Ethics Newsline®

Forbes analysis notes trend of “example-setting from the bench” on white-collar crime; Bloomberg says investigators continue to pull on more threads in the case

NEW YORK
Convicted swindler Bernard Madoff was sentenced Monday to 150 years in prison for his multibillion fraud, reports the Associated Press.

Madoff’s lawyer had asked for a 12-year sentence, saying the 71-year-old defendant was unlikely to outlive his requested minimum by more than a year and complaining that Madoff’s victims were merely clamoring for a “type of mob vengeance.”

U.S. district judge Denny Chin rejected that line of reasoning, slapping Madoff with the maximum penalty of 150 years, saying a signal needed to be “sent that Mr. Madoff’s crimes were extraordinarily evil.”

An analysis by Forbes shows that the requested maximum for Madoff falls far short of some other white-collar sentences handed down in recent years, including an 845-year sentence from a Florida federal judge imposed on Sholam Weiss, who was convicted of wire fraud and other charges in 2000. Forbes reports that the sentences are part of a “new fervor for example-setting from the bench.”

Madoff’s sentencing will not end the case, according to sources who tell Bloomberg that the FBI is pursuing evidence of accomplices in Europe. Experts interviewed by Bloomberg say it is reasonable to expect that others will be charged because of the depth and complexity of the case. Other separate probes and cases also are currently under way, including an investigation by the New York State attorney general and a “clawback” civil suit against hedge funds that steered money to Madoff.

Sources: AP, June 29 — CNN, June 27 — Wall Street Journal, June 26 — Bloomberg, June 26 — Forbes, June 24.

For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, June 15 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 23 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 16 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 2.

While some say decision was right because it protected life, other posit that it put loyalties to a few in front of broad principle

VARIOUS DATELINES
There is another ethics debate swirling over a news blackout designed to protect a kidnapped reporter, according to press reports last week.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that the kidnapping of New York Times journalist David Rohde had been hushed up by most Western media at the urging of the Times.

Rohde and his assistant escaped from a Taliban compound last week after seven months in captivity. Their driver remains in custody.

Times editor Bill Keller said that suppressing the story was “an agonizing decision that we revisited over and over again,” but said he was convinced that publicizing the kidnapping would jeopardize the reporter, reports the Press Association.

The incident echoes a similar kidnapping reported in Ethics Newsline in November of last year, when Western media put the lid on a story involving the abduction of a CBC journalist in Afghanistan.

Again last week, ethics experts noted that withholding information is always a tricky decision for news media, particularly when it involves one of their own.

“News organizations are balancing competing obligations if a journalist is kidnapped or detained,” Poynter Institute ethicist Bob Steele told Editor & Publisher. “The primary obligation to the public is to report accurately and timely on meaningful events. If you have a journalist who is detained or kidnapped, that will generally reach the level of newsworthiness.”

But Steele added that news organizations also have an equal obligation to minimize harm. “That means showing care and caution to not further endanger someone whose life may be in jeopardy. These are competing obligations and loyalties.”

Steele indicated that the primary ethical responsibility should be preservation of life, according to the Editor & Publisher report.

But another Poynter ethicist, writing on the Institute’s website, disagreed. In an open letter to the Times’s Keller, Kelly McBride argues that the blackout amounted to putting loyalties to a few in “front of the larger journalistic principles of truth-telling.”

“You have indicated that when a life is in danger, we should avoid reporting the truth until that life is secure,” McBride writes. “In taking this position, you’ve created a standard that we journalists can’t possibly uphold.”

“By telling the story of Rohde’s escape, we’ve already violated it, compromising the life of the driver who was left behind. The driver’s life may be in even more danger now from those same kidnappers. If we were to uphold your standard, we would continue the news blackout until the driver, too, is safe.”

Sources: Poynter Online, June 24 — Press Association, June 24 — Christian Science Monitor, June 20 — Editor & Publisher, June 20.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Nov. 24, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 17, 2008 — Related Newsline Commentary, Oct. 6, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 6, 2008 — Related Newsline story, June 16, 2008.

Some say private matters don’t impact on state governance, but others allege misuse of public money and say if he were in the private sector, Mark Sanford would be fired

COLUMBIA, S.C.
The spectacle surrounding South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, who last week was pushed into admitting an extramarital affair with an Argentine woman, continues to highlight ethical issues. Among the major angles surfacing last week:

• Watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint against Sanford, saying he may have violated South Carolina law by using state resources for trips to Argentina, CBS News reports. Sanford admitted that he took a taxpayer-funded trip to South America last summer, during which he met with his mistress, but says he will reimburse the state. He claimed his travel was part of “an entirely professional and appropriate business development trip,” but he “made a mistake while I was there in meeting with the woman who I was unfaithful to my wife with.”
• If Mark Sanford were in the private sector, he would get a pink slip, according to the Columbia, South Carolina, State, which interviewed a variety of business- management and ethics experts. A chief executive in Sanford’s situation might be able to get away with an affair or disappearing for a few days, ethics-seminar leader Chuck Gallagher told the State, but the combination of events would bring on the ax at most companies. “”When you don’t speak the truth, you find everything around you collapses,” he said. “A board of directors would remove a CEO or executive vice president [for acts similar to Sanford's].”
• What Sanford did is considered more morally wrong than 16 other “ethically iffy” acts put forth in a recent Gallup Poll, writes MSNBC commentator Brian Alexander. According to the poll, 92 percent of respondents say it is morally wrong to have an affair, compared with 88 percent who say cloning a human is wrong. Committing suicide garnered an 80 percent rating of morally unacceptable. Alexander notes that the heavy moral condemnation of adultery seems statistically out of sync with estimates showing about 30 percent of Americans actually do have extramarital affairs.
• Sanford apologized to his cabinet, in front of about two dozen reporters and cameramen. According to the Associated Press, he likened his plight to that of King David, the Biblical ruler who was torn between his urges and his desire to do right. One cabinet member told the AP that everyone has personal issues that they want kept out of the spotlight, and that those issues are not as important as the needs of the people of South Carolina. But some legislators are not so forgiving and continue to call for Sanford’s resignation.

Sources: CBS News, June 26 — AP, June 26 — State, June 26 — MSNBC, June 25.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 1 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 20 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 23 — Related Newsline Commentary, Aug. 11, 2008.

Washington Post ponders whether you can honor a man’s music while having a disdain for a man’s morality; unconfirmed Twitter reports turned out to be right this time, but media critics note that reporting rumor can be risky; the site that appeared to have the scoop on the story is viewed as ethically questionable

VARIOUS DATELINES
The coverage of the sudden and mysterious death of Michael Jackson last week included a good deal of moral soul searching. Among the top items:

• The Washington Post’s Liz Kelly examines the dichotomy of admiring Jackson the entertainer while entertaining reservations about his morality. “[I]s it possible to honor one while continuing to back away from the other? To reconcile the very real disdain for the man while at the same time recognizing his music as every bit worthy of praise? And by admitting that we appreciate the art of someone we find morally objectionable, are we selling out our own ethics?” Kelly notes that this is hardly a new dilemma, ranging back to classical musicians who were openly anti-Semitic. Kelly concludes that Jackson’s music was not a reflection of his personal life, justifying her view with a quote from music critic Dimitri Drobatschewsky: “Unfortunately, there are so many ‘unsavory characters’ in the world of art, science, literature, and general culture that if you boycotted their given genius, there would be precious little art left to enjoy.”
• Jackson’s death became a test case for the ethics of new-media reporting in the new world of Twitter feeds and email alerts. The Knight Digital Media Center’s Online Journalism Review notes that an avalanche of Twitter feeds reported the death before it was confirmed, and in some cases Twitter feeds were used by major media themselves. The Review’s Robert Niles says that the “Twitterverse” has been wrong about celebrity deaths before, and he urges traditional news organizations to acknowledge Twitter reports but clearly note that they are unconfirmed and that verification is being pursued.
• Celebrity website TMZ appeared to the be the first site to break the story of Jackson’s death, adding to a list of scoops, including Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic rant in 2006 and Alec Baldwin’s angry voicemail to his daughter in 2007. But the Jackson drama, according to the Los Angeles Times’s Scott Collins and Meg James, “puts the spotlight on TMZ at a delicate time. Its tactics have stoked growing outrage among publicists and government officials. Its tabloid sensibilities have made some other news organizations reluctant to cite its reporting…. Some advertisers remain hesitant to pitch their products on the site and the TV series. And TMZ has proven much better at generating controversy than cash for its corporate parent, Time Warner.” The report notes that “lurking behind much of the suspicion is a sense that TMZ is flouting not so much the law as journalistic ethics.”

Sources: Los Angeles Times, June 28 — Washington Post, June 27 — Knight Digital Media Center Online Journalism Review, June 25.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, July 7, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 3, 2008 — Related Newsline Commentary, June 20, 2005 — Related Newsline Commentary, Jan. 26, 2004.

Montana city apologizes for demanding passwords to job applicants’ accounts; employers fret over what workers say online; generation gap highlights different views of office technology ethics and etiquette

VARIOUS DATELINES
The ethical implications of social networking were examined in several major stories last week. Among them:

• Officials in Bozeman, Montana, stung by public criticism, apologized for its now-ended practice of requiring applicants for municipal jobs to provide usernames and passwords for social-networking sites. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bozeman city manager Chris Kuluski said that while “the city of Bozeman believes we have a responsibility to ensure candidates hired for positions of public trust are subject to a thorough background check,” the extent of the regulation demanding a candidate’s password, username, or other Internet information “appears to have exceeded that which is acceptable to our community.” Among other problems, the requirement ran afoul of sites’ user policies, which often require that members not pass along their passwords to others.
• A McClatchy Newspapers analysis examines the current state of tension between employers and employees who frequent social-networking sites. McClatchy’s Diane Stafford examines the plight of office manager Jeff LeMasters, who prohibited use of cell phones, texting, and the Internet when employees of his store were on duty, but was perplexed about what to do when an employee started “trashing” the store on Facebook. Stafford writes: “The world of Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube postings is giving employers headaches. Often, employers like LeMasters are exploring on a case-by-case basis what rights they have to police employees’ blogs and social networking pages. LeMasters and business partner Randy Benton quickly learned they had no constitutional right to fight the worker’s postings, but they did have a clear course because some of the Internet use had occurred at the store.” Usually, though, there is not such a bright line to guide employers because many cases fall into the legal and ethical haze between employers’ rights and employees’ free-speech guarantees.
• Office protocol regarding Tweeting, texting, and social networking throughout the working day is becoming a generational issue, according to a report from National Public Radio. Joshua Brockman notes that “recent studies show real tensions are rising between Gen Y, or 20-something employees; Gen X, or 30-something workers; and their older, less tech-savvy, baby boomer bosses.” Brockman cites a recent study by LexisNexis that shows the friction becomes hottest during meetings. LexisNexis’s Michael Walsh tells NPR: “You can have Gen Y-ers who are busy looking at their BlackBerrys. They’ve got their laptops flipped open, they’re engaging in social networking right during the course of a meeting, and you have a boomer rolling their eyes, not understanding it…. Two-thirds of boomers that were surveyed indicated that they felt that use of devices, technology — such as e-mail, social networking, the Internet, etc. — contributed to a decline in office etiquette.”

Sources: Wall Street Journal, June 23 — NPR, June 22 — McClatchy, June 17.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 22 — Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 25 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 6 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 23 — Lexis-Nexus Technology Gap Survey, undated.

Provisions of House measure, role of developing countries, and effect of doomsday predictions on children all figure in coverage

VARIOUS DATELINES
The U.S. House of Representatives last week narrowly passed a bill intended to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and move the nation away from fossil fuel consumption. Major media reported on several ethical angles to the development, including:

• UPI notes that there is considerable controversy about the “cap and trade” provision in the House bill, which would require companies that pollute to pay for the privilege with credits based on the amount of greenhouse gases they produce. In addition to concerns over the issue of being able to buy a pollution pass, critics argue that the provision will make energy more expensive and send jobs overseas.
• China is taking the issue of climate change “very seriously,” according to European Commission head Manuel Barroso. The Agence France-Presse notes that China is a focus of global attention since it is not bound to reduce pollution because the current Kyoto protocol on climate change exempts developing countries. The European Union has pledged to provide up to $70 million to help China build a clean coal-burning plant.
• In U.S. News & World Report, environmental columnist Maura Judkis checks in on the PR aspect of climate change campaigning, noting the wide difference in approaches between skeptics and impassioned worriers. Judkis says there are messages that tread a middle ground and may be less frightening to kids, such as a classroom video called “The Story of Stuff,” which encourages children to think about consumerism without implying “certain doom.”

Sources: AFP, June 26 — UPI, June 26 — U.S. News & World Report, June 15.

For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, June 9 — Related Newsline story, May 4, 2009 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 27 — Related Newsline story, May 5, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 21, 2008.

Legal and ethical issues arise, as some claim that the firm is obscuring details of the health of its founder — information that could affect investments

SAN FRANCISCO
Apple may be one of the world’s coolest companies, reports the New York Times, but it steers clear of one “cool-company trend” — openness with the public.

Times reporters Brad Stone and Ashlee Vance write: “Few companies, indeed, are more secretive than Apple, or as punitive to those who dare violate the company’s rules on keeping tight control over information. Employees have been fired for leaking news tidbits to outsiders, and the company has been known to spread disinformation about product plans to its own workers.”

But even by Apple’s standards, they report, the handling of news about its founder, Steve Jobs, who has been stricken with pancreatic cancer and recently received a liver transplant, has been extraordinary.

Apple representatives have refused to discuss Jobs’s health, saying only that he is due back to work at the end of June, according to the Times.

Ethical and legal questions surround the company’s handling of Jobs’s health status because some governance experts speculate that the level of secrecy deprives investors of important and necessary information and may violate laws governing what companies must disclose about the well-being of their CEOs.

Few companies are so closely linked with their founders, and observers say that the death or incapacitation of Jobs could significantly damage the firm’s standing.

Sources: New York Times, June 23.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 19 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 6, 2008 — Related Newsline story, May 19, 2008.

Critics say proposal would concentrate too much power in the Fed and overreach government’s authority; backers argue such protections could have prevented current economic meltdown

WASHINGTON
President Obama’s plan to more closely regulate financial risk last week prompted ethical debate over how large a role the government should assume in protecting consumers.

Obama framed the issue in moral terms, saying enhanced regulation was called for because “a culture of irresponsibility took root from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street, ” reports the New York Times. “A regulatory regime basically crafted in the wake of a 20th century economic crisis — the Great Depression — was overwhelmed by the speed, scope, and sophistication of a 21st century global economy,” Obama said.

But critics say Obama’s plan, which essentially consolidates regulatory power in the Federal Reserve, gives too much power to the Fed — an agency that has been blamed for past recessions after detractors say it missed early warnings of looming problems.

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), who chairs the Banking Committee, said consolidating power in the Fed “is like a parent giving his son a bigger, faster car right after he crashed the family station wagon,” UPI reports.

The proposed super-agency residing in the Fed would be called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and would have broad authority over consumer-oriented financial products, such as mortgages and credit cards. Obama’s blueprint for the agency says it will play a “leading role” in educating consumers about finance and ensure that financial products such as mortgages are offered in simplified, “plain vanilla” forms, according to Consumer Reports.

Executives of banks and other financial institutions characterized the proposal as overreaching. But proponents, such as Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, counter with the claim that such an agency could have prevented the most damaging abuses in the subprime real estate market and consumer lending.

“It is not hard for an expert in finance to devise financial instruments that most people cannot understand,” Baker told PBS’s “NewsHour.” “By blocking this path to profitability, these reforms, if effectively applied, will lead to a more efficient financial industry. The country does not benefit from having people at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley spending their time devising ways to rip off small city school districts with auction rate securities.”

Sources: New York Times, June 19 — UPI, June 19 — Consumer Reports, June 18 — PBS’s “NewsHour,” June 18.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 15 — Related Newsline story, June 15 — Related Newsline story, May 25 — Related Newsline story, May 4.

Are medical schools hygienic in separating marketing and education? Should prisoners have the right to DNA testing? Are “brain boosting” drugs immoral or just part of humanity’s continuing quest for improvement? Should wife be allowed to make decisions about life support for the man who allegedly killed her children?

VARIOUS DATELINES
Issues in medicine and the life sciences raised a number of ethics questions in last week’s press coverage. Among them:

• A survey of medical schools says many are improving their conflict-of-interest policies to monitor ties with drug and medical-device manufacturers, reports the Wall Street Journal. But more than half of the schools still have inadequate policies or none at all, according to the joint study by the American Medical Student Association and the Pew Prescription Project. Scrutiny of medical-school relationships was ratcheted up after pressure from Congress and a series of press articles examining how marketing drove prescribing habits and information imparted to medical trainees.
• A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court last week ruled that prisoners do not have a constitutional right to DNA testing that could potentially prove them innocent, reports TIME magazine. The court ruled that whether to provide DNA tests was an issue for legislatures, not courts. Chief justice John Roberts, siding with the 5-4 majority, said that having the court impose such rules would short-circuit the legislative process.
• The London-based Independent reports that a noted professor of bioethics says it is time to embrace the possibilities of drugs that enhance mental abilities. John Harris, director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester, says arguments against the use of the drugs, such as Ritalin, have been unpersuasive. “It is not rational to be against human enhancement,” he argues. “Humans are creatures that result from an enhancement process called evolution and moreover are inveterate self-improvers in every conceivable way.” Ritalin, part of a class of drugs used to treat attention deficit disorder, has been shown in some studies to increase cognitive abilities in people without impairments.
• A Houston hospital is the setting for a bizarre medical-ethics case centered on a man who police say shot his two children, killing them, then turned the gun on himself in a failed suicide attempt. The man’s self-inflicted injuries are so serious that he is now on life support, and the decision on whether to pull the plug apparently is now in the hands of his wife — the mother of their two murdered children. A medical ethicist and law professor interviewed by the Houston Chronicle said that the wife, usually the person given priority in end-of-life decisions involving a married man, has a conflict of interest in the case. As this issue of Newsline went to press, no word on final decisions on the matter had been published.

Sources: Independent, June 19 — Houston Chronicle, June 18 — TIME, June 19 — Wall Street Journal, June 16.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 1 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 13 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 16 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 16 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 9.

Job seekers in Montana city asked to provide passwords for blogs and social-media accounts; recording piracy case concludes with whopping damages assessment; congressional testimony reveals that very few Web users opt out of privacy collection; a researcher is writing computer code for a robot code of ethics

VARIOUS DATELINES
Some intriguing junctions of morality and technology were featured in press reports last week. Among them:

• Job seekers applying for a local government job in Bozeman, Montana, are being asked to list all potentially compromising aspects of their Web presence, such as chat rooms, blogs, Facebook, and MySpace accounts, and provide the passwords they use to access the sites, reports U.S. News & World Report. Billings TV station KTVQ reports that a city attorney defended the demands, saying the background check does not extend to items protected under state constitutional privacy guarantees.
• The only case to go to trial concerning the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) series of anti-piracy suits ended with a whopping $1.92 million verdict against a Minnesota woman who illegally up- and downloaded songs. Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found liable for infringement, reports Wired. The RIAA is winding down its campaign of lawsuits, notes the magazine, and is now focusing on lobbying ISPs to disconnect file sharers. All the other cases brought by the RIAA were settled out of court for an average settlement of about $3,500.
• Testimony during congressional hearings on a proposed U.S. privacy law revealed that a very low percentage of search engine users opt out of data-collection systems. A privacy executive from Yahoo admitted that the number is probably “far lower than 1 percent.” A Google representative said she did not know the percentage. Forbes reports that the issue is at the center of a debate over whether advertisers and search engines should use an opt-in or opt-out system to protect surfers’ online privacy.
• A U.S. researcher has begun writing computer code that will help robotic warriors follow an ethics code in the heat of battle, reports Popular Science. Ron Arkin, a robotics engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, says that in some cases programming drone warriors is fairly straightforward, such as an actual instance in a 2006 battle in Afghanistan where an unmanned, armed vehicle was programmed not to fire on subjects in a cemetery, a violation of existing rules of war. But the complexity of human emotions and ethics makes programming difficult when situations are less clear cut. One point in the robot’s favor, notes the Popular Science report: They don’t seek revenge.

Sources: U.S. News & World Report, June 19 — KTVQ, Billings, Montana — Wired, June 18 — Forbes, June 18 — Popular Science, June 18.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 25 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 27 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 9.

Kenyan bookstores have been reluctant to carry it for fear of libel suits

NAIROBI
A book about corruption in Kenya is causing widespread controversy, even though many bookstores are refusing to sell it because of fear of libel suits by the government.

The book, It’s Our Turn to Eat, details government official John Bithongo’s failed attempts to curb corruption and his subsequent exile.

Author Michela Wrong tells the Voice of America that the title is a common phrase in Kenya, used to indicate the notion that a particular ethnic group wants to feed on government resources.

Wrong told National Public Radio that a “rotating series of ethnic elites” have run the economy to benefit themselves, “and it’s an attitude that has obviously destroyed the economy.”

Ironically, reports the Nairobi’s Daily Nation, bookstores’ reluctance to carry the title has afforded it wide publicity and distribution. A partnership between media, churches, and other civic groups is distributing the book for free.

The churches also intend to start discussion groups focusing on the book.

It’s Our Turn to Eat has attracted attention in other African nations, reports the Kampala, Uganda, Weekly Observer, because in the years following its 2002 elections, many international observers regarded Kenya as a test case for democratic and economic reform throughout Africa.

Sources: Voice of America, June 18 — NPR, June 16 — Nairobi Daily Nation, June 16 — Kampala Weekly Observer, June 10.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 2 — Related Newsline story, June 30, 2008 — Related Newsline story, June 30, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 4, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 22, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 14, 2008.

Newsweek essayist calls for moral compass in capitalism; Monitor writer warns that ethics programs are cut back in hard economic times, exactly when they are needed; new research counters common perception of whistle-blowers

VARIOUS DATELINES
Business ethics was the topic of several essays and features last week. They included:

• Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, last week examined the global economic crisis and the accompanying angst over the future of capitalism. In a wide-ranging essay titled “Greed is Good: Up to a Point,” Zakaria concluded with this observation about the difference between law and ethics as it applies to capitalism: “Most of what happened over the past decade across the world was legal. Bankers did what they were allowed to do under the law. Politicians did what they thought the system asked of them. Bureaucrats were not exchanging cash for favors. But very few people acted responsibly, honorably or nobly (the very word sounds odd today). This might sound like a small point, but it is not. No system — capitalism, socialism, whatever — can work without a sense of ethics and values at its core. No matter what reforms we put in place, without common sense, judgment and an ethical standard, they will prove inadequate.”
• Christian Science Monitor correspondent G. Jeffrey MacDonald notes that the recession is pressuring some companies to cut back on ethics training — ironically, he argues, during the time when it is needed most. He quotes Michael Hoffman, executive director of Bentley University’s Center for Business Ethics, who warns that, “In a time where the economy is bad and corporations are struggling to survive, there is more temptation to cut corners and step over the ethical line than there is in other times.” MacDonald contends that there is some statistical evidence to back this up, citing a 2008 study by the Ethics Resource Center that found that workplace misconduct tends to increase by about 11 percent during tumultuous times, and a December Compliance Week/Deloitte survey in which 36 percent of executives surveyed said they expected fraud levels in their organizations to increase (only 3.6 percent expected it to decrease).
• New research indicates that whistle-blowers who go public may not have originally intended to inflict maximum damage through widespread publicity. Rather, reports the British online management journal Management-Issues.com, researchers from Indiana University and Georgetown University say it is usually the case that people try to go through internal channels but are frustrated because of poor policies or procedures, or because middle management simply mishandles the complaint. “The stereotype is that whistle-blowers always start out going to the media and try to go for the maximum publicity,” says Indiana’s Janet Near. “They don’t. If I’m a manager, and I find out that whistle-blowers typically don’t do that, then it behooves me to set up procedures so they can blow the whistle internally and minimize the damage to the organization externally.”

Sources: Newsweek, June 22 — Christian Science Monitor, June 19 — Management-Issues.com, June 19.

For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, June 15 — Related Newsline story, June 15 — Related Newsline story, June 1 — Related Newsline story, June 1 — Related Newsline Commentary, May 4.

But study author says that even if results are taken at face value, it doesn’t mean that ethicists can’t teach others to behave better

RIVERSIDE, Calif.
A poll of philosophy professors rating their peers’ ethics finds that the professionals don’t seem to behave more ethically than anyone else, according to a university study.

The education journal Inside Higher Ed reports that the study’s co-author, Eric Schwitzgebel of the University of California at Riverside, said he presumed at the start of the study that ethicists “would behave with particular moral scruple. After all, they devote their careers to studying and teaching about morality. Presumably, many of them care deeply about it. And if they care deeply about it, it is not unreasonable to expect them to act on it.”

But most of the 227 survey respondents, all philosophy professors, reported no correlation between an academic focus on ethics and personal moral behavior, Inside Higher Ed reports. Respondents who specialized in ethics generally gave more charitable evaluations to fellow ethicists than did philosophers from other disciplines.

But Schwitzgebel cautions that his study can’t be used to justify banishing ethics from the curriculum. In addition to the small sample size and the fact that respondents might be biased in rating their peers’ behavior, ethics professors might very well teach others to behave more ethically even if they don’t practice what they preach.

Schwitzgebel’s next study will look at whether ethics books are any less likely to be stolen from campus libraries than non-ethics texts, notes Inside Higher Ed.

Source: Inside Higher Ed, June 16.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 20 — Related Newsline story, Apr 6 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 16 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 28, 2006.

Government claims it’s to protect children against porn; researchers and activists scoff, noting that the “Green Dam” blocks access to politically sensitive sites and even crashes word processing program when encountering forbidden words

BEIJING
China last week brought a simmering ethics issue to a boil when it demanded that by July 1 all computers sold in the country, including those manufactured in the United States, come equipped with software ostensibly designed to filter pornography — but which press reports say also censors sensitive political topics.

Chinese officials said the “Green Dam Youth Escort” software was designed only to block pornography, notes Bloomberg, but researchers in the United States and elsewhere discovered it also shuts down word processing programs when certain keywords are entered. The software also blocks access to sites about the Tiananmen Square military crackdown and the banned religious group Falun Gong.

While trade and human rights groups have protested the software mandate, Chinese officials defended the move, saying it was necessary to protect the nation’s youth, and that feedback from schools where the Green Dam was in place showed people were satisfied.

A New York Times editorial called on computer manufacturers to threaten not to sell their products in China, but claimed that international computer makers “have no history of standing up to Beijing. We hope they are making a stronger case in private for a rollback than was apparent in the anemic public statement issued by a coalition of American trade associations. They called for ‘an open and healthy dialogue’ with the government but seemed to go along with the farcical claim that its intention really was to improve parental control.”

On another front, researchers say that the Green Dam is leaky when it comes to security. A team from the University of Michigan says the software contains many exploitable errors in programming, meaning that malicious code could be used by hackers — or by the Chinese government — to seize control of individual units and spy on surfing habits and individual data, ZDNET reports.

Sources: Bloomberg, June 12 — ZDNET, June 12 — AFP, June 12 — New York Times, June 12.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, May 25 — Related Newsline story, May 11 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 15, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 3, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 6, 2008.

New law will require bigger warnings and curb advertising that glorifies the habit

WASHINGTON
Congress last week passed legislation that allows the U.S. government to regulate tobacco. President Obama, promising a quick signature, said the measure counteracts years of indifference to a product that is known to be addictive and harmful, reports CBS News.

Obama has acknowledged that he personally has had difficulty quitting smoking, notes a report from CNN.

The main provisions of the measure will force tobacco companies to post bigger health warnings on cigarette packaging, ban flavored cigarettes, and restrain advertising that glorifies smoking, reports the London-based Independent, which notes that two major British tobacco companies serving the United States also will be affected.

The measure was lauded by a variety of public-health agencies. Opposition was largely muted, and what dissent there was came from tobacco-growing states and tobacco companies who complained about First Amendment issues related to curbs on content of their advertising and communications.

According to National Public Radio, everyone seems to agree that stanching tobacco use will save lives — even the Congressional Budget Office, which warns that a reduction in smoking may exacerbate financial woes in Social Security and Medicaid because people likely will live longer.

Sources: CBS, June 12 — NPR, June 12 — Independent, June 12 — CNN, June 12.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, May 25 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 25 2008 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 25, 2008 — Related Newsline story, May 14, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Jan.22, 2007.

NBA receives high marks for hiring; a high-profile resignation follows report of recruiting violation; University of Alabama hit with probation after allegations that athletes abused free-textbook privilege

VARIOUS DATELINES
Three major stories involved ethical angles on sports last week. They included:

• The University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity said the U.S. National Basketball Association (NBA) is “the industry leader on issues related to race and gender hiring.” A study by the Institute gave the NBA an A-plus for race and a B-plus/A-minus for gender, leading to a combined A, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Of particular interest was the fact that the NBA had one Asian head coach and 11 black head coaches at the start of the 2008-2009 season, the highest minority percentage of any pro sport in the country.
• Tim Floyd stepped down as the University of Southern California’s basketball coach last week following a published report that accused him of giving cash to an intermediary who helped recruit a star player, reports USA Today. That player, O. J. Mayo, is the subject of an NCAA investigation into whether he received improper benefits, notes USA Today.
• The NCAA placed the University of Alabama’s football program on probation last week for violations related to misusing free textbooks. The Associated Press reports that several athletes were accused of using their free-textbook privilege, which is part of their scholarship packages, to obtain textbooks for other students not entitled to the benefit. Several other athletes from various university teams were cited for similar infractions, says the AP.

Sources: AP, June 12 — Orlando Sentinel, June 11 — USA Today, June 10.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, May 11 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 20 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 2.

Some speculate that digital-TV conversion may have ethical side effects; Times of London looks at ethical aspects of search engines; comedian’s jibe ignites debate over propriety of innuendo directed at one of Sarah Palin’s daughters

VARIOUS DATELINES
Moral aspects of broadcasting and digital communication were featured in the world press last week. Among the stories:

• Last week’s conversion of all 1,700 U.S. television stations to all-digital transmission was the subject of hundreds of news stories describing the attendant confusion among people who no longer could receive signals with their old-fashioned analog TVs. But the Christian Science Monitor notes that there are two ethical components to the story: First, environmentalists worry that mass dumping of obsolete TVs will create an ecological hazard; second, the need for a cable connection or converter box may disproportionately deprive certain racial and economic groups of television service.
• The Times of London examines an interesting angle on the introduction of new search engines to the competitive and highly profitable market. The Times’s James Harkin looked at two ethical dilemmas: (1) the fact that a recent survey of business recruiters showed that they resort to search engines when screening candidates, with half admitting they rejected candidates based on unverified information found on the Internet, and (2) the possibility that emerging search engines may not be so hygienic as Google in separating paid search results from those that are returned and ranked on more objective criteria.
• There’s a media-ethics spat over a joke told by U.S. late-night comedy host David Letterman. Letterman made this remark in a monologue last week, referring to former GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s visit to New York: “One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” As ABC News reports, Palin was in New York with her 14-year-old daughter Willow. Letterman replied that his joke was aimed at Palin’s older daughter, 18-year-old Bristol, who was not on the trip, and offered an apology, which Sarah Palin refused. Palin characterized Letterman’s joke as “perverted” and declined an invitation to appear on the program with a remark that she wanted to keep Willow “away” from Letterman — a jibe that also came in for its share of criticism from those who say Palin is distorting and magnifying the issues.

Sources: Christian Science Monitor, June 12 — Times of London, June 12 — ABC News, June 11.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 25 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 27 — Related Newsline story, June 4.

Harvard ethics pledge goes viral; ethics and investments examined in reports from New York and London; Australian polls shows perceptions of ethics in business plummeting; British CEO takes a novel, if controversial, approach to finding out what his employees really think

VARIOUS DATELINES
Last week’s business headlines included a range of stories involving ethics. Among them:

• Harvard Business School’s ethics pledge, detailed in last week’s edition of Newsline, assumed new dimensions during the week as the oath apparently resonated and went viral, according to BusinessWeek. Article author Anne VanderMey writes: “Something about the project struck a chord. Maybe it was the desire to distance themselves from B-school villains of the financial crisis, or an effort to get a head start on their future careers in the nonprofit world, or maybe it was genuine idealism. But whatever the cause, the oath has quickly taken on a life of its own. Within weeks, more than half of Harvard’s class of 2009 had signed. Perhaps more interestingly, it didn’t stop at Harvard Yard. MBAs around the world forwarded the oath to friends, gathering nearly 800 signatures to date. Max Anderson, the 2009 Harvard graduate who came up with the idea, said he received requests from people at more than 25 schools around the world about bringing it to their campuses.”
• The Wall Street Journal reports that two companies are suing Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. for about $190 million, charging that the bankrupt investment bank used deceptive sales practices to market a risky security. The firms, Western Digital and Ceradyne, say they are stuck with worthless investments. Spokespeople for all three parties declined to comment when contacted by the Journal.
• Last week marked the 25th anniversary of the mainstream introduction of ethical investment houses in Britain. The U.K. Guardian reports that while proponents of ethical investing at the start said that investing in companies with a strong ethical and environmental foundation would produce better returns over the long run, investors now are wondering whether those ventures are living up to their initial promise. The Guardian cites various studies showing lower-than-average returns for many ethical funds. Proponents note that there is some evidence that these funds could be more stable in turbulent times because investors are less likely to flee them during a downturn.
• A survey in Australia finds that country’s nurses rated at the top of the list of professionals regarded as the most ethical and honest. The survey, titled the Roy Morgan Image of Professions, found that overall there was a large number of firms falling in the public’s estimation, the biggest dip recorded in the history of the survey. Business executives fell sharply in measures of perception of their ethics, according to a summary of the poll in the Sydney Morning Herald, as did directors of publicly held companies. Administrators of the poll say the economic downturn appears to be the major factor in plummeting confidence in the ethics of professions in Australian. Car salesmen were at the bottom of the list, followed closely by ad executives and newspaper reporters.
• Mangers try hard to find out what their employees are really thinking but are not always successful, reports the Financial Times in a profile of a northern England manufacturing firm’s CEO, who went straight to the source by masquerading as a low-level employee for two weeks. A camera crew followed the CEO, who told co-workers that a TV station was doing a report on what it was like for a clerical employee who had to take a physically demanding maintenance job in order to earn a living. CEO Stephen Martin avoided being recognized because he was new to the job, grew a beard, and often wore protective clothing that obscured his appearance. Martin concluded that management often does a poor job of communicating and expects too much of employees. While the effort was generally regarded as well intentioned, the Management Blog, a publication of Britain’s Chartered Management Institute, notes that there is some concern about the ethics of a boss going undercover, with some readers praising the effort but others noting that it is not entirely up front.

Sources: BusinessWeek, June 12 — Sydney Morning Herald, June 12 — Wall Street Journal, June 10 – Guardian, June 8 — Financial Times, June 8 — Management Blog, June 8.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline Commentary, May 4 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 22, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 24, 2008 — Harvard MBA Oath website.

In New Republic essay, Amitai Etzioni contends that there are not enough regulators in the world to enforce good behavior

WASHINGTON
While much of the debate over the economic crisis has focused on the need for regulation, a noted sociologist argues that ethical oversight may be the ultimate answer.

In the New Republic, Amitai Etzioni writes: “The world economy consists of billions of transactions every day. There can never be enough inspectors, accountants, customs officers, and police to ensure that all or even most of these transactions are properly carried out. Moreover, those charged with enforcing regulations are themselves not immune to corruption, and, hence, they too must be supervised and held accountable to others — who also have to be somehow regulated. The upshot is that regulation cannot be the linchpin of attempts to reform our economy. What is needed instead is something far more sweeping: for people to internalize a different sense of how one ought to behave, and act on it because they believe it is right.”

Etzioni argues that although his argument may sound far fetched, social science indicates that it is more than the fear of punishment that steers people away from bad behavior. Most areas of behavior are “extralegal,” he contends, pointing to the fact that people frequently perform actions only because they believe those actions are right, and obey many laws even though the chance of being caught or punished is quite low.

In his essay, titled “Spent: America After Consumerism,” Etzioni concludes that the most necessary transformation in normative culture is a shift away from pathological consumption and a balance between consumerism and other human pursuits.

Source: New Republic, June 17.

For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, May 4 — Related Newsline story, May 4 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 27 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 6 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 10, 2007.

But police say there probably will not be a raft of prosecutions resulting from lavish expense claims by MPs

LONDON
A scandal over expense account claims by members of Parliament continued to resound last week as prime minister Gordon Brown reshuffled his cabinet.

Brown’s popularity has plummeted in the aftermath of the scandal and his Labour party was drubbed in recent local elections. As this issue of Newsline went to press, CNN predicted that Labour would perform poorly in European Parliament elections.

Various political leaders in Britain speculate that despite Brown’s cabinet moves, his days as prime minister may be numbered, according to the BBC.

The crisis erupted after it was disclosed that members of Parliament had billed extravagant living and other expenses to the taxpayer. While many of the expenses were legal, if lavish, questions remain about several MPs who apparently collected money for mortgages that already had been paid off or received allowances for properties they did not use, according to the Times of London.

The London Daily Mail reports, however, that police apparently have ruled out charges against the vast majority of MPs involved in the expenses scandal. In a statement, the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service said that even those who had made some outrageous claims had based them on “accurate information.”

A “small number of allegations,” though, are being pursued still.

Sources: CNN, June 8 — BBC, June 5 — Times of London, June 5 — London Daily Mail, June 5.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 1 — Related Newsline Commentary, May 25 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 2 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 14, 2008.