For more information, see this week’s Research Report.

by Rushworth M. Kidder

HONG KONG

Last week, when Iceland’s chief financial regulator told an audience of anticorruption officials that “fraud and corruption are heading for the North Pole,” he wasn’t being merely metaphoric.

Tracing the impact of the global recession on his country, Gunnar Andersen, director general of his nation’s Financial Supervisory Authority, zeroed in on October 2008. That’s when, in a single week, Iceland’s three top banks collapsed.

As their losses mounted to $182 billion, markets in Reykjavik dropped 76 percent. Given a national population of only 320,000 people, he said, Iceland’s implosion was “the equivalent of 300 Lehman Brothers going bankrupt” in the United States. Had such a thing happened in the United States, he noted, “it would have needed 290 TARPs [the Troubled Asset Relief Program enacted by Congress in October 2008] to protect against the collapse.”

Iceland’s loss was the worst endured by any nation during the recent recession. Listening to Andersen, I expected that, as the new broom appointed last spring to help clean up the mess, he would be urging broader regulation and tougher legislation. Instead, painting a grim picture of the greed and cronyism underlying this collapse, he called not only for changes in the law but for a “change in attitude.” What went wrong in Iceland, he concluded, “has little to do with the regulatory framework.” Instead, it was a matter of “serious and massive fraud,” to be addressed not so much by rules as by values.

Frankly, that caught me by surprise. Fighting corruption typically centers on legislative, investigative, prosecutorial, and judicial efforts. But last week, at a three-day conference cosponsored by Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and OLAF, the European Union’s Anti-Fraud Office, something else was afoot. To be sure, there was plenty of talk about legal measures. But there also was an unmistakably strong focus on ethics and values, articulated not by social activists or global academics (not one of whom was on the roster of speakers) but by the cops, regulators, auditors, bankers, and judges who actually fight corruption on a daily basis. Here’s a sampling:

• Richard Alderman, director of the Serious Fraud Office in the United Kingdom, called for “a modern, ethical, anticorruption culture in business.”
• Ng Peng Khian, chief audit officer of the Bank of China, argued that “good corporate governance cannot rely solely on regulation” but needs “strong ethical culture” as well.
• Timothy Flynn, chairman of KPMG International, insisted that the first line of defense against corporate corruption “is to make sure we create highly ethical cultures grounded in integrity.”
• François Vincke, chair of the Anti-Corruption Commission of the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce, observed that “compliance and integrity are a good investment.”
• Akere Muna, vice-chair of Transparency International’s board of directors and former president of the Cameroon Bar Association, noted the importance of whistle-blowers, whose motivation is “very much related to personal ethics.”

All of which fits well with the work of the ICAC, widely regarded as the world’s premier anticorruption agency. Back in 1995, ICAC started its own Ethics Development Centre to help educate business leaders on the topic. Prior to the conference, I sat down with ICAC’s commissioner, Dr. Timothy Tong Hin-ming. He’s well placed to comment on an organization that, during the past 35 years, has taken this former British colony from one of the most corrupt jurisdictions in the world to one of the cleanest.

Over tea in his agency’s new Centre of Anti-Corruption Studies, Dr. Tong pointed to a shift in ICAC’s efforts. As they expand beyond political corruption into private-sector investigations, they’re also showing increased interest not only in offenses that are specifically “indictable” (his word) but in those that are more broadly unethical. What troubles him, he told me, was the number of executives in Hong Kong public companies who had “attempted to take advantage of the financial tsunami — people who had helped cause the crisis, but what they did could not be brought under the enforcement umbrella because it wasn’t illegal.”

“We take such offenses very, very seriously,” he said, “because if we don’t, how can we claim to be the world’s financial center?”

How, indeed? What draws people to invest in a financial center is trust, a quality that can’t be legislated and enforced but must be valued and earned. The recession has exposed deep levels of corruption, and tighter regulation is in the offing. But the real remedy, according to these experts, appears to lie not in more compliance but in the creation of ethical business cultures.

As U.S. regulators busy themselves building new layers of enforceable regulation, they need to pause for a moment to listen to the message from Hong Kong. Regulate, yes. But remember that beyond the enforceable lies the broader realm of integrity. Build cultures of integrity, and you finally address the corruption that was an undeniable factor in creating the ethics recession.

©2009 Institute for Global Ethics

Find this and previous weeks’ commentaries online as a podcast titled Ethicast™ now available on iTunes. Subscribe today!

It is “routine practice to use post-production techniques to correct for lighting and other minor photographic deficiencies before publishing the final shots as part of an advertising campaign.”

– Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, issuing a defense of its U.K. ad campaign featuring English model and actress Twiggy. The company’s cosmetics division Olay was taken to task recently for Photoshopping wrinkles from Twiggy’s face — the latest in a series of public protests against ad campaigns criticized for distorting body image.

In August, U.K. lawmakers began calling for a ban on “digitally altered ads, suggesting they mislead the public,” reports Yahoo.

Procter & Gamble has pulled the air-brushed ad for its Definity eye illuminator and replaced it with “one in which there was no post-production work around the eyes,” notes the U.K. Guardian.

Sources: Yahoo, Dec. 17 — Guardian, Dec. 16.

For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, Dec. 14.

Obligations of wealthy nations, hacked emails, and nihilism of a 9-year-old all figure in analysis

COPENHAGEN and WASHINGTON
How to address climate change, one of the top ethical stories of the twenty-first century’s first decade, remained an uncertainty last week — both in terms of how rich and poor countries will deal with the trend as well as whether those engaged in the debate have been intellectually honest.

United Nations climate-change delegates last week recognized a nonbinding pact aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, UPI reports.

The adoption was the end product of wrangling that often dealt with questions of obligations and responsibility. Some poor nations, for example, maintain that wealthy countries have created an inordinately large carbon footprint and owe some sort of reparation to the rest of the world.

At the same time, there is continued controversy over whether restrictions on emissions should be eased for developing countries that say they will be harmed disproportionately by pollution restrictions.

Climate change had been at the center of other controversies in the run-up to last week’s Copenhagen conference, as skeptics claimed that emails hacked from a British research university showed that scientists tried to suppress research data contradicting global warming, the Financial Times reports.

The emails became a hot topic, especially among some conservatives and climate-change deniers. But former U.S. vice president Al Gore, who has been one of the more forceful voices fighting global warming, said the scandal was being blown far out of proportion.

The emails, many of them a decade old, were “about two papers that two of these scientists felt shouldn’t be accepted as part of the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report. Both of them, in fact, were included, referenced, and discussed,” Gore noted in an interview with Slate. “The fact that the study ended up being included and discussed anyway is a more powerful comment on what the result of the scientific process really is,” he added

Still, the kerfuffle likely has damaged the cause of fighting climate change, especially among those who disbelieve it, note scientists Daniel Sarewitz and Samuel Thernstrom in the Financial Times.

“The idea that pure, disinterested science should decide political disputes was a staple of Democratic politics during the George W. Bush administration,” which often was accused of suppressing scientific findings that didn’t comport with conservative politics, they note.

“The terrible danger — one that has been brewing for years — is that the invaluable role science should play in informing policy and politics will be irrevocably undermined, as citizens come to see science as nothing more than a tool for partisans of all stripes,” Sarewitz and Thernstrom write.

A different moral view was examined by the Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum, who lamented the nihilism she says often accompanies climate-change rhetoric.

“There is no nihilism like the nihilism of a 9-year-old,” Applebaum writes. “‘Why should I bother,’ one of them recently demanded of me, when he was presented with the usual arguments in favor of doing homework: ‘By the time I’m grown up, the polar ice caps will have melted and everyone will have drowned.’”

“Watching the news from Copenhagen last weekend, it wasn’t hard to understand where he got that idea,” she continues. While Applebaum says she enthusiastically supports renewable energy and a shift from fossil fuels, she contends that some of the protestors at the summit exhibit apocalyptic and “anti-human prejudices … which do indeed filter down to children as young as 9.”

Sources: UPI, Dec. 20 — Globe & Mail, Dec. 18 — Financial Times, Dec. 17 — Los Angeles Times, Dec. 17 — Washington Post, Dec. 15 — Slate, Dec. 8.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Dec. 14 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 7 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 7 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 9 — Related Newsline story, June 29.

At issue: Facebook “friending” of judges and lawyers, privacy rights and text messages, and the aftermath of allegedly falsified data from a crime lab

VARIOUS DATELINES
Several of last week’s top stories dealt with the intersection of technology and morality. Among them:

• A judicial ethics committee in Florida wants judges to “unfriend” lawyers on Facebook, according to a report from the St. Petersburg Times. Such social-networking friendships, the state’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee warns, can give the impression that a lawyer has undue influence over the judge, according to the Times. Even though judges can’t isolate themselves from society, the committee argues, they should avoid the appearance of impropriety.
• A case involving privacy rights and text messages has reached the U.S. Supreme Court, reports National Public Radio, and may set important precedent on whether constitutional privacy rights extend to messages sent by public employees on work-issued phones and other devices. NPR’s Liz Halloran writes that technology has overtaken existing law: “The Supreme Court case that established an employee’s reasonable right to expect privacy in the workplace — and an employer’s companion right to intrude if circumstances warrant — is more than two decades old …. and that decision in O’Connor v. Ortega, which involved a physical search of a public hospital doctor’s office, was rendered long before e-mail, texting and tweeting became the coins of the work communications realm.”
• New York State law enforcement officials are facing a troubling legal, ethical, and technological dilemma: what to do about closed criminal cases following allegations that a now-dead forensic scientist routinely falsified results? The Associated Press reports that Garry Veeder’s misconduct went undetected for years because of what the state inspector general calls “shoddy” supervision. Veeder committed suicide in May 2008 during an inquiry into his conduct. Police and prosecutors have reviewed all 322 criminal cases in which Veeder was involved and say there were no false convictions, but defendants whose cases were handled by Veeder can appeal, according to the AP. An inquiry concluded that Veeder failed to perform required tests on trace evidence and fraudulently wrote up results.

Sources: AP, Dec. 18 — NPR, Dec. 16 — St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 15.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Dec. 14 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 23 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 2 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 19 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 12.

Sanford won’t face impeachment, but he’s not entirely off the hook; corruption charges stir an already volatile mixture of events in Pakistan; study shows Chicago city workers less likely than counterparts in other municipalities to report misconduct; scandal-plagued West Palm Beach County passes sweeping ethics reform

VARIOUS DATELINES
Corruption was the focus of several top news stories last week. Among them:

• The Judiciary Committee of the South Carolina House dropped impeachment charges against Gov. Mark Sanford, but approved a measure censuring him and requiring him to admit to an affair with his Argentine mistress. But Politico reports that Sanford still may face criminal charges related to an ethics commission investigation into his use of state aircraft for personal and political purposes.
• Corruption charges are ratcheting up tensions in Pakistan, reports Reuters India. Opposition politicians began calling for the resignation of president Asif Ali Zardari after the Supreme Court overturned an amnesty protecting him from old graft charges. The turmoil compounds an already difficult time, according to Reuters analyst Robert Birsel: “The tension comes as the United States has been stepping up pressure on Pakistan to go after Afghan Taliban factions in enclaves on the Afghan border, while homegrown militants have been unleashing carnage with a series of bomb attacks.”
• City workers in Chicago are less likely than municipal employees in other cities to report misconduct, according to a recent study by a city compliance office. The Chicago Tribune reports that workers don’t report misconduct because they say they don’t believe the problem will be fixed and fear retaliation from bosses. About one out of two episodes of workplace misconduct is reported in Chicago, the study concludes, while workers in other local governments typically report two out of three incidents.
• West Palm Beach County, pounded by a relentless series of corruption scandals, will institute a series of sweeping ethics reforms that create an Office of Inspector General and an independent ethics commission, the Palm Beach Post reports. The chairman of the county commission called the reform package historic and said he hoped it would repair the county’s image. Three commissioners recently resigned and pleaded guilty to graft charges, and two former commissioners have also done federal time, according to the report.

Sources: Politico, Dec. 16 — Reuters India, Dec. 18 — Chicago Tribune, Dec. 18 — Palm Beach Post, Dec. 15.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Oct. 26 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 21 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 31 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 17 — Related Newsline story, July 27.

Panel proposes restrictions on advertising unhealthy children’s food; study suggests “class gap” in obesity rates; professor chides Santa for being a poor role model — and after a barrage of criticism, says it was a spoof

WASHINGTON and SYDNEY
Stories about public health — two serious and one from the festive side of the news — made headlines last week. Among them:

• A federal panel proposed restricting food advertising aimed at children, saying that only foods that provide “a meaningful contribution to a healthful diet” should be eligible for ads, CNN reports. The proposal comes in the wake of U.S. Federal Trade Commission chairman Jon Leibowitz’s claim that the food industry isn’t doing enough to fight the epidemic of childhood obesity.
• There is a growing class gap among those affected by childhood obesity, a new study suggests. A University College London research team says that trends indicate that obesity rates among the lower classes are growing much more quickly than among the affluent, according to a report from the BBC. Academics speculate that public-health messages about the dangers of obesity are not reaching lower classes, and that the poor have less time and resources to shop for healthy food.
• A public-health message that blasted Santa Claus as a poor public-health role model was disclosed to be a spoof — but not until it spread among various news services and publications, prompting more than a few accusations that the Australian professor who wrote the study was something of a humbug. According to the Agence France-Presse, Monash University’s Nathan Grills wrote an article titled “Santa — A Public Health Pariah,” in which he claimed Santa Claus promoted obesity, speeding, and an unhealthy lifestyle. Writing in the British Medical Journal, Grills suggested that instead of eating mince pies and drinking brandy, Santa should go on a diet and walk or cycle instead of relying on reindeer power. After a barrage of criticism, Grills stated: “To clarify, I am not a Santa researcher. The article was written in my spare time for a bit of comic relief.”

Sources: AFP, Dec. 18 — BBC, Dec. 15 — CNN, Dec. 15.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Apr. 20 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 24, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 17, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 3, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 5, 2007.

While it can be hurtful and devious, it sometimes does offer “some form of moral instruction”

NEW YORK
Gossip deservedly has a bad reputation, but it also has a redeeming social purpose, according to a psychology professor who analyzed the Tiger Woods chatter for the Wall Street Journal.

Rochester Institute of Technology’s Nicholas DiFonzio writes: “Gossiping about Tiger’s intrigues provides some form of moral instruction. Strangely, given the prurient images and juicy text-messages disseminated by the media, the value of marital faithfulness ultimately is reinforced. Despite some ‘Desperate Housewives’ morality in our postmodern culture, keeping long-term commitments still comes through as a thing worth having, and not to be callously thrown away. Being faithful is good.”

The Tiger Woods gossip, DiFonzio contents, “is replete with moral messages and motivations that are compelling, instructive, and powerful. Moral guidance can often sound like a collection of tired bromides when expressed in the abstract. But when told as part of a compelling drama — as gossip — it can appear as an eloquent demarcation of good behavior.”

There is no denying the harmful effects of gossip, DiFonzio concludes. But he contends that “out of the vanity and cruelty of gossip … can come socially beneficial consequences. That is the gossip paradox: just when we thought the airwaves and tabloids could not tell any more lurid tales about the moral failings of sports figures that we admire, it turns out that maybe we’re learning something.”

Sources: Wall Street Journal, Dec. 12.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Dec. 14 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 14 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 14 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 7 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 22, 2008.

In some workplaces, lavish presents can raise eyebrows and even capture the attention of the law; tipping can sometimes cross an ethical line; while a pet seems like a perfect Christmas gift, shelters warn they see the fallout in January

VARIOUS DATELINES
Holiday gift-giving can pose dilemmas related to etiquette and ethics. Among last week’s stories on that theme:

• Federal News Radio, a news and talk broadcast service programmed largely for U.S. government employees, reports that workplace gift giving is a tricky business. Lawyer Bill Bransford told FNR that gift giving in the federal workplace is generally a bad idea, but if giving is unavoidable, “twenty dollars or less” and “no more than fifty dollars a year to the same person pretty much keeps you in safe territory,” although there are exceptions. “If you had that personal friendship before that boss became your boss and you had a history of maybe treating your boss to a round of golf or a lunch or going out to dinner or buying a round of drinks, keep in mind all of those are defined as gifts under the gift rules, then that can continue,” Bransford told FNR. “The clearest example is if somebody’s a relative, a member of your family and they’re also a federal employee and maybe even at the same agency you work at, you can certainly give that gift as a member of the family, but you’d better have a pretty good explanation for why this is different and not be making something up or creating a false situation. Remember there have been several people over the last few years who have received gifts who have gone to jail.”
• Tipping can be awkward during the holidays, points out CBS “Early Show” financial adviser Ray Martin. Cash may be king when it comes to the tip, but Martin warns “it’s probably not appropriate to give cash to everyone on your list. It may be in conflict with professional or ethical standards for folks like your lawyer, financial advisor, or accountant to accept cash tips. Also, think about other situations — what’s the message when you give your child’s teacher $25 cash? It may create the appearance of a payment for preferential treatment for your child. As an alternative, consider taking up a collection with other parents to purchase an office supply or book store gift card. Also, keep in mind that postal employees and other civil servants are not allowed to accept cash, gift cards, or anything worth more than $20.” But if you do give a gift other than cash, Martin warns, be sure it’s not something too personal that will send the wrong message.
• A pet may seem like the perfect holiday gift, reports the Sanford (NC) Herald, but it’s risky because many recipients simply may not be up to the responsibilities of pet ownership. Veterinarian Dr. Diane Schaller tells the Herald that many humane societies shut down adoptions during the Christmas season to avoid impulse giving and a spate of abandoned animals in January. “Everyone loves a puppy, everyone loves a kitten, Shaller says, “but they don’t think about the 12 to 18-year commitment.”

Source: Sanford (NC) Herald, Dec. 19 — Federal News Radio, Dec. 17 — CBS News, Dec. 17.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Dec. 8, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 8, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 1, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 11, 2006 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 4, 2005.

Majority of U.S. public plans to give to charity, but size of gifts trending downward, poll finds

From Rasmussen Reports:

“Thirty-nine percent (39%) of Americans say they will be giving less to charity this year than they did a year ago.

“A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 12% say they are giving more to charity compared to years past. The plurality (44%) says they are giving about the same amount again this year.

“Overall, 62% are at least somewhat likely to make a charitable donation of some kind at this time of year. That number includes 41% who are very likely to give to charity.

“Thirty-six percent (36%) are unlikely to give at this time of year, including 16% who are not at all likely to do so….

“Americans are generally confident that their donations are being well-spent. Seventy-two percent (72%) are at least somewhat confident that the money they give to charity is being used effectively, including 37% who are very confident.

“Those who earn $60,000 to $100,000 per year are more likely to increase their giving than those in any other income category….

“Yet other economic indicators suggest why charitable giving may be down. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of adults think the unemployment rate will be the same or higher a year from now….”

For the full release from Rasmussen Reports, Dec. 18, click here.

“Greatness is a two-faced coin — and its reverse is humility.”

– Marguerite Steen (British writer, 1894-1975)

For more information, see this week’s Research Report.

by Ethics Newsline editor Carl Hausman

I saw the argument between Tiger Woods and his wife, Elin Nordegren, and watched her chase him down the driveway with a golf club. Actually two million other people (and still counting) saw it too — thanks to a “re-enactment” on YouTube.

And while it looks more like the Sims than news footage, the piece, confected by a Chinese video-animation company, has become a media sensation, offering what the New York Times notes may be “the future of journalism, tabloid division.”

The Chinese firm churns out 20 or so digital animations a day, most dealing with local stories and Taiwan news. Animators record movements of live human models resembling the subjects, animate digital figures to resemble the real people, and then program their software to depict movements according to a scripted storyboard.

While it’s unlikely that anyone could mistake the animation for real-life video (even the animation company admits it didn’t do a very good job depicting Tiger Woods’s features), this very well could be the Next Big Thing in media ethics.

And that’s troubling for several reasons:

• Although the depicted actions are based on pure guesswork, the technological nature of the “re-enactment” lends a spurious precision to the presentation. Garbage-in-garbage-out transactions are decorated by the veneer of technology, mutating into what I call “precision garbage.”
• Video and digitized re-enactments of crimes and crime scenes are beginning to be admitted as evidence in courtrooms, and according to a recent book on the subject, are proving to be more persuasive to juries than oral presentations. Even if we assume that digital animations admitted in court pass expert scrutiny, we’ve moved the medium of digital animation into the presumed category of a depiction of truth.
• The “public mind” is not always adept at sorting through its contents and determining which parts of what we “know” came from fact and which from fiction. An inventory of “facts” from urban legends and forwarded internet propaganda bounces around the jumbled neurons of the public mind, and we know (we all know, personally) that there are many people who can’t tell fact from fiction or just don’t want to make the effort.

Sometimes the lapses between reality and media depiction are amusing: British actor Sir Alec Guinness regularly received sacks of mail seeking his wisdom — mail written by people who confused him with his Star Wars character Obi-Wan Kenobi.

But often the confusion is nothing short of sinister. Yes, there are people who believe that Lyndon Johnson conspired to assassinate John F. Kennedy. Some were directly persuaded by a preposterous film scenario, though I have encountered people who never saw, or don’t recall seeing, Oliver Stone’s JFK but assume the concoction to be real because they’ve either “seen something” or “heard about it.”

The problem from a media-ethics point of view is that you can’t really embrace a zero-tolerance policy on altering images. The word image itself come from the Latin for “a likeness” and descends from the same root as imagine.

Video has to be edited — the image altered — unless we want to watch every occurrence in its entirety, and even then the image is not a pristine specimen of reality. Former U.S. House speaker Tip O’Neill demonstrated that in his famous confrontation with cable TV network C-SPAN, in which he forced a cameraman to zoom back from a close-up of a congressman giving a speech to show the virtually empty room. Either way — the close-up or the long shot — the medium changed the message.

Images have to be cropped and the colors adjusted, a problem dating back to the first color-film cameras that could not register blue very well, so skies were often hand-painted in (which might lead to a silly but nonetheless logical suspicion that the weather was better back then, because few bothered to paint in the clouds).

Visual journalists long have grappled with the reality problem. Is allowing someone to pose for a picture, rather than just taking it, a distortion of reality? (Which of course raises another intriguing question about the nature of reality when the posing is done in relation to a pseudo-event like a press conference or ribbon cutting.) Is Photoshopping wrinkles from a subject’s face a distortion, or is it a correction of a distortion caused by harsh artificial light from the flash?

The news industry always has grappled with the uneasy mixture of fact and image. When videotape first came into widespread use, networks and local televisions stations bombarded viewers with frequent reminders that programs or portions of programs were recorded earlier “for presentation at this time.” There was a real worry that time-shifting could distort reality, deceiving viewers into thinking something was happening now when it happened in the past. (Not such a terribly quaint notion: Last month, Fox News was forced to apologize twice for failing to disclose that it used canned footage of older, better-attended rallies in its coverage of the current days’ events with smaller crowds.)

And how do we draw the rules for depicting reality for the rest of television programming? Clearly there are different standards for entertainment and news, but what about all of the stuff in between, such as true-crime shows and the semantically challenged category of “reality” programming? Does a parenthetical graphic stating “re-enactment” or “simulation” absolve the producers of all culpability for errors and omissions?

Those are questions we still haven’t figured out, despite decades — even centuries — of wrestling with the complex issues involving photography, cinema, and TV. So maybe we’d better start thinking about the computer animation issue sometime before the next century.

©2009 Institute for Global Ethics

Find this and previous weeks’ commentaries online as a podcast titled Ethicast™ now available on iTunes. Subscribe today!

Rushworth Kidder will return to this space next week.

For more information, see:  Connecticut Law Tribune, Nov. 6 – Los Angeles Times, Dec. 9 – New York Times, Dec. 6 – Vancouver Sun, Nov. 14.

“It was magical. I had tears in my eyes because it never happened before. I’ve been here for 10 years and I’ve never seen anything like that.”

– Lynn Willard, a waitress at the Aramingo Diner near Philadelphia, talking about a chain reaction of gift giving after a couple decided to pay for the meal of the people at another table. For the next five hours, patrons covered the tabs for other tables, reports NBC Philadelphia. “I could not believe it … and it continued and continued, it was very nice,” said Willard.

Source: NBC Philadelphia, Dec. 14.

TIME analyzes ethical arguments waged at climate-change summit; USA Today ethics columnist looks at moral underpinnings of “just war”; FBI official says public corruption and other moral decay is tearing apart society — and punctuates speech by warning that “the worst day at work is still better than the best day in jail”

VARIOUS DATELINES
Ethics and politics merged in several major stories this week. Among them:

• During the run-up to the U.N. climate-change summit in Copenhagen, the United States categorically dismissed the notion that rich nations owe the developing world reparations for years of carbon emission. TIME’s Bryan Walsh reports, though, that the issue is likely to linger: “According to many environmental activists and representatives of the most vulnerable nations in the world, climate change should be viewed first and foremost as an ethical challenge rather than an economic or political one. Industrialized nations have flourished in part because they were able to burn fossil fuel indiscriminately for decades, and the impact of those emissions is only now being recognized as climate change. As poor countries see it, rich nations got rich at their expense: as the planet continues to warm, it will heighten water scarcity, intensify flooding and droughts and worsen some infectious diseases — all of which will first hit developing countries that have not yet had the chance to burn fossil fuels in large quantities.”
• USA Today’s “Faith and Reason” columnist Cathy Lynn Grossman examined the philosophical intricacies of President Obama accepting the Nobel Peace Prize while leading his nation in two wars. The “Just War” theory, Grossman writes, “dates back to moral theologian St. Augustine, which argues that war can be just if it is a last resort, waged in self-defense, relies on a proportional response to a grave threat, and spares civilians from violence.”
• Corruption is ripping apart the fabric of U.S. society and is the nation’s top criminal threat, a senior FBI official said in a speech last week. The Reuters news agency reports that the FBI’s Miami division special agent in charge, John Gillies, told a business group in Florida that failures in personal ethics and integrity plant the seeds of corruption. He noted that public corruption investigations by the FBI have increased by more than 20 percent in the last five years. He offered this advice to those tempted by corruption: “The worst day at work is still better than the best day in jail.”

Sources: Reuters, Dec. 8 — USA Today, Dec. 10 — TIME, Dec. 10.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Nov. 23 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 23 — Related Newsline story, July 13 — Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, June 1.

Media outlets scrutinize golfer, but also their own coverage

VARIOUS DATELINES
Tiger Woods says he will take an indefinite break from golf following a scandal that has cost him fans and possibly sponsors.

The CTV network reports that Woods said in a post on his official website that his “infidelity” has caused great disappointment to his wife and children. It was Woods’s first use of a word related to adultery since the series of incidents and revelations erupted more than two weeks ago.

An auto accident on the morning after Thanksgiving set off a media frenzy in which numerous women came forward, claiming to have had a sexual relationship with Woods.

CBS News reports that before the deluge, “the married father of two young children had a pristine image and raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in endorsements.”

While most sponsors stuck by Woods in the immediate aftermath of the scandal, a PR expert interviewed by CBS says the empire is in danger. “The more women that come out and the more mistresses we learn about,” so-called reputation doctor Mike Paul of MGP & Associates Public Relations tells the network, “the sponsors certainly have more of an evaluation going on, and there’s increased pressure for them to at least consider dropping him.”

The media firestorm provoked some ethical introspection on the part of the media, including this take by Independent columnist James Corrigan: “There is nothing more ironic in journalism than a column preaching about these vile and inherently wrong intrusions into a sportsman’s family life. ‘We need another page on Tiger, but how do we do that without looking cruel,’ ponders the news-desk editor. ‘Simple. Have another page on Tiger saying how disgusting it is we have all these pages on Tiger. It’ll be a good place to use a picture of [alleged mistress] Miss Grubbs.’”

Veteran sports columnist Frank Deford had this take on the coverage in a piece carried by National Public Radio: “So far as I can tell, the only two specialties in journalism that are expanding today are gossip and sports statistics. Well, we get the kind of journalism we deserve. And the tabloid media succeed so well because they are protected by what we might call the First-and-a Half Amendment: a combination of freedom of the press and the right to shoot from the hip.”

Sources: CTV, Dec. 11 — NPR, Dec. 9 — CBS News, Dec. 9 — Independent, Dec. 6.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Dec. 7 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 5 — Related Newsline story, June 29 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 22, 2008 — Related Newsline story, July 22, 2002.

Crackdown on executive pay makes news in U.S. and Europe; corruption scandal captures public attention in Russia; BusinessWeek offers “Ethics 101″ Course for interns

VARIOUS DATELINES
An ethical slant on business and finance was featured in a raft of stories last week. Among the coverage:

• The U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure that would create an overarching government agency to crack down on abusive and confusing lending and investment practices, regulate hedge funds, and give shareholders an advisory vote on pay for executives, Forbes reports. The measure now must be reconciled with a similar bill passed by the Senate. But industry groups are expected to keep pressure on lawmakers to soften some parts of the legislation and “bend it to their advantage,” notes Forbes.
• EU leaders are leaning toward increasing taxes on bankers’ bonuses, the BBC reports. U.K. prime minister Gordon Brown and French president Nicolas Sarkozy issued a joint letter in which they endorsed such a plan, saying it is “simply not acceptable” for taxpayers to cover the cost of bank failures but not benefit from their successes, according to the report. The global financial crisis, they write, has made them realize “that we are now in an economy which is no longer national but global, so financial standards must also be global.” They said there was an “urgent need for a new compact between global banks and the society they serve.”
• Goldman Sachs, caught in the crossfire of public anger and legislative outrage over the ethics of executive compensation, will eliminate cash bonuses for 30 of its top executives this year and give shareholders a say on pay levels, according to the Financial Times. All 30 members of Goldman’s management committee will receive their bonuses in stock that must be held for five years. The stockholders’ vote on pay and bonuses will be nonbinding.
• Russian president Dmitry Medvedev fired 20 senior prison officials after the mid-November death of a jailed lawyer who was involved in the defense of financial institutions charged with participating in a fraud and forgery scheme allegedly linked to high Russian officials, the AP reports. Sergei Magnitsky had been jailed on tax evasion charges. Lawyers for Magnitsky claim he died after being refused medical treatment. The case had become a touchstone for anticorruption crusaders in Russia, reports London’s Daily Telegraph, because Magnitsky had battled to uncover purported links between the Russian mafia and government officials. Colleagues of Magnitsky say he was persecuted and systematically mistreated in prison in retaliation for his anticorruption efforts and refusal to recant his claims.
• Interns are in a position to do major damage to the companies that sponsor them, writes BusinessWeek reporter Michael Levin in an article titled “Ethics 101 for Interns.” Levin’s advice to interns: “You’re probably not thinking about ethics — yet. But just one ethical or legal mistake can bring down your career and possibly even your company. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been in your position one day or 15 years. Fortunately, you don’t have to be an ethics and compliance expert to get started on the right foot. Though you may not know what the future holds for your career, you can make sure it doesn’t include mistakes caused by a lack of ethical intelligence.” Among other admonishments, Levin advises interns to study company policies, never bend the rules, never retaliate against workers who report harassment or discrimination, or fail to report quality or safety defects.

Sources: AP, Dec. 11 — BusinessWeek, Dec. 11 — Forbes, Dec. 11 — BBC, Dec. 10 — Financial Times, Dec. 11 — Telegraph, Nov. 30.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Nov. 16 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 9 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 2 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 26 — Related Newsline Commentary, Oct. 26.

In other news related to computers and ethics, there’s a dust-up over improperly hidden details of airport security document posted online; Facebook tweaks its privacy system; Apple bans a developer from its iPhone apps store, claiming he wrote his own reviews

VARIOUS DATELINES
News from the crossroads of ethics and technology took center stage in several stories last week. Among them:

• Text messages are becoming the “digital lipstick on the collar” in many cases involving infidelity, the New York Times reports. While text messages famously figured in Tiger Woods’s problems, notes the Times, that incident “follows on the heels of politicians who ran afoul of text I.Q., including a former Detroit mayor who went to prison after his steamy text messages to an aide were revealed, and Senator John Ensign of Nevada, whose affair with a former employee was confirmed by an incriminating text message.” The American Bar Association now is offering seminars on how to use electronic evidence in divorce cases, according to the Times.
• The inadvertent release of sensitive airport security screening procedures last week illustrates the dangers of electronically redacting sections of a document, according to a report from trade journal ComputerWorld. At issue was the posting of a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) manual on a publicly accessible site as part of a contract bid. The manual detailed how security checks at airports are administered and what is likely to pass through the system unchallenged. Sensitive parts of the manual were redacted electronically but tech-savvy bloggers were able remove the masks and post the material. According to ComputerWorld, the TSA incident followed by a few days another lapse in which a bank’s bankruptcy records were exposed because of improper redaction. The problem, according to an expert interviewed by publication: placing a black box over text does not destroy the words and letters underneath, which can be recovered simply by searching for them. Special redaction tools are necessary — and effective — in actually obliterating the digital signature of the hidden text, according to the report.
• Facebook, confronting continual worries over privacy, has initiated a new system to let users have more control over who sees what. According to PC World, the new system is designed to create more hygienic separations among which groups of “friends” get to see status updates. According to PC World’s Patrick Miller: “The main privacy changes are centered around your Facebook feed. Unlike your profile information, your Facebook feed (all the status updates, pictures, videos, links, and blog posts you and your friends exchange over Facebook) is absolutely loaded with potentially embarrassing or compromising material that you won’t want to share with your whole Friends list, much less the entire Internet.”
• Apple removed more than 1,000 iPhone applications from its online store after it concluded that the developer of those apps had cheated on ratings posted on the app store’s site, reports ZDNet. A source noticed that all products from a Chinese company named Moliker, Inc., received 5-star user review ratings on the Apple site, and that all of the ratings were badly written, apparently by the same person. The banned titles account for about 1 percent of the iPhone store’s total inventory, according to ZDNet.

Sources: ComputerWorld, Dec. 11 –  PC World, Dec. 10 – New York Times, Dec. 11 — ZDNet, Dec. 7.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Nov. 2 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 19 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 12 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 28 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 8.

Gallup poll finds that, for the first time in survey’s history, a majority of respondents say congressmen have “low” or “very low” ethical standards — ranking them below car salesmen

WASHINGTON
A majority of polled Americans say members of the U.S. Congress have “low” or “very low” ethical standards, the first time in the history of the Gallup Poll of Ethics in the Professions that Congress has dropped to the bottom half of the survey.

UPI reports that congressmen rank below car salesmen in the public’s perception of their “low” or “very low” ethical standards. Stockbrokers and HMO managers came in with about the same ranking as Congress, reports the Hill.

Washington Post political analyst Chris Cillizza notes that the results appear to coincide with a recent “series of scandals that have hit Congress ranging from the enormous (Jack Abramoff and his ilk) to the prurient (John Ensign) in recent years.”

Cillizza writes that the Gallup numbers reinforce his belief that 2010 is shaping up as an anti-incumbent election year.

Governors were the only other political job included in the survey and ranked much higher than members of Congress, notes Politico. While only 15 percent of respondents said they had a “high” or “very high” opinion of governors, 48 percent gave them an “average” rating while only 35 percent ranked them as “low” or “very low.”

Clergy and bankers also sagged in public perception of their ethics, according to the Scripps Howard News Service.

Sources: Scripps, Dec. 11 – The Hill, Dec. 9 – UPI, Dec. 9 – Washington Post, Dec. 9 – Politico, Dec. 9.

For more information, see: Related Newsline Research Report, Dec. 14 — Related Newsline story, Sep.  21 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 21 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 15, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 28, 2008 – Gallup, Dec. 9.

Terrance Watanabe claims casino staff plied him with liquor and pills and should have stopped him from gambling

LAS VEGAS
The Wall Street Journal reports that that a man who apparently had the worst losing streak in the history of the Las Vegas gambling industry is suing a casino, saying it bears some of the responsibility for his losses.

Terrance Watanabe, who lost nearly $127 million at the Caesars Palace and Rio casinos in 2007, now claims that casino staff plied him with liquor and pain medication in a calculated effort to keep him playing, reports the Journal.

According to the report, Watanabe’s losses amount to more than 6 percent of the 2007 gambling revenue for Harrah’s Entertainment, the parent company of the two casinos.

Harrah’s has lodged criminal complaints against Watanabe for not paying back money he was lent on credit from the casinos.

Harrah’s spokeswoman, Jan Jones, said Watanabe’s civil suit and his claims of duress simply are attempts to duck out of his debts and avoid personal responsibility. “Mr. Watanabe is a criminal defendant who faces imprisonment,” Jones told the Journal. “All of his statements need to be seen in that light.”

But several current and former employees say casino bosses told them to let Watanabe bet even though he was visibly intoxicated, something prohibited by casino rules and state law, notes the Journal. Harrah’s Jones says those claims were investigated but declined comment on a case under litigation.

Watanabe, who ran his family’s lucrative import business, declined to be interviewed for the Journal article.

Journal reporter Alexandra Berzon notes that cultivating high-rollers, known in the trade as “whales,” can create an uneasy relationship for casinos. While whales provide a substantial part of the industry’s income, she writes, “casino operators often struggle to manage high rollers. Some are compulsive gamblers whose losses — and lives — can quickly spiral out of control. In some instances, gamblers have tried to turn the blame around on casinos in civil suits. Such attempts are rarely, if ever, successful, experts say.”

Source: Wall Street Journal, Dec. 10.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Nov. 23 — Related Newsline story, June 1 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 20, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 11, 2006.