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Ethics in principle and in practice

It’s very easy to have theoretical morals. You can say to yourself “I’ll never write anything for Associated Newspapers for as long as I live”, knowing full well that the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday et al aren’t going to beat down your doors with thousands in cash to make you.

But what happens if someone dubious does come to your door, offering you money? Is it easy to make the same commitment?

I have an ad in Press Gazette. It runs weekly and is mostly useless; I’ll get round to changing the wording some time, I’m sure, but I doubt they’ll ever get round to so much as hypertexting my URL and email address on their web site. Lazy buggers.

24-K

Anyway, I’ve just had my first editorial enquiry as the result of it. A Spanish company is launching a new mag, 24-K, and they’re looking for freelances to fill its pages. The money isn’t brilliant but it’s not awful and they’re looking for gadget and film reviews, which I’m more than up to.

The problem is this: bound into every edition of the magazine will be 12 pages of hardcore porn. And this is a Spanish magazine we’re talking about here, so I’m guessing ‘Confessions of a Window Cleaner’ it ain’t.

Now I’m not especially against porn in principle. My concerns are for the models who are often drug addicted, psychologically damaged after sexual abuse and so on: these are well-worn arguments and I don’t have to repeat them here. If the models were all happy, well-adjusted, well paid and so on, I’d have no issues.

Anyway, essentially, this company has made its money from the exploitation of the vulnerable and anything I write will not only be paid for in part with that money but will be accompanied by yet more exploitation.

On the other hand, it’ll be cash, a new client and more articles to add to my portfolio that could eventually get me more clients, more cash, etc. Maybe this company’s models really are happy, well-adjusted, etc and I’m just making assumptions. And there are plenty of companies out there who have made their money dubiously without any of us realising it: how many Daily Express readers know how its proprietor made his millions? How many Daily Mail readers know that the Rothmeres supported Oswald Mosley and Hitler? Then there’s GAP, Nike, McDonald’s, WalMart, et al. Do I stop working for or buying from any company that may have compromised ethics? I’ll starve if I do.

Suddenly, the ethics of the situation don’t look clear cut. What do you think I should do? I’m siding with the “don’t do it” argument at the moment, but I’m still feeling the temptation…

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Norwegian Bloggers are mental

From Romensko:

Three out of 10 bloggers in Norway blog about their mental problems. According to an analysis of 100 Norwegian blogs, conducted by Univero Fishnet, the blog has come to substitute for the old diary, not only in the sense of a serving as a journal, but also as a place to express one’s deepest feelings.

Says analyst Ole Petter Nyhaug to VG Nett (Norwegian language), “It’s frightening what serious problems young people give away in their blogs. For eight out of 10, blogging is a sort of self therapy.”

Not a huge sample size, but interesting nevertheless.

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Generation Y starts whining again

I’m already on record as having more than a marginal dislike of Generation Y. Now I see there’s a book, Generation Debt cover Generation Debt: Why Now is a Terrible Time to be Young, designed purely to inflame my visceral hatred of these Nathan Barleys. It seems that while they’ve been taking these three month jobs to pay for walking trips in the Andes, they haven’t actually been paying for them at all. Instead, they’ve been mounting up debt on their Virgin credit cards. Gits. Anyone can do that: you’re just lucky enough to be the first generation that credit card companies have been willing to give stupid credit limits to. Now you’re complaining you have to pay it back and you can’t fit your canoeing lessons in any more? Bah!

My reason is too clouded to give a full critique of the book, but Slate has a nice counter to it, written by someone equally as embittered as myself.

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Estate agents admit to overpricing

So now we know. The FT quotes Peter Bolton King of the National Association of Estate Agents as revealing that

  • “Aspirational pricing” by estate agents had contributed to the stalling of the market last year
  • Some estate agents persistently overpriced over the past year.
  • They did this solely to get instructions from homeowners

Bloody estate agents. No wonder no one can afford to buy houses any more. That and the buy-to-let and mouseholing crowd.

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What to do about Charles Kennedy?

Charles Kennedy

So what’s up with with Lib Dems? Charles Kennedy has been rubbish as a leader for years now, but it’s only now they have some competition in the form of David Cameron they decide it’s time to do something about it.

Charlie fights back by declaring he’s an alcoholic, hoping the ever-so-nice Lib Dems will give him a sympathy vote come leadership election time. Now, my initial reaction is that you don’t fire a guy simply for having a disease: I thought we’d moved on as a society from that point. However, he claims not to have had a drink in two months now, yet he’s continued to be a rubbish leader the whole time, so I think we can conclude he’s a rubbish leader and an alcoholic, not a rubbish leader because he’s an alcoholic. So he should be fired, rather than using his disease as an excuse.

The problem is that the Lib Dems don’t have any obvious replacements. They’re all so nice. There’s no Paddy Ashdown or David Owen equivalent, who not only really wanted to be leader but who had experience of leadership. Even that guy who has nine black belts (I dare you to name that Lib Dem politician!) is too nice and lacking in charisma. So before giving Charlie the push, I think a bit of searching needs to be done to find a decent replacement. Otherwise, the Lib Dems are going to be back in the also-ran position, without any to give their economic policies a much-needed modernisation or the British public the idea that they should be elected for any other reason than not being the Tories or Labour.

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Ad standards body clamps down on Chinese medicine claims

The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that a leaflet claiming Chinese medicine is safer that conventional medicine and can cure 66 conditions, including lung cancer and depression, was both dangerous and misleading.

QFS.

While not up there with Mr Yous(o/a)ff in turns of silliness, that’s a pretty dumb series of statements to make in a leaflet. Even China’s clamping down on unsubstantiated claims from practitioners, although it only started to draw the line when people started to make claims for immortality.

I hope the Authority next turns its attention to Dr Gillian and others who make similar, albeit lesser unsubstantiated claims for their products. I doubt it, given Channel 4’s and mainstream resellers’ endorsements of the modern-day snake-oil saleswoman. But I can hope…

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Turns out that US laws are optional if the President says so

Interesting legal note on Salon today, stemming from the coldly frothing pen of Sidney Blumenthal. In it, he points out that President Bush has pioneered a new tactic in deciding which laws to follow. By including in the presidential signing statement a clause on how the president believes it applies to the executive branch, he can more or less ignore it, it seems – think of it as a “I will/will not follow this law” checkbox. Very wily.

A system of checks and balances? Of laws, not of men? I don’t think so. But if that’s not what the American people want, who’s to argue with them?