Monday, January 15, 2018

Trump’s ‘Fake News Awards’ could violate ethics rules


Photo Courtesy: Daily Dot
Ever since President Donald Trump announced the upcoming media-bashing “Fake News Awards” to be held this Wednesday, there is very little knowledge about the event (with the exception that it will not include Fox News and the ultimate award is the fake news trophy). However, what is known by ethics experts and government watchdogs is that it if it is held at the White House rather than under the Trump campaign or RNC, it violates federal ethics codes. One specific section of codes it would violate is the executive branch’s Standards of Ethical Conduct, which deems it illegal for employees for using their position to “[endorse] any product, service or enterprise.” Though the president may be exempt from facing the repercussions of the awards event, White House staff involved would be subject to misuse of their position and can face repercussions varying from censure to dismissal from position. According to chairman of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics Norm Eisen, “risk violating §§ [section marks] 702, 704 & 705 [of the Standards of Ethical Conduct] forbidding use of gov time & $$$ to harm some media & aid others” (Twitter), regardless of whether they are praising one news outlet and bashing another. Moreover, former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter warns that Trump’s slew of network-biased tweets, the awards, and other administrative actions pertaining to the media careen on First Amendment concerns, which would thus make it easier for a staffer to be subject to questions of ethical conduct and can place the president himself in a troubling position.

What do you think about the whole situation?
  • Do you think the president should be able to hold power over such an event, even if it has the potential for many of his own employees to be fired?
  • Though there are potential legal repercussions associated with the awards, comedians such as Stephen Colbert are treating the event (or, as Colbert calls it, “The Fakies”) as a joke. With that being said, how serious do you think the Fake News Awards are?

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think that this whole concept of having a "Fake News Award" ceremony is absurd. As we discussed last semester, the media is vital to our democracy, and a president bashing the media is just unbelievable. What doesn't make sense to me is what Trump will get out of this. His definition of "fake news" is simply a story he doesn't like, be it truthful or not (not necessarily stories that are literally false, like the Brian Ross one in December). Therefore, any story he dislikes will inevitably be about something that shines a bad light on him, and with many of these stories being old news, I don't get why he wants to bring them back up again, especially when it will just remind people of things they forgot about. I'm writing this a day before the awards are set to be revealed, but I doubt that it'll be anything more than a couple Twitter mentions directed toward a couple news organizations, because Trump must have people telling him that calling out individual reporters for individual stories about old scandals is just simply a terrible idea.