(This is a column I wrote for PR Week.) The VNR mini-scandal took a sadly predictable turn earlier this month. Two media and marketing watchdog groups issued a new report showing that the use of unlabeled VNRs by local TV “news” programs was continuing even in the face of heightened scrutiny. The report, from Free […]
Posts under ‘Ethics’
So Now Murdoch Cares About Doing the Right Thing?
NY Times: ‘Ill-considered’ book, interview called off after fierce criticism. Bowing to intense pressure both outside and inside the company, the News Corp. on Monday canceled its plans to publish a book and broadcast an interview with O.J. Simpson in which he was to give a hypothetical account of how he might have murdered his […]
More on News Corp.'s Putrid Dealings with OJ Simpson
Washington Post: O.J. Deal Leaves Sour Taste in Many Mouths. The two-part, two-hour TV interview is scheduled to be aired on the Fox network Nov. 27 and 29 and was conducted by hard-charging and controversial publisher Judith Regan. The show will run before the Nov. 30 release date of Simpson’s pseudo-confessional tome, “If I Did […]
What Rupert Murdoch's Team Will Do for Money
Charlie McCollum (San Jose Mercury News): Fox digs deep in the sleaze, comes up with an O.J. Simpson special. Mike Darnell, the head of Fox’s alternative programming department and the man most responsible for bringing “If I Did It” to the airwaves, did say in the release that “this is an interview that no one […]
Gift Economy in Dispute
Seth Finkelstein: Wikipedia, and the difficulties of criticizing digital-sharecropping. In brief, there’s two important ideas somewhat in conflict: 1) (fact) There are new businesses which can be built on data-mining or large collections of small amounts of unpaid labor 2) (belief) There is social or economic value in openness and commons Fascinating discussion here, stemming […]
What's Up with Voterstory.org?
Tom Evslin asks: “VoterStory.org – What is the Story?” This site is asking citizens to keep an eye on electronic voting machines tomorrow, Election Day. Specifically: Tom wants to know who’s getting the data the site seeks from voters, who’s keeping it and for how long. He notes that there’s a lot of personal information […]
Manipulating Search Engines for Political Advantage
NY Times: A New Campaign Tactic: Manipulating Google Data. If things go as planned for liberal bloggers in the next few weeks, searching Google for “Jon Kyl,” the Republican senator from Arizona now running for re-election, will produce high among the returns a link to an April 13 article from The Phoenix New Times, an […]
It's Not Over, Mr. Williams
USA Today: Pundit Armstrong Williams settles case over promoting education reforms. Armstrong Williams says the $34,000 he will repay to the U.S. government is a small price to pay to put a 2-year-old punditry scandal behind him. Is he joking? This isn’t behind him. Armstrong Williams will always be known as a classic opinion launderer. […]
Annals of Opinion Laundering
Washington Post: Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff. Five conservative nonprofit organizations, including one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, “appear to have perpetrated a fraud” on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate investigators said in a report issued yesterday. The report includes previously unreleased e-mails between the now-disgraced lobbyist […]
Another Tale of Incomplete Transparency
UPDATED Business Week: Wal-Mart’s Jim and Laura: The Real Story. So are Laura and Jim real people? Or part of an elaborate publicity stunt? It turns out they are for real. However, their story, told in full, with certain financial payments disclosed, does not reflect as well on Wal-Mart as perhaps the company would like. […]