The Business Ethics Blog

Here’s an interesting example of how differently ethical issues can be spun in the press…

First, some background on the central concept at issue in the news story at hand: Nepotism involves giving preferential treatment to relatives, typically in things like hiring or giving out contracts. It’s typically not a big problem for small, privately-held companies, where if the owner/manager hires a close relative (rather than hiring the most talented candidate) no one else is going to be affected much. It’s a much bigger worry in publicly-traded companies, where managers have a fiduciary obligation to shareholders to see that the most talented — rather than the most closely related — candidates get hired.

Writer Hanah Cho has a nice little article on the ethics & optics of the practice, published in at least a couple of different newspapers this weekend. What’s interesting is how different editors (or headline-writers) chose to spin the story. Check out these two very different headlines, for the same story:
“Nepotism occurs despite negative perceptions” (The Miami Herald)
“Nepotism can be a benefit to corporations” (The Albany Times Union)

As far as I can tell, the rosy headline used by the Times Union is entirely unjustified by anything in the text of the story itself.

The only other differences in the two versions of the story (as far as I can tell) are these:

1) The Times Union version has slightly different paragraph breaks, so that the following sentence, rather than being stuck at the end of a larger paragraph, sits by itself (and is therefore — intentionally or not — highlighted):

“The troubles faced by WorldCom Inc., Tyco International Ltd. and Enron Corp. arose from other problems.” [i.e., problems other than nepotism]

2) The Times Union version omits the following paragraph, included near the end of the The Miami Herald version:

“I would advise a client that if you have two equally qualified candidates, it’s safer not to hire the family member,” said Ross A. Albert, a partner at Morris, Manning & Martin in Atlanta, and a former senior special counsel for the Securities and Exchange Commission. “There will be some who will perceive that a [family member] hiring resulted from nepotism, not merit.”

Hmm…almost makes you wonder whether nepotism is a touchy issue, over at the Times Union. (For the record, no, I know nothing at all about the Times Union, its management or its staffing.)

Relevant Books:
The Ethics of Human Resources and Industrial Relations
In Praise of Nepotism: A History of Family Enterprise from King David to George W. Bush
High Impact Hiring: How to Interview and Select Outstanding Employees