Lawyers viewed as more ethical than car salespeople and US lawmakers; ABA Journal, January 30, 2024

DEBRA CASSENS WEISS, ABA Journal ; Lawyers viewed as more ethical than car salespeople and US lawmakers

"Only 16% of Americans rate lawyers’ honesty and ethical standards as "high" or "very high," according to a Gallup poll taken in December.

The percentage has decreased since 2022, when 21% of Americans said lawyers had high or very high honesty and ethical standards, and since 2019, when the percentage was 22%, according to a Jan. 22 press release with results of Gallup’s 2023 Honesty and Ethics poll.

Lawyers did better than business executives, insurance salespeople and stockbrokers. Twelve percent of Americans viewed those occupations as having high or very high ethics and honesty. The percentage decreased to 8% for advertising practitioners, car salespeople and senators, and 6% for members of Congress."

Ethics Ratings of Nearly All Professions Down in U.S.; Gallup, January 22, 2024

 MEGAN BRENAN AND JEFFREY M. JONES, Gallup; Ethics Ratings of Nearly All Professions Down in U.S.

"Americans’ ratings of nearly all 23 professions measured in Gallup’s 2023 Honesty and Ethics poll are lower than they have been in recent years. Only one profession -- labor union leaders -- has not declined since 2019, yet a relatively low 25% rate their honesty and ethics as “very high” or “high.”

Nurses remain the most trusted profession, with 78% of U.S. adults currently believing nurses have high honesty and ethical standards. However, that is down seven percentage points from 2019 and 11 points from its peak in 2020.

At the other end of the spectrum, members of Congress, senators, car salespeople and advertising practitioners are viewed as the least ethical, with ratings in the single digits that have worsened or remained flat."

When is it OK to lie?; NPR, August 22, 2023

 Frank Festa, NPR; When is it OK to lie?

"Knowing when a friend or loved one is seeking honest feedback can be difficult. The best way to find out is to ask them what they need — do they want your opinion? Or do they want you to listen to them vent?"

Trump Told Pence ‘You’re Too Honest’ When He Objected to Jan. 6 Scheme; Rolling Stone, August 1, 2023

TIM DICKINSON , Rolling Stone; Trump Told Pence ‘You’re Too Honest’ When He Objected to Jan. 6 Scheme

"The new indictment of Donald Trump on conspiracy charges related to his attempts to subvert the results of the 2020 election makes clear that the then-president not only made false claims about who won the presidency, but “knew that they were false.”

Trump’s tortured relationship with the truth is highlighted in an exchange he allegedly had with Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 1, 2021. Trump, the indictment says, called Pence and “berated him” because Pence opposed efforts to claim that he alone had the power, in his ceremonial role presiding over the counting of the votes of the Electoral College, to reject the official tallies from the states. 

As recounted in the indictment, Pence told Trump that — as he understood the laws of our land — there was no constitutional authority invested in the vice president to make such a move.

Trump then allegedly lit into Pence, telling him: “You’re too honest.”"

Managing the Risks of Generative AI; Harvard Business Review (HBR), June 6, 2023

Kathy Baxter 

and 

Yoav Schlesinger

, Harvard Business Review (HBR); Managing the Risks of Generative AI

"Guidelines for the ethical development of generative AI

Our new set of guidelines can help organizations evaluate generative AI’s risks and considerations as these tools gain mainstream adoption. They cover five focus areas."

About WBUR's Ethics Guide; WBUR, March 10, 2022

WBUR; About WBUR's Ethics Guide

"The committee approached the guidelines from the vantage point of WBUR journalists and journalism — while acknowledging the importance of the ethical guidelines and standards that need to be understood and embraced by everyone who works or is associated with WBUR.

The committee used the NPR Ethics Handbook as a structural model and source text, adopted with a WBUR voice. They also addressed ethics issues from a 2021 perspective, recognizing that much has changed in the public media and journalism field since the NPR Handbook was first written a decade ago."

WBUR Ethics Guide PDF: https://d279m997dpfwgl.cloudfront.net/wp/2022/03/WBUR-Ethics-Guidelines.pdf  

MapLab: The Case for a Cartographer’s Code of Ethics; Bloomberg, March 9, 2022

Marie Patino, Bloomberg ; MapLab: The Case for a Cartographer’s Code of Ethics

"In 2017, Kent spearheaded the drafting of the first and only known professional code of cartography ethics for the British Cartographic Society (BCS) while he was the president of the organization. The code upholds five principles: Honesty, integrity, competence, respect and responsibility. It also warns of potential sanctions that can be taken against members if they don’t follow these principles, including being banned from the BCS — though Kent says this hasn’t happened yet.

“There’s an increased sense of responsibility that goes with the idea of mapmaking.” Kent says. “I think cartographers have for too long not really grasped the idea that what they’re doing has immense power to change the way how people see the world.”

Now, momentum for ethical guidelines may be picking up...

Buckley, who created a user group at Esri to discuss best practices and ideas for mapmaking ethics, is planning ethics discussions at other map gatherings this year. “Having good examples, I think, is what we need to move towards next,” Buckley said. “After we come up with a code of ethics, the statements have to be supported by resources that people can look at to understand how to enact ethical practices.”"

Zoom classes felt like teaching into a void — until I told my students why; The Washington Post; March 11, 2021

C. Thi Nguyen, The Washington Post; Zoom classes felt like teaching into a void — until I told my students why

"In the end, I see this as a question of informed choice. Given who I am, it’s very predicable that my teaching will get worse as more cameras go off. Students deserve to know that, and take that into account, in their own choices. I suspect that honesty is the best we can do right now.

This experience has also changed how I behave when I’m on the other side of the exchange — in the audience of an online lecture. In that situation, I would almost always prefer to turn my camera off. But now I go camera-on most of the time, because of my understanding of the impact of my decision on the speaker.

Right now, our knowledge of one another’s lives is slim, gathered as it is through impoverished channels like Zoom. When our connections are so tenuous, a little trust can go a long way."

I used to hate Mister Rogers. Then I discovered how much I needed him.; The Washington Post, November 22, 2019

Martha Manning, The Washington Post; I used to hate Mister Rogers. Then I discovered how much I needed him.

"Mister Rogers gave comfort. He didn’t sell it. He didn’t knock us over the head with it. It wasn’t cool or sexy or easy. He considered the space between the television set and the viewer to be “sacred,” something millions of children understood — and that their parents forgot.

That’s a shame, because we were the ones who needed Mister Rogers’s wisdom most of all. The big words, long explanations and instructions about how to be and what to do that we favored often gave us little solace. Instead, we needed an honest voice who considered the darkness and met it with hope, who recognized self-hatred and met it with compassion.

As a child, Mister Rogers became extremely frightened by something on the news and wondered how he would ever be safe. His mother gave him simple but profound advice. “Always look for the helpers,” she told him, with the quiet certainty that they could always be found. Who are the helpers right here, right now, in our troubled lives?"

Olympic champion shares personal experience on the importance of ethics; NTVabc, March 5, 2019

Lauren Kummer, NTVabc; Olympic champion shares personal experience on the importance of ethics

"On Tuesday, it was Ethics Day at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

Naber spoke to students on character and ethics in a way that's relevant to everyday life.

"I think it's important to talk about what's in the best common good. Not in what's in your best interest but what is in our best interest," said Naber.

Naber shared stories on his own, and one in particular that put him in a tough situation during the 1973 World Team Trials where ethics came into question.

"I won the race but I didn't touch the wall correctly. The official thought I should be disqualified. The meet referee wasn't sure and they let me decide. Did I intend to fight the call? I remembered I didn't touch the wall. I said "I deserve to be disqualified" and I was. For that, I lost the chance to win a gold medal at the world championships but I earned my own self-respect. Of all the decisions I made in my swimming and athletic career I think that might be the highlight," said Naber."

This sad, embarrassing wreck of a man; The Washington Post, July 17, 2018

George F. Will, The Washington Post; This sad, embarrassing wreck of a man

"Americans elected a president who — this is a safe surmise — knew that he had more to fear from making his tax returns public than from keeping them secret. The most innocent inference is that for decades he has depended on an American weakness, susceptibility to the tacky charisma of wealth, which would evaporate when his tax returns revealed that he has always lied about his wealth, too. A more ominous explanation might be that his redundantly demonstrated incompetence as a businessman tumbled him into unsavory financial dependencies on Russians. A still more sinister explanation might be that the Russians have something else, something worse, to keep him compliant.

The explanation is in doubt; what needs to be explained — his compliance — is not. Granted, Trump has a weak man’s banal fascination with strong men whose disdain for him is evidently unimaginable to him. And, yes, he only perfunctorily pretends to have priorities beyond personal aggrandizement. But just as astronomers inferred, from anomalies in the orbits of the planet Uranus, the existence of Neptune before actually seeing it, Mueller might infer, and then find, still-hidden sources of the behavior of this sad, embarrassing wreck of a man."

Confessions Of A Former Sinclair News Director; Huffington Post, April 2, 2018

Aaron Weiss, Huffington Post; Confessions Of A Former Sinclair News Director

"Only Sinclair forces those trusted local journalists to lend their credibility to shoddy reporting and commentary that, if it ran in other countries, we would rightly dismiss as state propaganda...

When Deadspin’s genius supercut of Sinclair’s latest promo went viral last weekend, my heart broke for the anchors who were used to make the equivalent of a proof-of-life hostage video. They know what they’re being conscripted to do, but most of them have no choice in the matter. They’re trapped by contracts, by family obligations and by an industry that is struggling to stay relevant in an era of changing media habits.

The anchors who were forced to decry “fake news” put their own credibility on the line, accusing “some members of the media” of pushing “their own personal bias and agenda,” when nothing could be further from the truth...

There’s nothing inherently wrong with journalism that wears its bias on its sleeve. At some point, local news may transform into something more like the cable news landscape, with hosts who are paid to share their perspective and commentary. But that requires honesty on the part of station owners, and it requires embracing a diversity of viewpoints on the air. That’s the exact opposite of what Sinclair is doing to local broadcasting today."

Bobby Sticks It to Trump; New York Times, August 5, 2017

Maureen Dowd, New York Times; Bobby Sticks It to Trump

"We are in for an epic clash between two septuagenarians who both came from wealthy New York families and attended Ivy League schools but couldn’t be more different — the flamboyant flimflam man and the buttoned-down, buttoned-up boy scout. (And we know the president has no idea how to talk to scouts appropriately.)

One has been called America’s straightest arrow. One disdains self-promotion and avoids the press. One married his sweetheart from school days. One was a decorated Marine in Vietnam. One counts patience, humility and honesty as the virtues he lives by and likes to say “You’re only as good as your word.”

And one’s president."

Job search ethics: The good, the bad, and the ugly; Science, June 14, 2017

David G. Jensen, Science; Job search ethics: The good, the bad, and the ugly

"It’s tough to write about ethics. There’s always a chance that I’ll sound like I’m preaching, which isn’t a great style for a columnist. And I’ve had my own job market infractions, so I’m not squeaky clean. But it’s an important topic, so here we go. The bottom line is that there’s a good way to handle certain elements of the job search, a bad way—and an ugly, dirty way. Follow the lessons in these examples to keep clean."

Intelligence officials’ outrageous contempt of Congress; Washington Post, June 7, 2017

Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post; Intelligence officials’ outrageous contempt of Congress

"All of these witnesses, national security adviser H.R. McMaster and other White House officials act as if they work for the president, not the American people. This is unacceptable in a functional democracy and would, if perpetuated, do serious damage to our democratic system. They need to tell the truth, the whole truth. Transparency and honesty cannot be optional for members of the executive branch. We will see if Republicans in Congress exhibit the same level of outrage as do Democrats. If not, they will be revealing their own willingness to defend the president and refusal to wholeheartedly perform their duties as required by their oaths."

Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat; Washington Post, June 5, 2017

Samantha Schmidt, Washington Post; Harvard withdraws 10 acceptances for ‘offensive’ memes in private group chat

"The students in the spinoff group exchanged memes and images “mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust and the deaths of children,” sometimes directing jokes at specific ethnic or racial groups, the Crimson reported. One message “called the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child ‘piñata time’” while other messages quipped that “abusing children was sexually arousing,” according to images of the chat described by the Crimson.

Then, university officials caught on. And in mid-April, after administrators discovered the offensive, racially charged meme exchanges, at least 10 incoming students who participated in the chat received letters informing them that their offers of admission had been revoked...

According to Harvard college admissions policies, the university reserves the right to withdraw an offer of admission if the admitted student “engages or has engaged in behavior that brings into question their honesty, maturity or moral character,” among other conditions, Dane told The Post."

Sir Harold Evans’ New Book Is a Master Class in How to Write; Daily Beast, May 20, 2017

Malcolm Jones, Daily Beast; Sir Harold Evans’ New Book Is a Master Class in How to Write

"Like George Orwell, Evans understands in his bones that words are not just pretty things, that in the wrong hands they can mislead, betray, and even cause great harm. Beginning on page one and running right through to the end of the book is an iron spine of fair play and honesty. “This book on clear writing is as concerned with how words confuse and mislead, with or without malice aforethought, as it is with literary expression,” he writes in the introduction, and then circles back on the last page of the book to drive home the point once more: “The fog that envelops English is not just a question of good taste, style, and esthetics. It is a moral issue.”"

"Modern Life"; Bizarro, May 19, 2017

Dan Piraro, Bizarro; "Modern Life"

Donald Trump’s One Awful Accomplishment; New York Times, April 29, 2017

Frank Bruni, New York Times; Donald Trump’s One Awful Accomplishment

"The other presidents in my lifetime have at least done a pantomime of the qualities that we try to instill in children: humility, honesty, magnanimity, generosity. Even Richard Nixon took his stabs at these. Trump makes a proud and almost ceaseless mockery of them.

And while I worry plenty that he’ll achieve some of his most ill-conceived policy goals, I’m just as fearful that he has already succeeded in changing forever the expected demeanor of someone in public office.

All around me people shrug and yawn at his latest petulant tirade, his newest baseless tweet, his freshest assertion that the numbers that the rest of us see are just optical illusions and he really did win the popular vote. Even outrage grows boring, and it begins to feel pointless: His obnoxiousness isn’t going to get him impeached.

Besides, the mendacity, the grandiosity: That’s just Trump being Trump. It’s old news by now. Many readers will get this far in this column and wonder why I and other naysayers don’t just let it go and cut him a break. As if we’re stuck on piddling things and his bearing is nothing more than peculiar.

But when something no longer provokes remark, it becomes unremarkable, and the road from there to acceptable is a short one."

Radio's Diane Rehm, A Mainstay Of Civil Discourse, Signs Off; NPR, 12/23/16

David Folkenflik, NPR; Radio's Diane Rehm, A Mainstay Of Civil Discourse, Signs Off:

"Among her most frequent nonpolitical guests were the actor and singer Julie Andrews, the author Isabel Allende, and the poet Maya Angelou, who stopped a conversation about her book with this: "I like you so much, Diane Rehm, and ... so does your audience. And I have a feeling all the time that you and I are best friends."

The interview took place in 2013 and was their final conversation.

"You are the kind of best friend everybody would like to have," Angelou added. "You're honest, you're direct, and you're not brutal.""