Andrew Feinberg at Hillicon Valley reported that the media watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has asked the Commerce committees in the House and Senate to hold hearings on whether or not the broadcast licenses for Fox should be revoked. As it turns out, there is a “character clause” in the FCC’s public spectrum licensing agreement that requires that license holders (persons, conglomorates, or corporations) must be citizens of good character. Essentially, if you are going to get to broadcast on the public airwaves, you have to be the kind of person who can reasonably be trusted to serve the public interest.
All posts in category justice
Yes, But It’s Never Gonna Happen
Posted by Jim Caccamo on May 2, 2012
https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/05/02/yes-but-its-never-gonna-happen/
All the Awards in the World…
From President Obama at the White House Correspondents Dinner,
And plenty of journalists are here tonight. I’d be remiss if I didn’t congratulate the Huffington Post on their Pulitzer Prize. (Applause.) You deserve it, Arianna. There’s no one else out there linking to the kinds of hard-hitting journalism that HuffPo is linking to every single day. (Laughter and applause.) Give them a round of applause. And you don’t pay them — it’s a great business model. (Laughter.)
When the President of the United States starts giving you crap about your strategy, you know something is wrong.
Posted by Jim Caccamo on April 30, 2012
https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/04/30/all-the-awards-in-the-world-cant/
Seriously!?
“Case in point” regarding the absence of professional ethics in startups and blogging: painful piece entitled “Gangbang Interviews” and “Bikini Shots”: Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem at Mother Jones on sexism in the software industry.
The most telling aspect of these incidents, says veteran Seattle developer Christy Nicol, is that none of the company leaders involved appeared to realize initially that they’d done something wrong. They had simply crafted messages aimed at young men, apparently assuming: Who else would be drawn to programming jobs? “It was the mindset seated deep in the subconscious that programmers are male,” she says.
Or at least that all programmers want to be in on the joke.
A problem being dealt with at big companies, but among startups, not so much.
Posted by Jim Caccamo on April 27, 2012
https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/04/27/gangbang-interviews-and-bikini-shots-silicon-valleys-brogrammer-problem-mother-jones/
Where’d Everybody Go?
As a quick followup to the Apple/Nike piece, consider Nick Bilton’s recent blog post over at the New York Times. It is entitled “Disruptions: Too Much Silence on Working Conditions.” In the wake of Apple’s troubles with worker issues at Foxconn plants, he notes the continuing silence of other tech companies that use Foxconn to manufacture their products.
In the last week I have asked Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Microsoft and others about their reports on labor conditions. Most responded with a boilerplate public relations message. Some didn’t even respond.
Posted by Jim Caccamo on April 18, 2012
https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/04/18/everybody-pile-on/
Apple’s “Nike Moment”
In their April 13-26 edition, the National Catholic Reporter published a piece that I wrote on the explosion of press about labor rights issues at the manufacturing facilities of Foxconn, the company that makes many of Apple’s most popular devices. The article compares Apple with Nike, which has had its share of labor problems starting in the 1990s.
As a brand, [Nike] evoked the best in American culture: commitment, achievement, competitiveness, cool, and a sense of fair play. But as tales of their rights abuses spread, Nike became a cultural symbol of everything that was wrong with capitalism and globalization.
Unlike Nike, though, Apple seems to have made it out of the controversy unscathed. But how? The piece reflects on some of the dynamics involved in the case, as well as some of the long term implications.
Posted by Jim Caccamo on April 18, 2012
https://rewiringvirtue.com/2012/04/18/apples-nike-moment/
Rewiring Virtue 