In August 2000, I contacted Dr. Jeffrey Wigand to contribute to my book, What Do You Stand For? Jeff is notably remembered for his interview with Mike Wallace for the CBS News show 60 Minutes as well as the subsequent legal turmoil in which Brown & Williamson threatened CBS with a multi-billion dollar lawsuit if the interview was aired. What did Wigand know that...

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...

Costello: Well then who’s on first? Abbott: Yes. Costello: I mean the fellow’s name. Abbott: Who. Costello: The guy on first. Abbott: Who. Costello: The first baseman. Abbott: Who. Costello: The guy playing… Abbott: WHO is on first! Costello: I’m asking YOU who’s on first. Abbott: That’s the man’s name. Costello: That’s who’s name? Abbott: Yes! Given the variety of...

Scanning the papers, I’m passing along stories that could use your ethical input. Front page of the NY Times, Ex-Teammate to Confront Clemens at Trial has former NY Yankees pitcher Andy Pettite testifying against friend and former teammate Roger Clemens in a DC trial beginning today. Charges stem from Clemens alleged use of steroids and his subsequent testimony before Congress in March...

At the height of all the Watergate scandal coverage in the ‘70s, TIME magazine ran an interesting story about Jeb Stuart Magruder. Don’t remember Magruder? He’s the man frequently mentioned in the first hour of the movie All the President’s Men. Based on the 1974 book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two investigated the initial break-in at...

In 1954 journalist Edward R. Murrow stepped away from his role as news reporter to speak out against the blatant demagoguery of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. According to an article by Carl Hausman published in The Institute for Global Ethics, “Murrow protégé Walter Cronkite noted that Murrow was troubled about taking an editorial position, but felt he had to break the rules...

In their annual roundup of factually incorrect stories of 2010, Politifact.com, the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning project set-up by the St. Petersburg Times, offered this example from Fox News’ Glenn Beck. “On his Nov. 22 radio show,” Politifact reports, “Beck told the story of Wilmington, a town of 13,000 people in Southwest Ohio that lost about 8,600 jobs when DHL Express, its largest employer,  » Read...

This idea of self-restraint and the press is a debate that often comes up. The last several weeks has seen hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. documents made public by founder Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. To Assange “all transactions between nations and leaders should be transparent,” Time magazine wrote in a recent profile. It’s interesting to note that contrary to...

“An organization has obtained secret documents. They are newsworthy, but they could be damaging as well, to national interests and individuals. “Do you publish?” That was the opening to a Wall Street Journal article (Nov. 29) discussing the question placed before several major news organizations, including the Journal, last week when WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to publishing via the Internet and a...

When should secrets be exposed?  When should they be kept secret and who decides? Those are the ethical questions involved in the recent disclosure of 251,287 confidential U.S. embassy cables – daily reports – intended for senior officials at the State Department by the self-styled, whistle-blowing authority, WikiLeaks. In the case of the break in at the Watergate office complex...