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situational ethics questions

Bret Sabermetric Dec 18 2005 11:53 AM

I don't want to annoy Steve Zabriskie, or any of you expressing support for the man, but can we discuss the whole lying-on-your-resume issue for a minute? First off, I've done it. When I graduated college, and had virtually nothing to put on my resume, I puffed up stuff I'd done, exaggerated the length and depth of my experience, given references I had no idea would help me (but listing their names looked good), so I hope I'm not coming off as holier than thou, or thou, or even thou. But if I got busted, I would hope I'd have the stones to blush, and mutter, "Aw you got me" and scratch that employer off my list of "People Likely To Think Well Of Me In This Lifetime," and let it go at that. For me to strike back with "It's a tiny little error, and it wasn't even my fault, and everybody does it, and people expect a few lies and omissions and you suck and yyybbb" would be a classless response. Steve Z.'s counterarrgument here seems to be that someone else did it for him (and he was powerless to insist that they get the facts straight?) and it was a long time ago (long enough for him not to have corrected the false impression given of his background voluntarily?) Now I really mean no disrespect for Steve Z. I'm sure he's a fine person. But categorically this response strikes me as a defensive one, and the general endorsement he's getting in the main forum seems to be generated more out of "A NY METs figure, right or wrong" rather than from any ethical appraisal. Ethics would have you ask what your response would be if, say, Roger Clemens were to be caught puffing up his resume (or allowing it to be puffed for him). I don't think you'd be giving Clemens the same pass you give Zabriskie here. Maybe that's okay with you. Maybe allowing your ethics to be applied only in certain situations is acceptable. I'm not disputing that here, but I am pointing out that I've certainly gotten annoyed when people IRL tell whoppers in job interviews and on resumes and act all "Whatever" when thery're busted. Anyway, if you think that I'm endangering the CPF's relationship with Steve Z. by even posting this here, I'll withdraw it, but I did want to broadcast this point outside of Zabriskie Point for now.

Johnny Dickshot Dec 18 2005 12:34 PM

This is probably a sad commentary on my career but I've found lying via leaving stuff off the resume is a better idea than adding stuff to it. Next time I go job hunting, in fact, I plan to erase maybe 7 or 10 years from my life. It'll be like Oil of Oresumay.

Frayed Knot Dec 18 2005 12:55 PM

Zabriskie's complaints about Mushnick seem to be more along the lines of PM bleating about how SZ embellished his backstory without ever actually checking with the man in question as to the whys and wherefores, and then repeating it again years later. He wouldn't be the first guy to accuse Mushnick of that btw. I'm personally not taking a side in this feud, mainly because I either never knew or never cared about the original charge so I don't remember how things were stated. Or if I did know about back then I've simply forgotten the whole deal. This week's story doesn't make it clear that the writer is accusing the ex-broadcaster of concocting the fibs, his arrows may be more directed to the NYM org, so I think maybe SZ is over-reacting a bit but then again it's not my name being cast negatively in a major newspaper so I'm not going to tell him how to react.

Edgy DC Dec 18 2005 01:20 PM

I tried to stay generally neutral there. "I wish you luck, but your work speaks for itself." And his particular demand --- "get my side of the story" --- speaks to journalisitic standards rather than resume ones, allowing me to conveniently agree with him that far without having to make a judgment on his responsibility towards his bio. I have those media guides. The references to Zabriskies football prowess are gone by 1986, which seems to me to be before the Mushnick story broke. If so, it was corrected before "getting caught."

KC Dec 18 2005 01:30 PM

I don't have much of an opinion on this either. I find it much more intriguing that Steve shows up here and then in a Mush column than having interest in their old fued (for lack of a better word). I also think that Bret is using the small story to accuse some of the fans as not being able to be anti-Mets judgemental. As I've said for years, most posters here fall well within the middle of the "Sell the team NOW!!!" and "Ms. Met" polar boundaries of being Mets' fans.

MFS62 Dec 18 2005 01:39 PM

Being theoretical here, not specific to SZ. What's that old expression? "If you tell the truth, you never have to remember what you said." This is a quandry many job seekers create for themselves. They tailor their resumes and send out different versions to different prospective employers. Then, when contacted for an interview, they have to remember which version was submitted and to whom. It is better to leave stuff off a resume, then discuss only when asked. If there is something on your resume that could later be checked, the employer has every right to fire you for lying. (As in the case of that footbal coach who was canned. Was it at Notre Dame?.) Later

Bret Sabermetric Dec 18 2005 01:55 PM

Frayed Knot wrote: Zabriskie's complaints about Mushnick seem to be more along the lines of PM bleating about how SZ embellished his backstory without ever actually checking with the man in question as to the whys and wherefores, and then repeating it again years later. He wouldn't be the first guy to accuse Mushnick of that btw. That's a variant on the whole bogus "I wuz misquoted" cry by some sports figure who was quoted (accurately) but had his misleadingly self-serving B.S. (rightly) omitted for reasons of space and coherence. He'll draw a lot of support from people inclined to sympathize with him in the first place (and since journos rank very low on the food chain of popular support, that is pretty easy to do.) But it's not Mushnick's job to check out every detail of every item he runs with everyone involved--it's to report items and to comment on them. If his claims aren't true--and I don't think anyone's really disputing them--then Mr. Z. has an excellent case for libel. And if they are, then I think he should argue against the truth with a fuller kind, along the lines that Edgy is suggesting: if he really did correct the media guides before he left the Mets' organization and before he was caught, then I say that is strong evidence that Mushnick's story is a small one about an insufficiently vetted Media Guide. If Mr Z were to add that it was his responsibilty to have vetted that, and he didn't for whatever reason he cares to cite ("I was a dumb kid," "I was trying to fit into the culture of the Mets organization," etc.) so much the better and so much less that PM has to get on his case about. If you don't want fabrications on your resume exposed, you should take care to see that none ever appear there. Everybody has a way that they would like news stpries about them to be spun, but that may not be the way the journalist chooses to present it, sometimes for completely professional reasons, sometimes not. Some of the early puffery on my resume has evolved from "Gosh, I hope they notice THIS" to "Who the fuck cares about THIS? It's downright embarrassing." My resume has gotten shorter as I've gotten older. I think that's normal--more and more stuff seems totally inconsequential. At one point I was listing every stupid committee I'd ever served on or chaired, and now those pages have been reduced down to my job title and the years I've had that title. My goal is to get it down to nothing. "You want my what? Don't you know who I AM?"

TheOldMole Dec 18 2005 03:05 PM

I'll take Steve Z's word about his resume. But discussing the question in general, I've posted my opinion in the Steve thread. Sometimes you do what it takes to get a job. If you don't have what it takes, that will become apparent pretty quickly. Just reading "Chronicles" - pretty much everything Dylan put into his early bio was made up. Does that make "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" an inferior song?

Bret Sabermetric Dec 18 2005 03:14 PM

Course not. But people do get to read what the true story is, and to make fun of him for telling people he played in the circus, grew up in New Mexico, played gigs with people he'd only heard on records... If you want to consider this in evaluating him a teller of truths, that's certainly your privilege. I don't want journalists feeling that I would be too broken up by this information for them to risk telling me what really happened.

TheOldMole Dec 18 2005 05:05 PM

In a sense, the creating of a colorful legend adds to one's colorful legend. What about Tobias Wolff, who lived the colorful legend, but invented an uncolorful one to get into prep school?

Bret Sabermetric Dec 18 2005 06:30 PM

Hmmm...I was just grading papers about Wolff's story "The Chain." Dylan and Wolff and many others have had made art out of their twisted and sometimes sordid and not-so-sordid fictions based loosely on their lives--do we want to encourage everyone to make up shit about anything they want to, then? Dylan's a fucking liar, maybe even a psychotic one, in order to become a major teller of truths. I'll buy his albums, but I wouldn't hire him as my student aide.

TheOldMole Dec 18 2005 08:37 PM

But you might conceivably have hired Tobias Wolff, and he might have made a good one.

Frayed Knot Dec 18 2005 10:18 PM

]it's not Mushnick's job to check out every detail of every item he runs with everyone involved If he's interested in good journalism it is -- particularly if he's accusing Zabriskie as the one who puffed up the resume without knowing whether or not that's true (once again: in this week's piece it's not clear who's he's targeting and i don't know how the original column ran) A line adding that Zabriskie denies being the one who included the exaggerations (or one saying that Horwitz & co do) would be a more complete and accurate piece.

Bret Sabermetric Dec 19 2005 06:23 AM

It's unclear to me exactly when Steve Z. actively contacted Mush to tell him his side of the story and whether in Mush's view that was credible or sufficient. Is Mushnick required at that point to contact the Mets' PR guys who (according to Mr. Z.) messed up his bio? What if they tell a slightly different version, or are unavailable for comment, or have died? Does Mush then not run the story that he has? I mean, not to diss Steve Z specifically here, the subject of a rip job (which it's basically Mushnick's function to deliver) will always have some added exculpatory details, some quibbles, some memory lapses, some denials. Is it reasonable to ask journos revealing info that is damaging to the subject's reputation to sit on every story pending a thorough investigation of the facts, hold hearings of contesting witnesses and assemble a team of experts to sort out every detail of what happened and when it happened, and then to publish in excruciating detail a fair and balanced report of Zabriskiegate? If those standards were applied, you'd need a wheelbarrow to carry your copy of the Post, which would be featuring investigative journalism from the late 1980s at this point. It's just not reasonable, nor is that the standard that the courts hold journalists up to. The long and short of it may well be that the Mets PR department put out a puffed up and inaccurate version of Mr. Z.'s bio in the mid-80s and, for whatever reason, he didn't correct it immediately. Excuse it as you may, and it might well be that you can fully excuse it, it could be Mushnick's position that that's an accurate capsule summary of the events and he's not moved by Mr. Z.'s protests sufficiently as to warrant a correction or amplification in his column. Now if Mr. Z. has been besieging Mushnick with vigorous, credible and well-documented corrections since the mid-80s and Mushnick has continued printing a factually inaccurate version anyway, then yes he's ethically impaired. It's not clear to me that that's what happened here.

Bret Sabermetric Dec 19 2005 06:58 AM

One question I would ask the Mets' PR folks, for example, if I were Mushnick doing a followup, is "Is it your policy to publish bios without showing them to the bios' subject before they appear in print? If so, is it possible that other bios are similarly puffed up and misleading? If not, is Steve Zabriskie blaming you for something it was his responsiblity to check?" and on and on.

Frayed Knot Dec 19 2005 10:22 AM

"the subject of a rip job (which it's basically Mushnick's function to deliver)" No, his function is to get the story right. "Is it reasonable to ask journos revealing info that is damaging to the subject's reputation to sit on every story pending a thorough investigation of the facts, hold hearings of contesting witnesses and assemble a team of experts to sort out every detail of what happened and when it happened, and then to publish in excruciating detail a fair and balanced report of Zabriskiegate? " No, but it's reasonable to ask him to check with the subject being discussed/accused in order to get his side of the story. "One question I would ask the Mets' PR folks, for example, if I were Mushnick doing a followup, is "Is it your policy to publish bios without showing them to the bios' subject before they appear in print? If so, is it possible that other bios are similarly puffed up and misleading? If not, is Steve Zabriskie blaming you for something it was his responsiblity to check?" and on and on." All reasonable questions to ask. So why do you think it's NOT reasonable to contact Zabriskie to ask similar qs? - Did you know about this beforehand? - Do you usually read your media bios? - When/how did you find out about this and what action did you take and why/why not? - etc. The thing Zabriskie seems most upset about is that Mushnick apparently made no effort - either orignially or now as he repeats the story decades later - to find out if the subject of his accusations had any hand in it. Better journalism would inform the reader of that. As it is, we're left with no idea who's responisble, or whether the bio contains slight exaggerations or if SZ never actually engaged in anything more strenous than the stamp club.

Johnny Dickshot Dec 19 2005 10:45 AM

Generally in a situation like this it's the Mets fault and not Mushnick's or Zabriskie's. The media guide is supposed to be an accurate set of facts -- stuff the media needn't ask about because it's "official" (dates, names, places, times, records, etc etc). If it is inaccurate, even as a result of a fib by Zabriskie, that oughta be the Mets' fault for not catching it (Mushnick did). When Mushnick revealed the information on Zabriskie was incorrect, the team, instead of laughing it off as "good PR" should have issued notice to their media list that "as the result of an editing error, the information on Steve Zabriskie as it appeared in the guide was incorrect..." I understand Zabriskie being pissed because it's easy to get the impression from Mushnick's peice that the inaccurate information was provided to the Mets by Zabriskie. And the implication that he lied is damaging to a guy trying to make his living as a journalist. And if Mushnick had been previously informed by Zabriskie that the inaccuracy wasn't his fault, why go back to it again? Obviously, because he hasn't gotten word from the Mets yet that the error was theirs.