An Ethical VP Debate Will be Honest and Promote Confidence in Elections

This week’s vice presidential debate is likely to be largely civil. It should also be ethical. The candidates should be honest, and should promote trust in the political process.

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Image credit: https://www.wannapik.com/vectors/17683

The upcoming debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris will almost certainly  be more civil than the recent debate between President Trump and Vice President Biden. It can’t not be - President Trump’s disregard for the rules, insults, and casual relationship with the facts made the event nearly unwatchable.

At a bare minimum, Pence and Harris will likely more or less follow the rules, interrupt each other less, and more or less get their facts straight. Both are experienced politicians who have been elected to both legislative and executive office. Given the President’s health, and the tenor of the last debate, this week’s debate is probably going to be even more serious and focused than it might have otherwise been. It will be sharp-elbowed, each candidate probably has a list of zingers they hope will light up social media, but it will almost certainly sound less like a playground than the first Trump - Biden debate.

In addition to respecting each other and the rules to which they agreed, the two candidates should also tell the truth and promote confidence in the political process. They should demonstrate respect for each other, for the voters, and for the political process.

Our democracy more or less works because the American people more or less have faith in it. We believe that elections are generally fair, and that we have the opportunity to “vote the bums out” if need be. We hope that if we raise a big enough stink, policymakers will pay attention and change the laws. Of course we know our system doesn’t measure up to its ideals and healthy skepticism about power is part of the American tradition. But at some level we have confidence that everyone’s voice can be heard, that the dishonest will at some point be held to account, and that unfair practices will be fixed.

This confidence can feel tenuous. Voters worry about the impact of money in politics, and think Congress pays more attention to the rich and powerful than it does to the rest of us. But the general confidence in our system nevertheless remains because the system often works, and when it doesn’t work we can correct it. Every two years our votes get counted, and sometimes the bums get thrown out of office. Corrupt politicians and lobbyists sometimes go to jail. Our voices get heard.

Of course not all elections are fair. From gerrymandering, to voter suppression, to changing the rules to favor one side or another, our elections are far from perfect.  But any claims of fraud, cheating, suppression, or anything else that undermine confidence in elections should be backed up by facts and addressed. Such accusations should not be made lightly, and never for partisan gain. Baseless claims that the election is rigged, as President Trump has asserted, undermine faith in our political process. Such attacks not only weaken democracy, they also make it more difficult to address real problems with our electoral system. 

Candidates and elected officials have an ethical obligation to reinforce faith in our process, and to work to make that process better. They need to assure voters that their votes will be counted, that elections are fair, and that the loser will accept the results. 

A critical piece of this message is reminding voters that the final result may not be known for a few weeks after the deadline to vote. Voting stops on November third, but counting the votes will continue. A delayed final announcement means a lot of people voted, and that officials are making sure those votes get counted.

Vice President Pence and Senator Harris have a lot to disagree about. Those disagreements should be civil. They should also be based in fact. In addition, both Pence and Harris should remind voters that our democratic process matters, and even with its flaws it is mostly fair most of the time. Both candidates should encourage everyone to vote and assure the American people those votes will be counted. They have an ethical responsibility to do no less.

Is Undisclosed News Bias Ethical?

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By Conor Kilgore, Project on Ethics in Political Communication

Americans across the political spectrum criticize the news media’s performance. You can find Republicans who believe that CNN, MSNBC, or the Washington Post are wholly owned propaganda arms of the Democratic Party. You can find Democrats who believe the same for Fox News or the Wall Street Journal and the Republican Party. These views may, or may not, match what independent observers find about media bias.

People concerned about bias agree the core mission of news organizations should be to pass along relevant information in as non-partisan and complete a way as possible. A 2018 Pew Research Center study found that 78 percent of Americans believed it was “never acceptable” for news organizations to “favor one political party over others when reporting the news.”

A media ethics case study from the University of Texas at Austin quotes media ethicist Stephen J.A. Ward, who said, “Journalists are engaged and advocates for what? For dialogic democracy….” If Ward is right, a journalist’s agenda is not political – the agenda is providing information to help people make informed political decisions. Given this, when a partisan political organization launches a purportedly objective news website ethical questions arise.

This is exactly what happened when Facebook shut down a political news site, Courier Newsroom. According to Axios, Courier Newsroom is an apparent news website funded by ACRONYM, a progressive political organization. Courier Newsroom ran stories appearing to be “hard news” with favorable portrayals of vulnerable Democratic members of Congress. As POLITICO’s Alex Thompson reported, an April 2020 headline read “Rep. Max Rose Deploys With National Guard to Get Hospital Ready For Coronavirus Patients.” Thompson wrote: “The article — boosted into circulation in New York by thousands of dollars in targeted Facebook ads — was mostly a rewrite of the congressman’s press release from the previous day.”

As Axios’ Sara Fischer reported in August 2020, Facebook announced a policy that would revoke the “news site” status of publishers with “direct, meaningful ties” to political organizations.” Facebook’s main distinction between news and political content, as Fischer wrote, was that outlets are marked as “political persuasion operations” if they are “owned by a political entity or a political person.” The “news site” designation allowed content like Courier Newsroom’s to appear alongside standard news stories.

According to Axios, Facebook, under the new advertising policy, defined a “political person” as "a candidate for elected office, a person who holds elected office, a person whose job is subject to legislative confirmation, or a person employed by and/or vested with decision-making authority by a political person or at a political entity." A “political entity” is “an organization, company, or other group whose predominant purpose is to influence politics and elections."

ACRONYM’s operation of Courier Newsroom raises ethical questions. While it is not untruthful to publish a story about Rep. Rose’s National Guard duty, the objective is to bolster Rep. Rose’s credentials. For “hard news” reporters, however imperfect they are, their goal is to gather and deliver relevant information to the public, not to elect a Republican or Democrat. 

The imperfect nature of the news media makes websites like Courier Newsroom especially ethically murky. While voters will mistrust CNN or Fox News, it does little good for the political process for organizations to pass themselves off as having the editorial standards of hard news organizations when their parent organization’s core mission indicates something else entirely.

For those who want to learn more about media bias, the Pew Research Center has a number of resources on how people feel about the media, and the impact of those feelings.

The White House Should Not Be A Political Prop

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This week, President Trump intends to accept the Republican nomination from the White House and the First Lady is slated to speak from the newly renovated Rose Garden. This raises both legal and ethical questions. The legal questions primarily involve the Hatch Act, and are being pursued by advocates opposed to the President’s plan.

The ethical questions are trickier. As everyone’s mother has told them, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. In this case, even if it’s legal, it’s not right.

In his chapter in Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice Kip Wainscott notes that laws are only one set of rules for political communication professionals. Wainscott, a former election lawyer and senior advisor in the Obama administration, writes “In the United States, our political system has often functioned with assistance from a somewhat dynamic set of unwritten rules and practices...” One of those unwritten rules is not using the White House for partisan political purposes. (Such activities are prohibited in the US House of Representatives - according to the House Ethics Committee, “House rooms and offices are not to be used for events that are campaign or political in nature”). 

Part of the reason is that the White House represents the government, and the government should work for all the people, not just supporters of one party or candidate. Using the White House as a campaign setting says “this building is for those who support me,” when it is for everyone - even those who voted for another candidate or didn’t vote at all. While the President occupies the White House for the duration of his or her presidency, it does not belong to them. The White House belongs to us, the people. It is our house that we loan to the head of government for a fixed number of years. The White House is not Donald Trump’s, just as it did not belong to Barack Obama or any President who came before or will come after. Giving a prime-time campaign speech from the White House suggests otherwise, and such a suggestion is wrong.

Saying that the White House belongs to the people and not the President does not just say that our taxes pay for it. The White House belongs to the idea of the American people. Saying the White House is ours says that in our democracy the most famous and important address is the people’s address. The White House is where the President lives and has an office - and it is also a physical representation of an American ideal. Buckingham Palace is the symbolic seat of England but it is also the Royal Family’s home. They live there because of their bloodline. Their children will move in and the queen will never move out. England is a constitutional monarchy, and the monarch keeps the house. More important than who happens to occupy the White House is that it belongs to America. It belonged to the generations that came before us, and it will belong to the generations that follow.

In this light, the White House stands out of time. It is not just an address occupied in a moment - it is a symbol of an idea with a past and a future. The White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Supreme Court, and a handful of other places are “sacred sites” in American civil religion. They are physical symbols of who we imagine our nation to be at its best. Just as Buckingham Palace stands in for a royal history of England, the White House stands in for the history - and promise - of our democratic republic. Turning it into a campaign prop debases not just the White House, but the idea for which the White House stands. Equating a person with the place, rather than the people with the place, tarnishes the idea of the American ideal.

Of course, everything a President does in the White House has political implications. Of course, suggesting that a politician stop doing politics once he or she walks through the doors of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is absurd. But the fiction of a distinction is important. It is symbolically important to say “politics stops here,” even if we know that politics never really fully stops.

Giving a Republican National Convention speech from the White House may or may not be illegal - but it is unethical because it treats the White House as if it belongs to a person and not the people. It treats the White House like a political prop. Political speeches in the White House turn it from an idea into merely a residence.

Altered Images in Campaign Ads

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President Trump’s re-election campaign recently released a television ad that included three doctored photographs. The images were edited to remove people, trees, and a microphone. One image added an empty background to make it appear as if Vice President Biden is in an empty room when he was not. As Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler noted, “Political ad-makers often seize the ugliest, nastiest photos they can find of the opponent. But this takes it to a whole new level.”

Images can be powerful political messengers. “A picture is worth a thousand words” as evidenced by the fact that more than 50 years later, political junkies all still know the “Daisy” spot.  Today, visual strategic communication is a growing field of study. However, these images come with a whole set of their own ethical issues. And, as Kessler points out, using an opponent’s image against them is a political tradition. Think of President Bush’s attack on Senator Kerry in the “Windsurfing” ad or this anti-Trump ad (which may have its own ethical issues).

But the doctored pictures in the Trump campaign ads go from hard-hitting to crossing several ethical lines. 

One of the images was both altered and used without permission. The Gazette newspaper in Delaware, which owns the picture, asked Facebook to take it down because it violated their copyright. The Trump campaign has been sued for copyright infringement in the past for the unauthorized use of both images and music. It is obviously unethical to violate a law out of convenience, not because one views the law itself as unjust.

The second line demonstrates the difference between “one can” and “one ought.” Just because a campaign (or anyone) can legally get away with something doesn’t mean they should do it. Doctoring photographs as much as the Trump campaign did here violates established political norms and threatens to further undermine faith in the political process.

This is one reason the press, the U.S. House, and political organizations have rules against deceptively editing images. Campaigns should hold themselves to similar standards.

The Associated Press has a code of ethics for photographs which reads in part, “The content of a photograph must not be altered in Photoshop or by any other means. No element should be digitally added to or subtracted from any photograph.”

Such codes extend to the US House of Representatives, which earlier this year reminded Members that: “Prior to disseminating any image, video, or audio file by electronic means, including social media, Members and staff are expected to take reasonable efforts to consider whether such representations are deep fakes or are intentionally distorted to mislead the public.” The House Committee on Ethics explained their rationale by reminding “Members or their staff posting deep fakes ‘could erode public trust, affect public discourse, or sway an election’.”

The American Association of Political Consultants includes deception in its code of conduct, writing that members of the AAPC will “refrain from false or misleading attacks on an opponent…” The AAPC Code of Ethics does not include a specific mention of images, but the doctored pictures in the Trump campaign ads are clearly misleading and thus violate the Code. Similarly, the Campaign Doc column in Campaigns and Elections wrote that “Making substantive changes or altering the context of a photograph is not only misleading, it’s downright stupid.”

Political campaigns in America have often resembled brawls more than academic debates. The stakes are high and politics can be sharp-elbowed. But there is a difference between being biting and making a candidate take ownership for their own actions on one hand, and creating fictions on the other. If campaigns become a series of visual lies, the public will lose even more confidence in our political process – and with good reason. No election is worth damaging an already battered political process.

July Update

July Update

We hope you are well in this challenging time. The COVID-19 pandemic shows no sign of abating in the U.S., and a rough political year is only likely to get rougher. But the global civil rights protests provide hope that long standing wrongs may finally be addressed - many feel optimistic for the first time in a long time. One of those new optimists is Professor Mark McPhail, whose discussion with us is below.

Meanwhile, we’re having a busy summer. Check out our latest conversations and join our upcoming events about ethics and digital politics, and celebrating the launch of the new book. More news and updates are on our website, and you can always find us on TwitterFacebook and LinkedIn.

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June Events

In June we spoke to rhetorical scholar Dr. Mark Lawrence McPhail about race, racism and rhetoric and to Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Candidate Jevin Hodge and George Washington University philosopher Joseph Trullinger about the theory and reality of running an ethical campaign. You can watch the conversations here.

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Upcoming Event: Digital Campaign Ethics in Theory and Practice

On July 30 at noon EDT the Project is hosting digital entrepreneur and best selling author Cheryl Contee, digital campaign veteran Bradley Engle, and professor Vincent Raynauld of Emerson College and Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières to talk about the ideal and the real of ethical online advocacy. Ms. Contee and Prof. Raynauld both co-authored chapters in Political Communication Ethics - Theory and PracticeDetails and registration here.

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Upcoming Event: Book Launch

Join us on August 6th at 6:30pm EDT for the official launch of Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice. Emmy Award winner and former CNN Washington bureau chief Frank Sesno will interview Project director Peter Loge and George Washington University student Anthony Thomas about politics, communication and ethics in 2020. Details and registration are here. If you order the book, be sure to use the discount code on the right.

What’s Next

In the coming months we will be writing more case studies with the Media Ethics Initiative at the University of Texas - Austin, hosting more online conversations, and reaching out to the media more (you can catch the Project in the news here). Be sure to follow the Project on TwitterFacebook and LinkedIn. Spread the word.

Keep in touch and be well,

  • Peter

Book Launch Event - August 6

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Book Launch - Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice

Thursday August 6 6:30 - 8:00pm EDT

Emmy Award winning journalist and former CNN Washington Bureau Chief Frank Sesno interviews Project director and School of Media and Public Affairs professor Peter Loge and SMPA student Anthony Thomas about Loge’s new edited book Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice.

From the publisher: “Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice brings together scholars and practitioners to introduce students to what, if any, ethical responsibilities political professionals have. Chapter authors range from a Trump advisor to an Obama appointee, from leading academics to top digital strategists, and more.

As a collection of diverse perspectives covering speechwriting and political communication, advocacy, political campaigns, online politics, and American civil religion, this book serves as an essential resource for students and scholars across many disciplines.”

Advance Praise for Political Communication Ethics

“The language of a highly polarized and populist politics forces the question: What are the ethics of political communication? Peter Loge, founder and director of the unique Project on Ethics in Political Communication at the George Washington, has brought together a rich and timely compendium of professional and scholarly wisdom to answer that question from a variety of disciplines, experiences, and viewpoints.”

— James A. Thurber, founder, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University

”If ever there was a time we needed considerations of ethics in political communication, it is now. Peter Loge and his contributors provide a comprehensive and contemporary analysis of political communication ethics. This text is essential in understanding the essential role of ethics in the theory and practice of politics in a democracy."

— Robert E. Denton Jr., Virginia Tech

RSVP Here

Panel Discussion - Digital Campaign Ethics in Theory and Practice - July 30

On Thursday, July 30 at noon (EDT) join us for a conversation about digital campaign ethics.

Digital and tech entrepreneur and best-selling author Cheryl Contee, digital campaign veteran Bradley Engle, and political communication professor at Emerson College and Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Vincent Raynauld join Project director Peter Loge to talk about digital and online campaign ethics. Contee and Raynauld co-authored chapters in the forthcoming Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice.

The event is free and open to the public.

RSVP Here

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Upcoming events - Digital Ethics and Book Launch

Digital Campaign Ethics - Theory and Practice

Thursday July 30 Noon - 1:00pm EDT

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Digital and tech entrepreneur and best-selling author Cheryl Contee, digital campaign veteran Bradley Engle, and political communication professor at Emerson College and Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Vincent Raynauld join Project director Peter Loge to talk about digital and online campaign ethics. Contee and Raynauld co-authored chapters in the forthcoming Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice.

The event is free and open to the public.

RSVP Here

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Book Launch - Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice

Thursday August 6 6:30 - 8:00pm EDT

Emmy Award winning journalist and former CNN Washington Bureau Chief Frank Sesno interviews Project director and School of Media and Public Affairs professor Peter Loge and SMPA student Anthony Thomas about Loge’s new edited book Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice.

From the publisher: “Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice brings together scholars and practitioners to introduce students to what, if any, ethical responsibilities political professionals have. Chapter authors range from a Trump advisor to an Obama appointee, from leading academics to top digital strategists, and more.

As a collection of diverse perspectives covering speechwriting and political communication, advocacy, political campaigns, online politics, and American civil religion, this book serves as an essential resource for students and scholars across many disciplines.”

Advance Praise for Political Communication Ethics

“The language of a highly polarized and populist politics forces the question: What are the ethics of political communication? Peter Loge, founder and director of the unique Project on Ethics in Political Communication at the George Washington, has brought together a rich and timely compendium of professional and scholarly wisdom to answer that question from a variety of disciplines, experiences, and viewpoints.”

— James A. Thurber, founder, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University

”If ever there was a time we needed considerations of ethics in political communication, it is now. Peter Loge and his contributors provide a comprehensive and contemporary analysis of political communication ethics. This text is essential in understanding the essential role of ethics in the theory and practice of politics in a democracy."

— Robert E. Denton Jr., Virginia Tech

RSVP Here