What I Believe: Manifesto
I haven’t gotten here because I’m an ideologue.
Read moreTag Archives: ethics
What I Believe, Part III: The Roadmap
Three core values inform everything I believe.
Read moreWhat I Believe, Part II: The Manifesto
Three core values inform everything I believe.
Read moreAI and Personal Ethics: A Case Study
I’m a big fan of thoughtfulness, but aren’t some questions pretty obvious?
Read moreNature publishes instructions on how to make a Frankenstein monster
My doctoral dissertation addressed what I called the “Frankenstein Complex.” So guess why this story bothers me. Today, a scientific journal published a study that some people thought might never be made public at all. The paper describes experiments that suggest just a few genetic changes could potentially make a bird flu virus capable of becoming contagious in humans, and
Read moreWhen doctors follow the rules, are they violating the Hippocratic Oath?
– I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone. I went to my doctor a few weeks ago for the first time in months. During the course of conversation about my health and how I was doing, etc., we stumbled onto the question of why I hadn’t been in
Read moreHey PR professionals – thinking of representing a distressed brand? Six important things to consider before signing that retainer
Part two of two… On Tuesday, I offered some thoughts on the sociopathic nature of some public relations agencies. Once we learn that American firms are lipsticking brutal despots and states that support terrorism it’s legitimate to wonder if there is anyone on Earth that they wouldn’t represent. I just heard a story this morning about a flak who went so
Read moreSociopathic PR Firms and the Clients They Serve
Part one of two… I work in the world of marketing and corporate communications, and my track record of business-related posts (here and at my biz site, Black Dog Strategic) probably demonstrates how seriously I take ethical concerns. For instance, not long ago I made clear that I think understanding the truth of a bad news story aimed at a
Read moreHeard the latest PR joke? (The single most important thing to consider when TV news wants to skewer your client.)
Yesterday Ragan’s PR Daily, an excellent resource for professional communicators of all stripes, offered up a feature entitled “8 things to consider when TV news wants to skewer your client.” As is the usually the case with Ragan’s stuff, Gil Rudawsky’s article provided some useful on-point advice for the media relations practitioner, and the comment thread finds other experienced folks
Read moreJournalism ethics: headline of the day
The following two headlines are factually accurate and grammatically equivalent. 1: Spokeo Violates Federal Consumer Protection Law, Group Alleges 2: Group Alleges Spokeo Violates Federal Consumer Protection Law (Story.) However, from a journalistic ethics standpoint, item #1 is problematic. Discuss.
Read moreAre liberals smarter than conservatives? Our nitwit media strike again…
CNN reported last week on a new study showing that liberalism, atheism and sexual exclusivity in males are linked to higher IQ scores. The findings are intriguing, for all the obvious reasons. Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and
Read morePredicting the 21st Century: Nostraslammy’s ten-year review
Ten years ago, at the turn of the millennium, Nostraslammy took a stab at predicting the 21st Century, with a promise to check back every ten years to see how the prognostications were turning out. Odds are good I won’t be able to do a review every ten years until 2100, but I figure I’m probably good through 2030, at
Read morePolitico misquote of Perriello: sorry, but an apology just isn’t enough
On September 22, Politico ran an article by Glenn Thrush that egregiously misrepresented the words of Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA). The subject was town hall meetings and racist comments that he had witnessed. In due course Thrush’s “error” was “pointed out” and Perriello’s actual words were substituted. (The original post, corrected, appears here.) Thrush then issued an explanation and apology.
Read moreWhy American media has such a signal-to-noise problem, part 1
Part one of a two-part series. From Cronkite to Couric: the Kingdom of Signal is swallowed by the Empire of Noise The recent death of Walter Cronkite spurred the predictable outpouring of tributes, each reverencing in its own way a man who was the face and voice of journalism in America for a generation or more. The irony of all
Read moreHey Walgreens, stop killing your customers
If you’re a doctor, it might be a bit unseemly to run a funeral home next door. If you’re a teacher, there might be some ethical concerns with peddling crack to your kids during recess. And if you’re a pharmacy… Once they were drug stores. Then they became pharmacies. And now? These days they’re in the business of business. The
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lullaby pit 