https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-hollie-strano-fired-wkyc-165747706.html

Hollie Strano was fired after a DUI and fleeing from police resulting in a collision with a tree.

My first thought upon reading the story was that meteorology is not particularly affected by drinking as far as I can tell. However, she is very much a public figure having delivered the weather on television as part of the news program for twenty-two years.

Business ethics suggests we do an ethical analysis. Let’s start with social responsibility. Does the television station parent company have obligations toward the public and/or the fired meteorologist? Yes, it does and it is more to the public than to the employee.

So, once we’ve established moral obligation, how should the company act? Was firing her, the best or the correct decision? I hold myself as an expert on business ethics but here I have to admit – I just don’t know. I am doubtful that firing her benefits the public in anyway. It shamed her and damaged her financially and impinged on her reputation but you can easily argue that the legal system had already done that and I suspect for many people that would have been enough. On the other hand, alcoholism is a serious behavioral problem and television meteorologists are not precious commodities. There are more out there if you want them. So, as a practical matter, firing her was a straightforward decision but that still leaves the question of right and wrong here.

I read the comments on the story and they were united in condemning her behavior and suggesting that she got what was coming to her. I don’t think that I could have written one of those. Addiction straddles the line between mental illness and choice in many ways. I have heard people with addiction claim that it was beyond their control but a society really can’t embrace that. Because if we find those addicted are incapable of acting otherwise, than imprisonment and the removal of access to dangerous machines becomes essential to societal order. And once you do that, you have made them into a lesser form of citizen unable in many ways to function not to mention the social cost of jail and prison.

And as a people in the twenty-first century we have a general belief that individuals can choose their own actions. I agree with that sentiment. It is probably right but the only real way forward in dealing with this kind of misbehavior is to assume that people can change.

But as in all discussions of ethics and morality, sometimes firm and simple conclusions defy our best judgment. She was punished but how much was too much or not enough. I don’t know.

James Pilant