Corporate Finances Dominate August’s News in Ethics

Aug 26th, 2002 • Posted in: Trendlines

Special to Newsline from editor Carl Hausman

The crisis of confidence in the business world continued to dominate Ethics Newsline’s reporting throughout August, as concern over corporate ethics intersected with the monetary consequences of shaking the public’s faith in equity markets.

Our three lead stories this week dealt with continuing fallout from allegations of financial impropriety: the first guilty plea in the Enron fiasco, the rollout of a new system under which corporate CEOs certify their companies’ books, and more troubles for Martha Stewart over allegations of insider trading. Other stories this month dealt with a major whistle-blowing case (Aug. 19), a Canadian official decrying the level of ethics oversight in that nation (Aug. 19), a survey in which many corporate chief financial officers claimed that their bosses had pressured them to cook the books (Aug. 12), and probes of financial dealings at WorldCom and AOL Time Warner (Aug. 5).

Ethical fallout from the war on terrorism continued to make headlines. At the forefront are this week’s items about the controversial airing of apparent al Qaeda videos purchased by major news organizations, and a threatened suit by Saudi interests against the U.S. government and some media outlets. The latter item was in reaction to a suit against Saudi interests covered in the Aug. 19 and Aug. 12 editions of Newsline.

Human rights stories almost always feature a significant ethical angle, and this week we covered news related to the seizure of white farmers’ lands in Zimbabwe, as well as controversy over an alleged go-easy policy by the United States over the “Dirty War” in Argentina. Related stories this month included controversy over the U.S. push to be exempted from certain human-rights prosecutions (Aug. 19), government intervention in a human-rights case against ExxonMobil (Aug. 12), and protest over an allegedly anti-Semitic article printed in an Egyptian paper (Aug. 5).

Technology was prominent this month: On Aug. 19 we covered a protest against Japan’s so-called Juki Net, a high-tech information gathering system, and on Aug. 5 we reported on a bill that would give media companies the right to hack Web sites that had appropriated their content. Also on Aug. 5, we covered a freedom-of-speech suit against a firm that programs Internet filters.

Workplace issues consistently make ethics news, and this month was no exception. Among the top stories: a new survey finds many U.S. firms effectively protect the rights of gay workers (Aug. 19), a South African firm finds it makes economic sense to provide free treatment for HIV-infected workers (Aug. 12), and many employees remain upbeat about their firms despite the recent spate of negative news (Aug. 12).

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