Under a Microscope and Ethics

Ethics is something that can be taught, bought or just plum understood from life's experiences.

And ethical behavior is something I hope we all strive for in our daily lives.

However, lynching folks for making mistakes is not part of ethics, nor should the media rush to judgment without facts.

That being said, I find living under a microscope a form of distortion, thus forcing ethical issues where ethics may not play a role in the issue(s) at hand.

Did Maureen Dowd break an ethics rule in rephrasing, and not crediting another journalist? Probably!

Did Ms. Dowd neglect to check her sources? Probably!

But does this neglect, benign or intended warrant a lynching? A mistake of this kind surely doesn't call for a resignation!!

And a call for lynching of this sort could not occur if we didn't have 24/7 news reporting (or commentary), a rush to judgment of all those in the public eye, and a real mean streak surfacing for all those with a pen or a platform and the need for self righteousness.

These relentless searches for "news" often causes more unethical behavior than one would suppose and places some 0n an overly lighted stage where their very breath is scrutinized.

I don't envy the Maureen Dowds facing this sort of dissection!