By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, General Commentary

On the surface, a flamboyant pop star has little to do with an accounting firm: the epitome of corporate conservatism.

But the accounting firm we’re talking about is Arthur Andersen, and the way its auditors let Enron’s top execs bring down both companies hardly fits my standard of fiscal conservatism.

Anyway, the comparison isn’t about lifestyle or philosophy. It’s about the notion that being cleared in a court of law doesn’t necessarily mean you’re actually innocent.

Michael Jackson was not found guilty. He may or may not have molested children–I don’t have the knowledge to say, one way or the other. He certainly used bad judgment to share his bed with them–but the jury’s decision rested not on whether or not he committed the act, but whether the government had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt. Given the lack of credibility of one of the prosecution’s chief witnesses, the jury found that the government had not put forth an ironclad case.

And the Supreme Court, late last month, found not that Arthur Andersen wasn’t culpable for its destruction of documents, but that the judge had given faulty instructions to the jury, and thus the guilty verdict was thrown out.

Lawyers for both Michael Jackson and Arthur Andersen were quick to hail the court decisions as clearing their clients’ names, and Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling’s lawyer quickly made the claim that his client’s case was strengthened. But the Andersen jury foreman, Oscar Criner, called the Supreme Court’s ruling “a grave error” (as reported in Enron’s hometown paper, the Houston Chronicle:
https://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory/3204884 )

But in fact, neither decision addressed the defendant’s guilt or innocence. All that has happened is that a jury in one case and a panel of judges in the other found that the government did not make a strong enough case for wrongful intent.

Arthur Andersen first allowed Enron’s highly questionable accounting practices and then, as the SEC was preparing to investigate, destroyed the documents about the case. Michael Jackson shared his bed with teenage boys. While they were not guilty in the eyes of the law, the ethical questions remain in both cases. Failing to find that an action is criminal is not the same thing as finding that a defendant acted with ethics, with honor, and with good intent. It merely shows that the standard of proof was not met.

Legality and ethics are not always the same. Let’s keep that in mind as the Enron trials proceed.

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By Posted on Posted in Events, Marketing Trends/News

Tsunami Publishing’s Bob Bellin is a small publisher who thinks big. “We take abandoned brands, former bestsellers that we can bring back to bestsellers through aggressive and offbeat marketing and promotion.”

New York Times bestseller Steve Alten feels Bellin is treating him “a lot better than my last two publishers.” Bellin sent out 1500 galleys of his first title, Alten’s The Loch; he spent $100,000 on PR, satellite TV and radio tours, bought ad time and a banner on a coast-to-coast radio show, and is testing a radio ad campaign involving a bookstore coop.

“Our goal is to sell books. Ideally, a book that’s likely to be made into a movie; it will sell more books.” And apparently, it’s working, so far. “We popped in the first week at number 9 on Ingram’s bestseller list. We’ve already sold more than his last publisher. We printed five figures and we’re about to go to print again,” one month after the May 1 publication date. Bellin bought the rights to another abandoned Alten book, Meg, from Bantam. New Line Cinema is making the movie.

The trend of smaller publishers picking up larger authors was evident elsewhere at the show. Two among several examples: Small publisher Quill Driver Press has picked up Dr. Ruth, and Chelsea Green, publisher of the mega-hit Don’t Think of an Elephant (see related story), is in negotiation with some successful authors (but declined to name names).

On the other side of the fence, large publishers continue to pick up titles that have proven themselves in an independently published, self-published, or even subsidy-published run. John Wiley, for instance has picked up Internet marketing gurus Joe Vitale and Mark Joyner (in separate books, although the two have often collaborated).

Several categories seem to be drying up. You’d expect some reduction in political books now that last year’s hotly contested election is in the past, but their near-total absence from the major houses and obscurity even among the smaller houses was surprising.

Also, unless I simply missed the whole section somehow, there were amazingly few glitzy new cookbooks. The cookbooks I saw were mostly of the down-home variety, rather than the big coffee-table volumes that have dominated for several years. Combined with the greatly reduced presence of large four-color art titles, the shortage made me wonder if there’s been a huge increase in the cost of printing and/or shipping in Asia–though I wouldn’t expect the impact of the weak dollar and high fuel prices to show up until next year, given the publishing industry’s long lead times.

I noted last year how bland the largest houses have become, and this year that was even more true. Cookie-cutter, formulaic books dominated the largest booths–but independent publishers continue to focus on titles that one can take pride in.

One category where the largest houses do seem to still have some verve: history. Lots of solid-looking titles on wars, presidents, and fashions over the decades and centuries.

And perhaps 2005 is the Year of the Ordinary Mortal. From both small and large publishers, I saw a number of books celebrating the achievements of average Joes and Janes. One of my favorites in the category was Damn! I Wish I’d Written That!: chronicling the publishing successes of ordinary folks who didn’t necessarily even have big credentials. (However, it was rather odd to see Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese on the cover along with several more appropriate books. Johnson, after all, was already the best-selling co-author of The One-Minute Manager.)

Faith and religion were much evident this year, and not just in the religion aisles. WJK Books, whose The Gospel According to the Simpsons I picked up a couple of years ago, has now expanded to a whole line of Gospel According to titles: Harry Potter, Tolkein, and even (forthcoming) Oprah, among others. Wonder if the Potter book will shift the discourse among those elements of the Christian Right that have attacked and tried to censor the series.

And speaking of Hogwarts’s celebrated wizard, spin-off were everywhere: not just books trying to position themselves as the Next HP, but also literary criticism and scholarship on Potter and other fantasy series–looking, for instance at the mythology that influenced JK Rowling (this is a trend at least a few years old–my 2001 show report mentions The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter: A Treasury of Myths, Legends, and Fascinating Facts, but more titles are appearing, including Fact, Fiction, and Folklore in Harry Potter’s World from midsize publisher Hampton Roads.

As I look over my notes, I do notice that a lot of what I’ve found worth mentioning is from midsize publishers who put out, say, 10 to 50 titles per year. As the big boys swallow each other up and increasingly concentrate on celebrity tell-alls and blockbuster novels from famous authors, perhaps it is these publishers who will become the Keepers of the Culture: the ones who can release books that actually advance our thinking as a society, who take a chance on a first-timer’s literary gem–and who have enough marketing muscle to actually move the books out of the warehouse, into the bookstore, and out to the consumer (unlike the vast majority of self-publishers, tiny independents with fewer than five titles a year, or authors publishing with subsidy presses).

Maybe it’s time to start reading publisher labels as we select our bookstore purchases. While an imprint like Chelsea Green, Berrett-Koehler, or New Society Publishers–and there are a couple of dozen others–doesn’t guarantee a great book, in my experience, it definitely increases the odds.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Marketing Trends/News

An interesting week in the news, for sure.

This from Jack O’Dwyer’s PR-industry newsletter, which I hadn’t seen before but picked up at a PRSA event in New York. (I’m actually writing this from New York, in fact–where Book Expo America starts tomorrow.) O’Dwyer reports that the White House press corps, tired of their role as “props,” boycotted a May 23 press conference with President Bush and Afghani President Hamid Karzai–because the events are so tightly controlled that they’re only allowed two questions. I imagine they mean two questions total, rather than two apiece.

So as usual, the Bush administration appears to be afraid of an open and free press, and for once the 5th Estate is showing a little muscle. More power to them! The charade that has passed for Washington journalism the last few years is badly in need of a shakeup.

This is a particularly nice nugget considering that after 33 years, we’ve learned the identity of Deep Throat–the most vivid case study for the idea that undisclosed sources have a place in legitimate mainstream journalism, and that journalism has a responsibility to investigate the powers-that-be. To my knowledge, no one has ever challenged the authenticity of Mark Felt’s reports back then, and for 33 years, his identity was unknown. He helped to bring down a crooked government, and it wouldn’t have happened if journalists Woodward and Bernstein had been forced to disclose their sources.

Newsweek, are you listening? (See my two previous blog entries, May 18 and 25)

The same newsletter also bore an item about the PR industry, trust, and the bill that was passed forcing media to identify government video news releases (VNRs, a/k/a/ propaganda) when they use them: A little spat between the president of PRSA and a former PRSA/NY board member, in which the latter said that the former’s contention that PR has a high level of trust (and didn’t need regulation of VNRs) was ridiculous.

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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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By Posted on Posted in Media Ethics

Turns out this story has actually been around at least 14 months, not just since August, and certainly not just since the Newsweek story.

Britain’s Observer had the story, in gruesome detail, on March 14, 2004, following the release from Guantanamo of the so-called Tipton Three: https://dissident.info/Other/Tipton%20Three.htm

This is one of over 3500 hits for “tipton three” on Google–see for yourself at https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22tipton+three%22

I submit that the ethical position following the Holocaust and other extreme human rights abuses is that neither mental nor physical torture is acceptable.

We must say loudly that these acts of terrorism are not done in our name, and demand of our governments that they desist. There is ample international precedent for a populace being found complicit if they didn’t actively oppose war crimes. From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay, we have seen our government act reprehensibly in our names. Well, I say, this is not in my name. One does not win democracy and freedom by violating them, killing them, and dragging their remains across objects sacred to those of other faiths. These actions do not represent me. they do not represent anything that is in the virtuous heart of the American people.

I’ve done two radio interviews this week on the real story here. If I can get one of them, I’ll post a link to the audio in this space.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Media Ethics

The real scandal of the Newsweek incident isn’t that the magazine issued a retraction. It’s the incredible pressure brought to bear by the White House and the Pentagon to stifle dissent and cover up problems. Big problems. And it’s the cowardice of American mainstream journalism in he face of that pressure.

Earlier this week, a query from a journalist crossed my desk:

“I’m looking for experts to comment on the issues surrounding this story, including, but not limited to: 1) The White House says the apology is not enough and Newsweek needs to do more to repair the damage. What is the magazine’s obligation? 2) Is it any surprise, given recent reporting errors, that Americans don’t trust journalists? 3) Newsweek is a highly respected news magazine. How could this happen? 4) What is happening in the journalism profession? Why are journalists and the field in general losing regard among the public?”

Here’s what I wrote back:

” I think there’s a deeper story, and a different set of questions. Newsweek’s retraction was made under enormous pressure form the federal government. Is there actually truth to the allegations? Why does this government take such a consistent role as squelcher-of-the-press? (Two examples: the refusal to let TV cover returning coffins; the 1999 pressure brought to bear on St Martin’s Press to recall and destroy a critical biography of Bush, later re-published by the courageous independent house Soft Skull) And why is the media so complicit in its own strangulation? Why was the Dan Rather scandal allowed to divert attention from the far greater scandal–well known long before the forged memos came to light–of Bush’s AWOL problem?”… That the government was able to force the retraction of an apparently true story is cause for deep concern–and as someone who focuses on ethics, something I’m particularly alarmed about.

Since writing my response (which actually has resulted in two interviews so far), I did a little digging on the story. And I found some very interesting information.

1. Koran abuse is an old story. It was broken nine months ago by Britain’s The Independent, and unlike Newsweek, that paper attributed its sources. Why did it take American journalists nine months to dig it out? The Independent’s site only has the very beginning of the article:
https://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=548033

but the whole thing is posted in several places, including
https://www.sfimc.net/news/2004/08/1700888.php

2. According to a story in Democracy Now today, not only was abuse of the Koran rampant at Guantanamo, as part of a general culture of trashing and profaning all things Muslim (forced shaving, defiling male prisoners with what they thought was menstrual blood, and other psychological abuse), but several Kuwaiti prisoners filed a lawsuit about this.

The whole sordid tale can be found at https://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/18/1434259&mode=thread&tid=25

It does not make me proud of the American government. Desecration of religion has been considered bad karma at least as far back as the Maccabees of ancient Palestine, 165 years before the birth of Christ, whose defeat of the defilers–who ordered pigs, considered unclean by religious Jews, slaughtered n the holy temple–created the Jewish holiday of Chanukah.

Is it any wonder Americans are hated when they do everything in their power to desecrate the entire culture of the lands they occupy?

And isn’t it deeply ironic that White House spokesperson Scott McClellan said, “The report has had serious consequences. People have lost their lives. The image of the United States abroad has been damaged.”

I decry the loss of life. It is a human tragedy on the mound of vast human tragedies this war has sprung on us. But Scott–didn’t it ever occur to you that far more lives were lost, and our country’s reputation was far more damaged, by the “you’re with us or against us” rhetoric, the refusal to wait for the United Nations, the blatantly false justifications for the war (anyone remember that this was supposedly about WMDs? Or remember President Bush joking about looking for them behind the White House furniture?) Engage in unethical and illegal behavior for years, and then blame the messenger?

Something is very wrong with this picture.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics

https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7750293/

Here’s yet another case of a company pushing product it knew wasn’t safe. Now we learn that Merck actually stepped up its marketing of Vioxx once it was known that the product was linked with increased risk of heart attack and stroke. The company sent out a detailed sales training menu, even covering proper etiquette when dining with doctors. Vioxx became a best-seller, before the feds yanked it off the market.

Sometimes I wonder if the business world is populated by slow learners. They may create terrific sales projection PowerPoints and elegant profit spreadsheets, but they seem to lack any ability at all to find True North in their moral compasses.

And even if these talented and highly compensated MBAs don’t have a moral compass, you’d think they’d have figured out by now that deceptive practices, and particularly the selling of something as safe when you know it’s not, are bad for business.

We’ve already seen, after all (to name just three among dozens of examples)…

  • The plunge of revenue at Ford following revelations that they knew all along, even before they brought the car to market, that Explorers have an unfortunate tendency to flip over in hot weather
  • Enormous payouts from the tobacco companies, who also knew all along that they were pushing death
  • And a positive example: the rapid return of consumer confidence and profits when Johnson & Johnson stepped up to the plate and made it clear, following the Tylenol poisoning incident, that here was one company that actually did put its customers first. J&J took full responsibility for something that was not even its own fault, launched a massive recall campaign with huge publicity, and became one of the most trusted brands in America

I know they teach ethics in business school; maybe the message will only get through when people realize the ethical path is actually better for the bottom line (something which I discuss in some detail in my book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First https://www.principledprofits.com ).

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By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Other

https://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21878/

This author gives the credit for the Dems’ sudden discovery of backbone (over Social Security, Terry Shiavo, and even some of Bush’s particularly over-the-edge nominations) to independent media, and particularly liberal AM talk radio, e.g., Al Franken.

Well, I listened to Air America, and read Alternet and Truthout and Greg Palast and a lot of others, all the way through GWB’s first term (well, OK, Air America was a late arrival–but well before the election, during which the Dems continued to show a complete lack of spine). The stuff was out there all along.

My feeling is that it may actually have more to do with a lot of the mainstream news bigwigs, including the New York Times and Washington Post, admitting that they were hornswaggled in the run-up to the war, and finally beginning to *function again as a proper press does*: questioning everything and investigating until the truth can be discovered.

But I’d like to know your thoughts: Readers–why have the Democrats finally begun to turn into an actual opposition party? And why did they give GWB a free ride in his first term, despite his radical-right actions that are far out of the social mainstream? And why did the media so seldom question any of it until recently?

And why, for heaven’s sake, is there not a mass movement in the streets to protest both the stolen elections and the imposition of this very undemocratic government?

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By Posted on Posted in Media Ethics

https://www.investors.com/breakingnews.asp?journalid=27296372&brk=1

A fascinating and wide-ranging article from Investors Business Daily that looks at…

* Journalism’s own ethics skeletons: made-up stories, fabricated quotes, bad judgment, inflated circulation figures, and a general credibility gap
* The lack of training for business journalists as most small local papers slash their business coverage
* Journalism’s failure to pay attention to the signals before Enron and others collapsed–accepting company claims in the same spirit of “press release journalism” that mars–this is my opinion now, not article writer Jon Friedman’s–its failure to ask hard questions of the government

Friedman doesn’t comment on the scandal of VNRs: video news releases presented as actual TV news, without attribution to the government agency or corporation that prepared it with a particular agenda. and while he hints at it, I think he gives short shrift to some of the reasons behind these trends:

1] News decisions made by bottom line-focused executives with no understanding of the role news plays in a free society, and therefore no recognition of the value honest and thorough news brings to the table, beyond dollars

2] The tragic tendency to replace discourse with “infotainment.” If you watch many newscasts, or read many prominent publications, you’d come away with the impression that celebrities’ love lives are more important than a solid discussion of, say, the reasons for foreign policy decisions or the impact of corporate outsourcing on a local economy.

This second factor has left an ill-informed populace with poor thinking skills. Sure, it’s easy to find much more thorough treatment in the alternative voices; the problem is that these wonderful resources make very little impact on the mainstream, whereas the infotainment specialists have taken over the TV sets and daily newspapers that reach a majority of people. And this is dumbing down our whole culture.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government

I’ve long held that politicians, like business owners, do better when they remember their backbone. On March 12, I blogged about the Democrats’ refusal to go along with new House Ethics rules that seemed to be designed specifically to protect House Speaker Tom Delay from having to face up to his many ethically questionable actions.

For once in their too-often-spineless lives, the Democrats held firm. And they won! Yesterday, all but 20 members of the House voted to reinstate the previous committee rules, and that’s likely to mean an investigation of the ultra-rightist Delay and his hanky-panky around lobbyist-paid travel, intimidation, and other “might makes right” shenanigans.

Bravo!

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