Last November, 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft reported on a nice little perk that members of Congress have enjoyed for some time, insider trading. According to a report entitled, Insiders, Kroft interviewed “Peter Schweizer… a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University… Schweizer says he wanted to know why some congressmen and senators managed to accumulate significant wealth...

The Super Bowl is about everything that is over-the-top. From the two-hour pre-game to the intro of the teams, and the million dollar ad buys for commercials that compete for most creative, funniest, most special effects, well… you get the idea. This year caught all of us completely flat-footed. You could hear a pin drop… not when Madonna made her...

What, you haven’t hear about this? What if I told you that this year, football’s premier event, the Super Bowl, will be played under amended rules? That’s right, in a move that will stun New York fans and likely launch thousands of protests, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is set to announce that Giants’ running backs and receivers will be required...

In my book, What Do You Stand For?, former U.S. Ambassador to Spain and Assistant Secretary of Defense Dick Capen puts forth his own code which he calls his “Higher Ground Check List.” I asked my New Hampshire students to compose their own higher ground check list. Here’s a composite: – First, forgive yourself; you can’t start with too much baggage. –...

One of the things I enjoyed most in teaching ethics to an enthusiastic and dedicated group of New Hampshire students is reading the many personal stories from their papers that demonstrate a variety of ethical values. Every morning, Barry Hutchins* would leave the town of Mason to drive a little more than an hour – frequently through snow – to get...

The level of thought demonstrated in many of the papers written for the New Hampshire Technical Institute’s Contemporary Ethical Issues class co-taught by myself and Stephen Ambra was quite refreshing to see. One assignment was to compare and contrast 1950’s news media (i.e. Good Night and Good Luck) with that of today’s social media as observed in the feature film The Social Network....

Following a screening and discussion of the film Good Night and Good Luck, which documents news journalist Edward R. Murrow’s fight with Senate demagogue Joseph McCarthy, some students in Stephen Ambra’s Contemporary Ethical Issues class – a class I was invited to participate in – were asked to read a copy of Murrow’s famous “wires and lights” speech and examine if his words remain...

That was the front page headline on the Concord (New Hampshire) Monitor, Tuesday, January 17. One day earlier, Professor Stephen Ambra and I screened the film Good Night and Good Luck about the journalistic stand news icon Edward R. Murrow took against Senator Joseph McCarthy’s 1950s “Red” scare tactics. The film was part of ourContemporary Ethical Issues class at the New Hampshire Technical...

The fireworks from last Thursday’s Republican debate in South Carolina did not start with a candidate, but came, instead, from CNN moderator John King. KING: As you know, your ex-wife gave an interview to ABC News and another interview with The Washington Post… In it, she says that you came to her in 1999, at a time when you were...

Why is it okay for network television to broadcast expletives in the Steven Spielberg movie, Saving Private Ryan, but wrong to broadcast expletives from Cher at an awards show broadcast? Why is it okay for the FCC to object to nudity in an episode of NYPD Blue, but not in airing nudity from another Spielberg classic, Schindler’s List? These are just some...