PressEthic

The book The Cheating Culture that we read in class has made me pay more and more attention to the presence of cheating in our society. What with Enron, Abramoff, and countless other scandals with political ties, more and more people are doubting our leaders -- in government, business, media -- to be honest, ethical decision-makers. Is that so wrong? Or is an increased awareness to cheating leading to more people getting caught...and does that act as a deterrent?

Take the example from The New York Times yesterday, in the article, "Ethics Panel Says Comptroller's Use of Drivers Was Unlawful." To give you some background, Comptroller Alan Hevesi was accused of using state employees to chauffeur his wife around on taxpayer's dollars. Hevesi argued that his wife needed a driver for security reasons, although the position of "comptroller's wife" is not exactly high-risk.

The State Ethics Commission accused Hevesi on Oct. 23 for breaking the law. They had been investigating the matter of his alleged unethical expenditures.

"The accusation against Mr. Hevesi, the state's chief fiscal watchdog, marks the first time that the commission has ever charged a statewide official with wrongdoing, officials said."

Things don't look good for Hevesi, who is up for re-election-- it's not a good move for the man who supervises the state's expenditures to be racking up illegal expenditures on the state’s tab. Pretty ironic, yes?

This is, as we all know, just one of many ethical scandals surfacing among politicians as election season is upon us. In Hungary, (did you think only Americans were cheaters? No, it’s world-wide) the prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, was caught on tape admitting that he lied about the economy to win last April’s election. Despite calls for Gyurcsany to resign, he was actually backed by the Hungarian Socialist Party and after a month of admitting and apologizing, Gyurcsany seems to be moving on. The BBC News reported,

"The country's best-selling newspaper, the centre-left Nepszabadsag, says most Hungarians already knew they had been misled by the Socialists on economic policy, and argues that the prime minister was simply coming clean.

'What we have learnt,' the paper says, 'is that Ferenc Gyurcsany was honest.'

His government, it adds, should now 'have the guts' to pursue the reform plans it originally lied about, or resign."

The press has the power, as it did in Gyurcsany’s case, to provide information to the public so they can make their own decisions – whether to continue to vote for that party/candidate/official, whether to call for their resignation, whether to push for reform, and so on. But are all these exposés helping deter cheating around the globe? Or do cheaters just view these as isolated cases where some unlucky person was dumb enough to get caught with their hands dirty?

Will politicians stop lying because of Gyurcsany’s example? Or will they just make sure not to be caught on tape admitting it? Will officials stop using taxpayers’ money for their own personal benefits, or will they just make sure to cover it up a little better? The cynical side of me (or sensible?) thinks that cheating isn’t going anywhere – either people are getting careless…or the media is getting better at discovering, exposing, and vilifying the cheaters. Either they’re getting stupider, or we’re getting smarter, but I’m not sure it’s helping the cheating culture one way or another.