Former CTV national anchor Lisa LaFlamme There will be no bittersweet on-air goodbye for (now former) CTV national news anchor Lisa LaFlamme, no ceremonial passing of the baton to the next generation, no broadcast retrospectives lionizing a journalist with a storied and award-winning career. As LaFlamme announced yesterday, CTV’s parent company, Bell Media, has decided to unilaterally end her contract. (See also the CBC’s reporting of the story here.) While LaFlamme herself doesn’t make this claim, there was of course immediate speculation that the network’s decision has something to do with t ..read more

“The academic world is one of fierce competition. Students are under immense pressure to succeed, and the pressure only intensifies as they move closer to graduation. In this context, it’s no surprise that some students resort to academic misconduct in order to get ahead. Unfortunately, there are companies that are all too willing to help them cheat. These companies offer a range of services, from writing essays to taking exams, and they market their services to desperate students who are willing to pay for a leg up. While these companies may argue that they are simply providing a service, the ..read more

I’ve written two blog entries over the last two weeks (here and here) arguing in favour of the business community imposing sanctions on Russia, in response to Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine. I think the reasons in favour of such sanctions are powerful: Putin is a serious and unique threat both to Eastern Europe and to the world as a whole, and it is essential that every possible step be taken both to denounce him and to hobble him. The international community agrees, and the international business community, in general, agrees too. But not everyone. Some major brands have resisted pulli ..read more

Is a corporate boycott of Russia an act of vigilantism? Some people reading this will assume that “vigilantism” equals “bad,” and so they’ll think that I’m asking whether boycotting Russia is bad or not. Both parts of that are wrong: I don’t presume that that “vigilantism” always equals “bad.” There have always, historically, been situations in which individuals took action, or in which communities rose up, to act in the name of law and order when formal law enforcement mechanisms were either weak or lacking entirely. Surely many such efforts have been misguided, or overzealous, or self-servin ..read more

A number of prominent corporations have added their weight to the international effort to impose sanctions on Russia. More and more companies are pulling out of Russia in response to Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression. The list of companies is growing, and—crucially in the information age—includes tech giants such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Dell, PayPal, and Netflix, among others. (See the growing Twitter thread being maintained by @NetopiaEU here.) Most recently, perhaps, both KPMG International and PricewaterhouseCoopers have suspended operations in Russia and Belarus (according to a tweet ..read more

I teach my business ethics students that in order to understand ethical issues in the world of commerce, you need to understand a little bit about markets, about modern corporations, and about the role of management. And for practical purposes, understanding the role of markets begins with the work of Adam Smith. Adam Smith’s 1776 masterpiece, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations, is undeniably one of the most important works of the last several centuries. But it is easily misunderstood. Smith himself, of course, was a star. He was to economics what Darwin was to evol ..read more

An interesting story came up last week, concerning Hunter Biden — president Joe Biden’s son. Hunter Biden is an artist, and it is anticipated that his work could sell for for hundreds of thousands of dollars, a price range no doubt not unrelated to his status as the president’s son. The ethical concern, of course, is related to that fact: the worry is that some may want to buy his art, potentially at shall we say ‘generous’ prices, in order to curry favour with Biden Junior in hopes of gaining favour with Biden Senior. The interesting twist: White House officials have helped create a system th ..read more

People tend to think of boycotts as classic non-violent direct action. Power to the people! and so on. Often, in recent years, boycotts have been used by consumers to pressure companies on a range of progressive issues, such as gun control and marriage equality. But of course, boycotts have not always been a progressive thing — they’re used by activists on all parts of the political spectrum. And historically, they’ve sometimes been used for some rather nasty purposes. In the 1920s, for example, the Ku Klux Klan quite openly used boycotts to drive Black-owned stores (along with stores owned by ..read more

A couple of days ago, the NYT featured a story about the ethics of using delivery services like Uber Eats and DoorDash (See: As Diners Flock to Delivery Apps, Restaurants Fear for Their Future). The basic gist of the story is that these services are predatory, in that they insist on such a large cut of the overall order price that, in some instances, the restaurant in question doesn’t make a dime on the order. Just how big a cut do the delivery services take? Generally around 30%. (That’s true except where limited by law. In Jersey City, for example, delivery fees are limited to 10%.) So, in m ..read more

Former CTV national anchor Lisa LaFlamme There will be no bittersweet on-air goodbye for (now former) CTV national news anchor Lisa LaFlamme, no ceremonial passing of the baton to the next generation, no broadcast retrospectives lionizing a journalist with a storied and award-winning career. As LaFlamme announced yesterday, CTV’s parent company, Bell Media, has decided to unilaterally end her contract. (See also the CBC’s reporting of the story here.) While LaFlamme herself doesn’t make this claim, there was of course immediate speculation that the network’s decision has something to do with t ..read more