Lauren Bloom’s Ethical Take on Rupert Murdoch!

On By southwerkIn business ethics3 Comments

Lauren Bloom has a business ethics blog and regularly comments on ethical issues often concentrating on such issues as keeping your business out of court. As of today, Lauren Bloom has written four different posting on the scandals afflicting Murdoch’s media empire.

The first one was on July 8th and was entitled –  We all bear some blame for The News of the World.

This is the concluding paragraph –

Until now, there’s been an unspoken assumption that rich and famous people, be they rock stars or Royals, deserve to have their dirty laundry aired in public if some clever reporter can sleuth it out. (I disagree, but that’s another post.) TNoW is suddenly being castigated for crossing the line by spying on ordinary people’s grief and worry, but who are we kidding here? TNoW only went after the stories its customers wanted to read. Was TNoW a vile scandal sheet whose management deserves to be raked over the coals for unethical journalism? You bet. But until consumers have the good taste and decency to turn away from that kind of garbage, it’s only a matter of time before another tabloid steps up to take TNOW’s place.

The second posting was on July 14th and was entitled –   Thank you, Rupert Murdoch!

Once again, I quote the concluding paragraph –

For someone who thinks ethics in business are important, Murdoch’s tumble is pure gold. I don’t have to argue in the abstract that ethical lapses can cause a business to lose buckets of money and important opportunities. I can just point to Murdoch – his story tells it all.

The third posting was on July 15 and has the title –  Don’t look the other way  

This paragraph probably conveys the essence of that essay.

It can be tempting for executives to look the other way when employees play fast and loose, especially if those employees create a competitive advantage for the company. Ultimately, however, those same executives will be held responsible when their employees’ misconduct becomes public. Rebekah Brooks just took a hard fall from grace, and Rupert Murdoch himself may not be far behind. News Corporation shareholders are already threatening a lawsuit. This scandal will cost the Murdoch empire millions in legal fees, to say nothing of the harm to its reputation and the value of its stock.

The fourth and most current is today’s posting – Rupert, you just don’t get it! 

This is her concluding remarks – pretty tough.

Murdoch wasn’t responsible for overseeing each of the many employees who work for News Corporation’s dozens of media outlets. But he was responsible for establishing and ethical corporate culture, ensuring that employees received reasonable oversight, and interceding when allegations of serious staff misconduct surfaced five years ago. Rumor has it that News Corporation’s stockholders are furious about management decisions that undermined the credibilityof the corporation and, with it, its stock price. They’re likely to demand Murdoch’s head on a platter, and I’ll bet they’ll eventually get it. Pride goeth, Mr. Murdoch … and it seems that you’re in for one heck of a fall.

I recommend you read all four postings, put Ms. Bloom’s web site on your favorites and consider subscribing.

James Pilant

 

Fight Against Charter Schools Moves to the Suburbs (via Btx3’s Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

The data on students in charter schools is mixed. Most schools do about the same or worse than the public schools they supplement or detract from. While the data strongly suggest that there is not even a wisp of a panacea here for poor schools in city districts, I’m unaware of any data at all that says these schools should be used in rich high performing school districts. When a charter school moves into that area, it would seem to be evidence of what many have claimed all along, that this is more of a privatization movement than any attempt to help students, a way of converting a public good into a private profit.

James Pilant

Fight Against Charter Schools Moves to the Suburbs Charter School advocates have expanded their desire to "corporatize" and privatize education to the suburbs, even pursuing establishing specialized Charter Schools in well to do areas with excellent school systems. Unlike in poor areas where parents have little political clout – suburban residents are pushing … Read More

via Btx3's Blog

A World War One Trench Bomb Thrower!

On By southwerkIn business ethics

It looks impressive but I have doubts as to its effectiveness. You can click on the picture and see it full size.

It took considerable chutzpah to sell this things to troops on the front. I hope it either worked or the troops got leave to discuss the item with the war profi — whoops, I mean, manufacturers.

James Pilant

One of my favorite students drew this for me during class!

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

It’s pretty, isn’t it!

James Pilant

Why we have ethical questions but not answers (via eriktrips)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

The author argues that even without an agreed up objective standard of morality, there can still be a discussion of morality based on the “cultural constructions,” – how well the society succeeds in its purposes based on its ideas. This is a particularly significant passage –

What that leaves us with can vary depending on whom one talks to, but among other things, it is possible to critique cultural constructions from within their very constructedness without having to appeal to an objective standard. In fact it is the constructions themselves that are critiqued: arguments and their consequences are not without consequences simply because they are not objective. The real does not dissolve when dualism is questioned but becomes a part of discursive practices that have real effects on real beings whose discursive aspects do not render them less real or less prone to suffering.

I freely admit that I may not understand the argument as well as I should but I am delighted with the idea of still having a “common” ground discussion of a society even without an agreement on what form of morality should be the standard.

James Pilant

As so many do, this post started as a reply to another post elsenet where a writer was quoted about something like the impossibility of an ethics of narrative or what is commonly thought of as postmodernity’s most glaring problem: that of the relativism of its moral arguments, when it has any. Usually when I read the phrase “post-modern ‘anything goes'” it is being written by someone in a field in which postmodern theory does not figure very larg … Read More

via blog@

Cloud on title forever post foreclosure {but wait the Banks own the title companies} (via Timothymccandless’s Weblog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This is a (fairly outraged and rightfully so) discussion of MERS, the electronic system used by the foreclosure industry to prove ownership of homes. Depending on the state, it proves a little or a lot. It appears as time has gone by that the faults of the system have become more and more obvious.

Of course, many who lost their homes to companies using this system never really got a day in court since this weakness in the ownership status has only recently become well known. This was not fair and that it produces strong feelings of rage and hopelessness is not surprising.

I hope the thoughts here can help some people get justice.

James Pilant

Recently Discovered Flaw in Recording System Clouds Titles on Previously Foreclosed Properties   The modern system of mortgage refinancing and assignments created during the housing boom has left behind a wave of title defects on properties that have ever had a foreclosure in their history, due to a loophole in the property records recording system. This has been detected on a number of properties currently in foreclosure, and found to have … Read More

via Timothymccandless's Weblog

Is the Met copping the consequences? (via Integrity Talking Points)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

(When we speak of the Met, what is being referred to is the Metropolitan Police.)

One of the police officials who resigned on Monday had taken gifts and trips from the Murdoch holdings. Since the police are implicated in covering up the crimes of the News of the World and also implicated in providing the scandal sheets with information about crimes and victims, it is not surprising that in hind sight taking these gifts were a mistake.

From the essay – No official in the course of their job, should accept gifts, hospitality or other benefits of any value from anyone other than their employing agency without the explicit consent of their employer. In the vast majority of circumstances, the only reason anyone would give such benefits relates to the exercise of functions by that official – either before decisions are made or following the making of decisions. It is difficult to conceive of a gifting purpose unrelated to either “oiling the wheels” or to recognise the favourable way the wheels have turned for the person making the gift.

If a gift is to be accepted, that acceptance must be transparent. This involves open disclosure to a superior officer, the granting of approval, and formally recording the benefit in a publicly accessible register.

It would be difficult to say it better than this author in these paragraphs.

James Pilant

18 July 2011 The News of the World saga illustrates how any organisation can quickly lose public trust. A media spotlight on the Metropolitan Police over the next few weeks will inevitably have this effect. The resignation of the Commissioner may moderate criticism. The allegations made by the Sunday Telegraph about the Commissioner accepting gifts and hospitality related to the News of the World will challenge the commitment to the ethics polici … Read More

via Integrity Talking Points

on the Good State (via The Theology of Joe)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

Here are some very challenging thoughts about basic cultural beliefs. Here is a key paragraph –

I was thinking in church today how often we make wild assumption about God acting via our state, and that the state is essentially a Good Thing. In fact, whilst it is entirely appropriate to question belief in a deity, it is sacrilege to question the assumption of the Great United Kingdom. Some of us might laugh at the USAmerican assumptions of moral goodness and influence in the world, yet the truth is that we also talk in this way. Not only is the state good because it is good to ‘us’ (in the process dismissing all those who do not experience good things from the state as being somehow outcasts), ‘we’ are agents of good in the world. To assume that our commitment to the gospel of Christ might be in conflict with the working of the state is to label ourselves as fanatical – possibly dangerous – fundamentalists.

This is tough and difficult for many to accept. But we should think about these things. The status of “city on a hill” is not given but earned.

James Pilant

I do love Slavoj Žižek.  I like his energy when he speaks, his crumpled appearance and his frequent nose-wiping. I like the fact that most of the time I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about, but that is brain moves so quickly from one point to another that there is no time between confusion and enlightenment, humour and deep thought.  To be clear, he may as well be speaking in Slovakian for all I understand him. I like the way he spea … Read More

via The Theology of Joe

What’s the difference between the News of the World and mechanically-recovered chicken? (via QA)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This is marvelous. Here we have some subversive, original thinking about our current state of morality. Do the ends justify the means? Murdoch’s empire is a vicious example of raw power in action. It deserves some tough satire.

James Pilant

Or, Does the end justify the means? I'm always on the look out for a good analogy. This one popped into my head. Once upon a time, the people who run meat processing plants became frustrated that little bits of otherwise delicious (and saleable) meat clung doggedly to a carcass after it had been stripped to make chicken nuggets, beefburgers or satay sticks. So, they invented ever more elaborate means by which to remove the meats from the bones. ' … Read More

via QA

Survival of the ‘Lowering Class’ (via NCPrism’s Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

We do need a new vocabulary to discuss what is happening economically today. Take for example, the middle class, once a vibrant part of our society, has now diminished in numbers so much that it has divided. The current definition is so loose that those earning 300,000 dollars a year consider themselves middle class. There are those with millions of dollar in property consider themselves struggling citizens. The comedic beliefs are possible when once defined terms have collapsed into gibberish.

The middle class should probably be defined into a band roughly from 30K to 60K. Below this are the lower class; above this the upper middle class which ends at around 200K. Above this are the upper class. At one million dollars and above are the wealthy.

Please read the thoughts from NCPrism’s Blog.

James Pilant

With the demise of the middle class and the blending of all income levels below the extremely small  group of wealthy people in the United States, we need new labels for our social strata. I suggest we use descriptive titles for these groups. The rich would be called the “rising wealthy,” a term that acknowledges their ever-increasing income and holdings. It isn’t limited to static social status or finite income; this group has no true growth lim … Read More

via NCPrism’s Blog