
up to.

On the positive side: Google last October announced a wonderful plan
to donate one percent of its stock value–just a whisker under a cool
billion at the time of the announcement–to various change-the-world
charities–and to donate various other streams that push the total value well above that amazing $1 billion mark.

This
is wonderful! It makes sense both to advance founders Larry Page and
Sergey Brin’s vision of the kind of world they want to live in, and to
advance Google’s corporate goals of continued market dominance. (One of
the initiatives, for example, is to help MIT develop $100 computers.
Guess how they’ll link to the world?).

Also on the positive side
is Google’s ability to create a powerfully positive user experience.
How did I find the above article? I received a Google News alert by
e-mail for ethical business, that linked to a blog post by Joseph Newhard.
After reading the article, which was more commentary than news, I
wanted a more authoritative source to quote from, so I typed the
following string into Google

google “$1 billion” healthcare

About three seconds later, I had the San Francisco Chronicle article I referenced earlier.

Oh
yes, and I’m typing this on a Blogger blog, owned by Google. If you’re
reading it on my own site, I use Word Press for the mirror blog. And I
switched my site-specific search engines to Google a couple of years
ago, because it didn’t need me to tell it each time I added content.
Though I’d love to see them add the feature of searching a few sites at
once under common ownership that my old, clunky search engine offered.

And
I think it’s fabulous that Google now has a share value of $100 billion
and profits of $968 million–because those profits are built on doing a
lot of things right–first of all, creating a search engine that gives
the right results if you know what to ask for, and gives them
instantly. Second, not bothering with a revenue model until “usership”
had built up. And thirdly, introducing its primary revenue model–a
modification of the old failed model of web ads–as the brilliantly
successful low-key, non-intrusive contextual advertising, with millions
of partner websites who are benefiting from Google’ success. Obviously,
it works.

But then there are those other heads: Google
Book, for instance, *almost* works. The ability to search books’
complete text is great. The it’s-a-big-pie model that shares revenue
with publishers by directing purchasers to publisher websites to buy
the book is great. But what’s not great–and the Authors Guild is suing
over it–i that Google insists it has the right to take books into the
program without consent of the copyright holder.

If there is
any justice in the courts, Google will lose this case–and it will be a
big, expensive mess. Just as an example–I’m delighted to have the text
of my most recent book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People
First, in the program; I think that can only help sales. But I have
deliberately refused to put in my older e-book, The Penny-Pinching
Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty with a Peasant’s Pocketbook–because
with that book, appealing to a self-defined frugal audience, it’s much
more likely that a searcher would find the specific piece of
information wanted and feel no need to then spend $8.50 to own the
content. For authors of cookbooks, reference manuals, travel
guidebooks, etc., involuntary participation in the program could be a
disaster. Google could, I think, easily develop a form to submit to
publishers enabling them to quickly import their entire catalog and
check yes or no for the program. By saying “we have the right unless
you opt out,” they’re acting like spammers, violating copyrights
unnecessarily, and depriving publishers of the right to make decisions
about how their copyright-protected material is used.

And then there are some serious concerns about privacy. See for instance “Google as Big Brother” on the Google-watch site (scroll down to “Google’s immortal cookie”). If you want to find more, here’s Google’s own results page on a search for google privacy. Stories on Wired and elsewhere raise cause for alarm.

Of
course, Google isn’t the only company to be a bit erratic in its
ethics. I could have easily written a similar article about Microsoft,
or Ford, for instance.

But Google does so much that’s right–I
just have to wonder about their blinders on the copyright fronts, and
take a watch-and-wait attitude on the privacy front.

Shel Horowitz’s Business Ethics Pledge campaign
seeks to create a climate where future Enron/WorldCom scandals will be
impossible. He’s the author of the Apex Award winner, Principled
Profit: Marketing That Puts People First and five other books.

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By Posted on Posted in Media Ethics

Judith Trotsky wrote:

For examples, I would urge you to tune in on the PBS Newshour. They have top figures from all over the world giving facts, providing their own points of view. This is reporting BOTH sides of any controversial story: you might not like what you hear, it might contradict some emotional need you have to believe differently, but it will present the ENTIRE story, not just one side.

I was also trained as a journalist, and I’m sure there are many dedicated folks in the profession who see this as their mission. I have no doubt that Judith is one of them. In fact, I’ll point out that she was on the pub-forum list (where all three of the quotes originally appeared, along with a slightly different version of this response) for many months before I, at least–and I think of myself as pretty tuned in to clues on this–had any inkling of her politics, other than as a strong and forceful advocate for writers’ rights and an active NWU member.

But unfortunately…

  • I don’t think journalism training is what it was in the 70s when I was trained, and certainly not in the earlier period when Judith learned her trade; today, the emphasis seems to be on glitz instead of news, and the tendency to spent absurd amounts of time following nonstories involving celebs while the real news is quietly sitting there on bloggers’ desks is just shameful
  • This is in part because real news is expensive, and many news orgs are now owned by non-journo bean counters who see their only stakeholder as the stockholder, and not the public they’re supposed to serve
  • It’s also because the Internet has even shorter lead time than daily newspaper of old–instant stories are not always fully researched
  • The definition of what covering both sides means has become quicksand: far too many journalists think that if they give equal time to a Democrat and Republican who share a position (say, just for the sake of argument, the drive to go to war in Iraq)…or spokespeople from both the oil and coal industries, but not a knowledgeable advocate of solar
    Many stories have far more than two sides; the mainstream, well-funded, easy access sources of the large industries and government institutions get heard, because reporters (who are totally overworked and under immense pressure) already have them in their Rolodexes and databases, and know they won’t get in trouble for going with known quantity (especially on TV
  • You will notice that certain organizations, and many members of the current administration, clearly favor those journalists who promote their policies–look how seldom a Helen Thomas or a Don Gonyea gets called on at those rare White House press conferences (I’m sure the notorious planted Jeff Gannon didn’t have this problem for his softball questions)–it is well-known in Washington that those journos who “play nice” also have access in the form of 1:1 interviews that are denied to the critical voices
  • Quite a few journos have simply been forced out for speaking truth to power–even such respected figures as Bill Moyers and Phil Donahue, and many lesser known ones who happened to work for the likes of Clear Channel and Sinclair

Judy Sulik wrote:

Also, sometimes a story shouldn’t have ‘two’ sides. If one side is
correct and the other side is factually wrong, then giving balance to
both sides so some kind of objectivity can be claimed, doesn’t lead to
the truth.

I totally agree; there’s not enough skeptical analysis. Propaganda statements on all sides are far too often simply presented as fact. And most people would be shocked and horrified to learn how much of the news is planted rather than investigated

And Bob Goodman wrote,

[a journalist who was covering the Vietnam war] was given the boot because he kept asking why only deaths that occurred during actual combat were reported as casualties of war–why people killed by a rocket launched into their barracks, for example, didn’t count. That’s a reasonable question that deserves an answer instead of a plane ride home. I’ll give the army and the State Department credit, though. They let him come home.

Does anyone really believe the spin and propaganda? Now we learn that puff pieces are being planted at taxpayer expense and sycophants in the media are presenting them as news. That doesn’t do much for the already miniscule credibility of the news desk.

I do see some clear ethical differences between PR for companies (which I do) and PR for governments. First of all, when a company hires PR firms or in-house staff, it is funded out of the company’s profits. But for the government, the person paying is the taxpayer–the same person being hoodwinked by misleading, feel-good “news.” Also, one can at least hope that the private folks subscribe to the PRSA’s code of ethics, which very clearly spells out responsibilities to the truth. And finally, private PR flaks do not have the luxury of ostracizing media people who don’t toe the preferred line.

Of course government, business, and even Pub-forum wonks give you the information they want you to know. So do reporters. The difference is that reporters have to dig while government only dispenses. The more sophisticated we get technologically, the easier it is for people who are already secretive to pull “facts” that only they could know out of blackboxes that only they have access to and say that this is all theinformation we need and all we are going to get. Didn’t the USSR and Pravda do that?

This battle comes up every now and then. I highly recommend the new movie, “Good Night and Good Luck,” which chronicles legendary TV reporter Edward R. Murrow’s and producer Fred Friendly’s battle against the repressive Senator Joe McCarthy. We desperately need more Ed Murrows in the journalism biz, especially the TV side of things–and they need to be given the resources to do their job, as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were during Watergate.

(My thanks to Judith, Judy, and Bob for their gracious permission to quote them, and to Pub-Forum for its usual stimulating discussion.)

Shel Horowitz is the creator of the Business Ethics Pledge, which you can sign by clicking here, He writes frequently on media, ethics, and government. His most recent book is the Apex Award winner, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First

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By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Media Ethics

Paul Demko writes in the Twin Cites alternative paper, City Pages, about one Tim Mahoney, a part-time copy editor who attended the big September peace rally in Washington with other members of his church.

Mahoney got a stern talking-to, a three-day suspension without pay, and was removing from editing any stories about Iraq. He was told he’d be fired for a repeat offense.

The paper claimed, as it has claimed previously in another case now making its way through the grievance system–two reporters attended a rock concert that raised funds for the Kerry campaign–that Mahoney’s actions were a violation of the paper’s ethics policies.

Now, you know that I can be pretty loud when I see ethics violations. As the author of Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, a columnist for Business Ethics magazine, and the originator of an international pledge campaign around ethics, I think I’ve got some credentials in this area. And while I certainly see the ethics issues if a reporter gets involved with partisan political activity that he or she is actively covering (did someone say “Judith Miller”?), I fail to find the justification here. Journalists are allowed to have personal politics, last time I checked. And a copy editor isn’t even creating the story, merely making sure that it’s internally consistent with its own logic and the rules of English.

This strikes me as a punitive action on the part of a newspaper that doesn’t happen to agree with the stand the reporter took, and is trying to pre-emptively prevent other staffers form expressing their opinions. It reminds me of the time an employee of one of the two major soda companies was fired for drinking the competitor’s product, outside of work if I remember correctly.

No one should have to leave their soul outside on the way to work.

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By Posted on Posted in Media Ethics

William Powers of the National Journal says the Judith Miller caper, and the Times’ earlier handling of Jayson Blair’s distortions of the truth, show the responses of a self-protective power structure much like the Church’s response to the priest-abuse scandals.

A fascinating perspective, and one that continues to force us to ask the questions about what Miller knew, who else at the Times knew, was she given a security clearance, and is she in any way a paid and/or covert propagandist of the government a la Armstrong Williams?

If it’s been archived, the date on the column is October 21, and here’s some text you can search for at Google:

On October 12, as a frustrated media establishment (plus a few scattered readers) was waiting for the paper to explain the role played by reporter Judy Miller in the case of outed spy Valerie Plame, The Times published a front-page, above-the-fold news scoop.

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By Posted on Posted in Media Ethics

I finally got around to reading Judith Miller’s account of her Grand Jury testimony, as published in the New York Times three days ago.

When I was growing up, the Times was “the paper of record.” But in the decade of Jayson Blair and Judith Miller, you’ve got to wonder.

Where were her editors? How could they allow this rambling, repetitious essay to waltz into print? Then again, these are probably the same editors who did not question her reportage in the run-up to the war, in which she served as the Bush administration’s #1 print media cheerleader, engaging in press release journalism and insider-secret journalism that was a major force in advancing support for the war that–we all know, now–did not even begin to be justified by the stated claims of weapons of mass destruction.

And then there are some other very interesting hints in this piece:

I would still like to know what really happened in that Grand Jury room–and in the numerous meetings Miller had with White House sources before the button was pushed for “shock and awe.”

I’d also like to know why she deliberately misled her editors and the public by identifying Cheney’s adjutant Scooter Libby as a “former [Capitol] Hill staffer, rather than as a top white House aide.

And finally, what does Miller mean in her comments about security clearances and being privy to classified information? Media critic Norman Solomon, in a strongly worded piece covering Miller’s entire sordid history on Iraq, points out a big problem:

There’s nothing wrong with this picture if Judith Miller is an intelligence operative for the U.S. government. But if she’s supposed to be a journalist, this is a preposterous situation…

Interestingly, I’m more amused than bothered by the numerous inaccuracies she reports from the pages of her own notebooks. I’ve done journalism, I know what it’s like to take notes in the field, and these sorts of bloopers are normal and unavoidable. However, a good journalist goes back over the notes while the interview is still fresh, and makes the necessary corrections. No evidence of that here!

And Judith Miller is a Pulitzer Prize winner, too. Sheesh!

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By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Media Ethics

https://www.sptimes.com/2005/08/18/Floridian/Media_s_quest_for_div.shtml

Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg Times (who happens to be black) wrote this thought-provoking article about the dearth of people of color in positions of high visibility within the news industry, and how that plays out.

Among other effects, he finds the massive coverage of various white women’s disappearances hard to justify in light of the acute lack of coverage when a black woman goes missing.

And one can speculate (he doesn’t, in this article) about the often-negative portrayal of communities of color, especially inner-city ones–where the news coverage often focuses on crime and rarely talks about all the good community building going on.

Theses issues were expressed somewhat during the recent National Conference on Media Reform, which I covered extensively.

But Deggans also rightly points out that the major networks have had a massive defection of their most visible talent: “And despite an astonishing changing of the guard in network news that has seen Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel all leaving their high-profile jobs this year, no black person has surfaced as a realistic candidate to replace any of them.”

Sometimes, 1960 doesn’t seem so long ago. surely, as a society, we can do better.

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By Posted on Posted in Events, Media Ethics

At Book Expo America, I interviewed Alice Blackmer, Publicity Director, Chelsea Green, which enjoyed runaway success with George Lakoff’s book, Don’t Think of an Elephant.

How the book came about: “Jennifer Nix was in California and got the word that George Lakoff was thinking of pulling together some sort of manual to try to help Democrats ahead of the election, in the beginning of July. Margo Baldwin [Chelsea’s publisher] and Jen approached George about doing a book, so we could get it out to a broader audience. We lined up help via Alternet and a lot of progressive political websites. We rushed it through and were able to get it out about two months before the election.

“A lot of the information had been written, from the courses he taught, but he did have to do a lot of pulling together and extra writing, and then we got the foreword by Howard Dean; he understood the value of what Lakoff had to say. [Vermont Democratic Senator] Pat Leahy, Bernie Sanders [Vermont’s lone member of the House of Representatives, and the only Independent in Congress], Howard Dean have always been very supportive.”

The book title is taken from the name of one of Lakoff’s lectures

Five weeks from manuscript until the presses rolled almost (unheard of in the book industry). Everybody pitched in. Initial print run of 20,000 (up from the 15,000 originally planned, after Amazon.com ordered 10,000 in advance). As of June, 2005, they’d sold over 200,000, about 40,000 of them before the election.

Chelsea’s previous biggest seller, The Straw Bale House, has sold 125,000 over ten years, so Elephant was a quantum leap for the company. “This was so gratifying, to have been working away, publishing such timely and useful information, all the while knowing we were way ahead of the curve. Attached to the thrill of having a best seller move that way, starting to see the culture catch up to so many of the topics we publish on the backlist. We have backlist titles that are selling more than twice as much per month now as they did when they were first published. And of course the Lakoff book has helped to bring a lot of attention to the company in general, and really energized the entire staff.”

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Media Ethics

Buying Journalists: A 70-Year Tradition of Dishonor and Corruption

With all the news about Armstrong Williams and other paid lobbyists masquerading as pundits, it’s important to note that this disgusting practice has been going on for years, both in industry and in government.

All the way back to 1936 and 1937, Hill & Knowlton was paying journalists to write favorable stories for its steel-industry clients, as chronicled in the new book, The Voice of Business: Hill & Knowlton and Postwar Public Relations, by Karen S. Miller (The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 1999), and reported by Eveline Lubbers of Spinwatch.

She writes:

Hill and Knowlton sponsored antiunion messages appearing in the news media. George Sokolsky, a columnist for the New York Herald Tribune and periodicals such as the Atlantic Monthly received $28,599 from H&K from June 1936 to February 1938, chiefly for consultation to the American Iron and Steel Institute. When writing against the steelworkers union, his articles failed to mention his connection to H&K or the Institute.

A decade later, the New York Times on a Pulitzer for its post-Hiroshima reportage–a series of articles lauding the nuclear program, written by William Laurence.

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, along with her brother David, are calling for the Times to be stripped of its Pulitzer, because…

It turns out that William L. Laurence was not only receiving a salary from The New York Times. He was also on the payroll of the War Department. In March 1945, General Leslie Groves had held a secret meeting at The New York Times with Laurence to offer him a job writing press releases for the Manhattan Project, the U.S. program to develop atomic weapons. The intent, according to the Times, was “to explain the intricacies of the atomic bomb’s operating principles in laymen’s language.” Laurence also helped write statements on the bomb for President Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson.

(And for those who might accuse me of an anti-GOP bias, please note that this was during the Democratic administration of Harry Truman.)

Censors as Well as Spinners

Meanwhile, another disturbing trend: government policy wonks are inviting large corporate interests–or bureaucrats who came through the revolving door and used to work for the industries they’re supposed to regulate–to edit repots before they’re made public. We saw this in the widely-reported story about White House staffer Philip Cooney editing out “negative” references (i.e., those that gave credence to the idea that global warming is a serious problem).

Turns out similar things are going on at the international level, in a climate change report prepared for the G8 summit that not only removed unfavorable references but presented nuclear power (the worst energy generation system ever invented, IMHO) as the shining knight of sustainability. Eeeeew!

But wait–there’s more! Can you believe that Andrew Gallagher, the spokesperson for West Virginia’s Environmental Protection department, had to run a press release on DuPont’s toxic emissions by the company first? And that he first softened the statement and then withdrew it entirely as a result? And that it was official state policy to give DuPont a shot at all such materials before their release?

And let’s not forget the US Department of Labor’s blatant attempt to help push through the CAFTA agreement by censoring its own contractor’s report on working conditions in Central America.

Do we have a problem with foxes in the henhouse, or what?

Note: I discovered all these stories reading one of my favorite blogs, “The Weekly Spin.”
I especially like it because it’s available in e-mail form. Sign up or read on line at

https://www.prwatch.org/

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Media Ethics

Lawrence O’Donnell claims in the Huffington Post https://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/lawrence-odonnell/rove-blew-cia-agents-cov_3556.html (Ariana Huffington’s open blog) that Bush’s senior strategist and Chief of Staff Karl Rove was the leaker who blew CIA agent Valerie Plame’s cover–an apparent act of revenge after her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was asked, in the run-up to the Iraq war, to investigate claims that Iraq was buying weapons-grade uranium from Niger. Wilson found no truth in the allegations, said so publicly, and then conservative columnist Robert Novak put Plame’s name and true occupation in his column. And that he, O’Donnell, has known this for some time.

His documentation is a bit thin, but he says it will be in the next Newsweek, now that Time magazine has turned over reporter Matthew Cooper’s sources, after the Supreme Court declined to give reporters protection.

A lot of permutations here:

1. Let’s start with the most obvious: revealing the name of a CIA agent is a federal crime, and rightly so–it puts the operative’s life in danger, and endangers others who may have had dealings with the operative. Coming from a White House Chief of Staff, it could conceivably be considered an act of treason, a very high crime indeed.

2. The Administration attitude of “don’t tell us anything unless you can tell us good news, on the party line” is suicidal and homicidal. This is part of how we got into the Iraq mess in the first place–because when the top strategists received reports that weren’t what they wanted to hear–that Saddam had nothing to know with 911, that he wasn’t buying uranium, that he no longer had WMDs, and that the war would not be winnable–they either ignored them, doctored them, or excerpted the small parts that lent themselves to “positive” spin.

3. The Supreme Court ruling was on Matthew Cooper from time and Judith Miller from the New York times–neither of whom actually used the news leak in their reportage. If you’re going to investigate anyone, why not Novak, who actually wrote the column? And it’s particularly odd that the goon squad went after Judith Miller, who was perhaps the most influential cheerleader for the war, and whose failure to verify was so embarrassing that the Times eventually–two years late–issued an apology to its readers about misleading them on the validity of the pro-war arguments.

4. Meanwhile, the war drums are beating again. Having made a complete mess of Iraq, they’re now looking at Iran. I have to wonder whether the stories about Iran’s new president and his possible membership in the terrorist group that kidnapped 20 Americans in 1979 is another disinformation campaign. I believe it was the Times that ran the allegation, but also ran interviews with two of the known hostage takers who said the guy hadn’t been involved, though he’d asked to join them.

5. And let’s not forget the departure of Sandra Day O’Connor opens a fight for the lifeblood of this country. If that seat goes to a radical-right head-in-the-sand friend of GWB such as torture apologist (and now Attorney General) Antonio Gonzales, it’ll be time to make sure your passport is in order. And time to reread Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Don’t think it can’t happen here.

If the Rove allegation is true, this is yet another reason to stop cooperating with this government. It means the President either knew or should have known. International law, and the Watergate precedent in our own country, both show clearly that the chief executive can be held responsible for the actions of subordinates. Of course, the same principle should apply with the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture, among other abuses.

It was only a few months ago that the people of the Ukraine brought down their government and demanded a new election, with far less cause than we have here.

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By Posted on Posted in Events, Media Ethics

https://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/dtb.shtml#medialiteracy

I’ve put up six different articles at the above link, covering the National Conference on Media Reform, held in St. Louis May 13-15, 2005.

2500 people attended this event, to hear from celebrity media personalities like Al Franken, Bill Moyers, Phil Donahue, Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales, Jim Hightower, several members of Congress, and the two progressive FCC Commissioners. and also to hear from activists in the trenches of media reform, pursuing these twin flanks:

Opening up mainstream media to important voices that are getting shoved out of the discourse
Creating our own media

Spend some time with these articles. Print out the Twin Fires story–my main conference report–and read to absorb. Understanding these issues is key to effecting change in any marketplace of ideas.

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