Using Ethics to Stand Up for Labor?
Recently, Joy Reid was interviewing James Baker on the Rachel Maddow Show and she missed a golden opportunity to use ethics questions to strike a blow for the workers of America. Ms. Reid isn’t the only interviewer who has missed opportunities to champion labor. I’ve seen it again and again in multiple interviews where reporters allow incomplete, vague, or softball answers to go unchallenged.
Reporters need to question the ethics of the notion that anything which is good for (read: profitable for) a businessman is then, by definition, good for America, and the American worker. Maybe if more people had challenged the notion that maximizing profits is always good business and is always good for America, we wouldn’t have a President-Elect who loves the American worker so much he promises to bring jobs back to America while he profits from manufacturing overseas.
Some examples: