USA Today

Regular readers of The Ethics Scoreboard are familiar with the principle advocated here that those with the power and the opportunity to publicize or broadcast news and opinion to millions have an ethical obligation to do so responsibly and competently. Stated more bluntly, newspapers and news channels should have some minimal understanding of the issues they cover, and if they can't meet the ethical standards of competence and diligence, they should get into a line of work where everyone knows their opinions are worthless.

Movie reviewing, for example. Writing an ethics web site, perhaps.

USA Today aims its product broadly (some might say lowly), but that still doesn't excuse it from spreading ignorance and reinforcing public misconceptions, both of which the paper managed to do in its lead editorial on President Bush's nomination of Judge John Roberts to fill the spot about to be vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court. In an editorial titled "Does Roberts represent mainstream law, values?" the editors note that Roberts' tenure as a federal judge has been too limited to make any judgements about his legal philosophy. But, they say, "his work as a lawyer for previous Republican administrations and private clients, though, offer some hints."

No, USA Today, they don't, and you should know better.

The role of attorneys is to argue their clients' positions, not their own. They do not have to approve of or agree with their clients' beliefs, politics, philosophy or objectives, and there is no justification for presuming that they do. Attorneys are trained to devise the best arguments for any position that has an arguable basis in law, and their own opinions, desires and ideological preferences have nothing whatsoever to do with what those arguments are. This is spelled out in every state bar's ethics rules, and has been a core component of the legal profession for hundreds of years. Somehow the editors of USA Today managed to miss this little detail, and the fact, to name one of thousands of historical examples, that attorney and future Founding Father John Adams was not pro-British when he vigorously defended the Redcoats accused of murder for their part in the Boston Massacre.

It is true that many and perhaps a majority of Americans share this misconception about lawyers, and the shocking ignorance of too many newspaper reporters and editors is a major reason why. A newspaper is supposed to circulate information, not misinformation created by their staff's deficits of research, education and comprehension.

For a national newspaper to be an Ethics Dunce is inexcusable, because it turns its readers into dunces too.

Peggy Piche, district manager of the United Dominion Residential Communityin Jacksonville, North Carolina, explained that the owners feel "it is in the best interests of everyone involved" that Dorothea pack her bags and hits the road. Thomas, who has lived with her son and niece in the three bedroom apartment since 1996, was informed that being attacked on apartment grounds violated her lease agreement.

"In this case the victim was attacked by someone with whom she had an ongoing relationship and had invited onto our property," Piche said in a press release. "While we empathize with her situation, her guest's actions were not only a breach of her lease, but more importantly, they endangered the lives of every other innocent person in the area."

Wow. Could there be an argument more antithetical to the Golden Rule? Is there anybody who would think it was fair if they were evicted for a violent attack on them? If this happened on a regular basis to Dorothea, that would be different. But once? Talk about "blaming the victim!"

What exactly is Peggy Piche saying? That Dorothea is being evicted for bad taste in boy friends? Hey, Peggy, she broke up with the guy! And you say he broke her lease? He wanted to break her face! United Dominion Residential Communityisn't punishing the transgressor here, Peggy, it's rewarding him…he wanted to cause Dorothea grief, and you're making sure he gets his wish, as if six gun shot wounds weren't enough.

Oh, I'm sure there's more to this story. Maybe Dorothea is unpopular among the other residents. Maybe they've been just looking for an opportunity to kick her out. But this sure wasn't it. She was injured; she was nearly killed. There is no possibility that she asked to be shot, and there is no way that it is fair, charitable, or vaguely ethical (or even sane) for her landlord to use an assault on her as justification for breaking her lease.

Will the next evictee be an elderly man who collapses from a stroke, making a too loud thump on the floor? Or the woman who screams in pain because she just burned her hand? Heaven help the residents who have a brick thrown through their window by vandals.

The mystery is how people get like this, so rigid, so unfeeling, so lacking in sympathy, empathy, or kindness. Dorothea, these creeps are doing you a favor. Nobody should have to lease an apartment from people like them.