After a long hiatus from posting to this Integrity Blog, I am resuming posts to the extent that my time allows. This post may sound like it is political but I assure you it is not. This post is about lack of integrity in journalism.

Bill Moyers, in his special on April 25, 2007, has had the courage and integrity to provide what I believe to be a journalistically responsible exposé of just how out of integrity the mainstream United States press has become. He has has dared to criticize both what others have branded the “liberal” press and the “conservative” press for having abdicated their journalistic responsibility to be discerning in their reporting.

I cannot strongly enough recommend that you set aside the time to watch this profoundly important piece of journalism. The URL to view it is:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html
The reporting by both conservatives and liberals prior to and immediately following the invasion of Iraq was drastically and consistently out of integrity with the facts. It made a mockery of the sacred responsibility the press has in a democracy to investigate claims made and to report facts the public needs in order to distinguish between propaganda and truth.
I believe the time has come for the American people to rise up in the most important revolution of our time: an Integrity Revolution. It is time for us to demand that the press stop using “pundits” espousing opposing propaganda spins as a replacement for responsible, balanced, truly investigative journalism.

Pundits debating on television and podcasts may be a form of entertainment for some. But, journalism goes over the line when from journalism into propaganda when news media use pundits as substitutes for having their own reporters uncover and report the very facts that the pundits are in the business of omitting in order to forward their own spin.

It is time for the American people to reclaim their responsibility they have to be discerning instread of being susceptible to being taken in by the powerful propgaganda machines that have replaced responsible government and a responsible media.

It is time for the American people to demand that all news media return to uncovering truth rather than promoting propaganda. It is time for the American people, and American business, to start refusing to patronize or support media outlets whose news departments are out of integrity with their sacred responsibility in a democracy to reveal the facts rather than promulgate propaganda.

Again, I cannot strongly enough recommend that you set aside the time to watch this profoundly important piece of journalism. The URL to view it is:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html

While you’re on Bill Moyers’ page, check out Jon Stewart’s insightful comments about the press:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/profile.html

To read more about Discernment, one of the Seven WisePassions of 3D Integrity™, visit the WisePassions™ section of my website:
http://www.willingness.com/sevenwise.html

For the past 27 years, Project Censored, a program based at Sonoma State University, in Rohnert Park, California, has compiled a list of the top 25 underreported stories from around the country. This year’s list, arranged and reviewed by approximately 200 students and faculty, again contains stories that, for whatever reason, were deemed unfit for American eyes by the mainstream media.

Censorship is lying by omission. With very few exceptions (such as not disclosing military strategy during wartime situations, for instance), censorship is the opposite of serving highest collective good.

Censorship is not only done by governments. In the United States, which prides itself on having a constitution that guarantees a “free press,” censorship is being practiced by major news networks such as Fox and CNN. (Censorship has also been practiced at times by drug companies who withhold damning data from the research studies they publish in medical journals — Vioxx is a particularly well-documented example — but that is another story for another time.)

Fox is one of many examples of news network that has a clear political agenda that it is forwarding, which in turn determines how it slants news stories the stories it features and the stories it buries.

Burying a story is a euphemism for censorship. But, by calling censorship by a less ugly name, the media are able to fool an undiscerning public into believing they are receiving objective reporting.

This is not only an example of lack of integrity. It is downright dangerous. When people form opinions erroneously believing they are basing them on objective truth, they make decisions about, for instance, who they vote for, based on incomplete pictures. This, in turn, can result in the public unknowing supporting corruption or in supporting foreign policies that damage their country’s standing in the international community rather than strengthen it.

I therefore applaud Project Censored for their efforts to bring into public awareness this most dangerous form of unintegrity.

What’s YOUR opinion? Register yourself now so you can post on this blog!

One of the most frequent reasons given for the why people in the U.S. so widely voted to oust Republicans on Election Day had less to do with political affiliation and more to do with an issue that transcends political party: Integrity. The way the voters put into words their change of heart had to do with being fed up with scandals. Are the American people beginning to wake up to the fact that putting people in office who have high integrity is more important than their politcal party or ideological beliefs? I sure hope so. How about you?

Disregarding highest good means achieving short-term wants or success at the expense of long-term price or what is more truly in my highest interests, or getting what is truly in my highest interests in ways that make it harder for you to get what is truly in your highest interests. We can disregard personal highest good, the highest good of a relationship or the highest good of the smaller and larger systems of which we are a part (such as our family, community, business, culture, religion, country, the planet, etc.).

Narcissism, greed, addictions, greed and pathological opportunism (taking advantage of opportunities even when they will harm others) are all examples of disregarding highest good.

Examples of Disregarding Highest Good: Everyday Narcissism

First Example: People who park on or over the line in parking spots, making it impossible to safely use the next spot over. Lack of common courtesy is one of the most rampant forms of the Disregarding Highest Good variety of the Unintegrity Pandemic.

Second Example: Sticking with the driving theme, you are sitting at a traffic light waiting for it to turn green. The traffic going from your left to your right is thick and backing up.

Even so, cars keep going into the intersection, clogging it up without regard for the fact that the light will change before they make it through to the other side. Your light turns green but you cannot go anywhere because one of those cars is blocking you and has no where to go. The cars behind you start to honk at you to go, not able to see that you have nowhere to go and are just as exasperated as them.

You glare at the driver clogging the intersection. He gives you the finger. Or maybe he just seems to pretend he doesn’t even see what is happening. No acknowledgment, no apology, and probably no chance he will handle this situation any differently in future similar circumstances.

This is a classic example of everyday narcissism. Essentially, narcissism says that there can only be one most important or privileged person here and it’s me. It’s not my problem if others are inconvenienced. It’s their turn anyway, after all the ways others have inconvenienced me.

Merely calling this self-centered behavior falls short of the mark. This is yet one more example of an arrogant flavor of Unintegrity. Think about how many times during the day you or others engage in this or some other kind of Unintegrity. You may have privately or publicly criticized yourself or them for being selfish. But how often have you really looked at these behaviors as examples of being out integrity?

If you are like most of us, the answer is, not very often. If we as a culture and as a planet knew how to recognize all the flavors the Unintegrity Pandemic takes, there would be no need for a chapter like this one.

Another Example of Unintegrity through Disregarding Highest Good: A Culture of Debting

Before providing this example. I first want to say that I do not believe that all forms of debt are examples of Unintegrity. One common example of what I would consider Integrity-based debt is taking out a conventional mortgage to purchase a home, when the monthly payments include 100% of the principle and interest due. Taking out a loan to reasonable start or expand a business is another example. So is taking out an education loan, assuming you will make enough when you’re done so you can justify taking out the loan. Keep this in mind when I now talk about other forms of debt as an Unintegrity issue.

Debt is one of the most widespread forms of Unintegrity that exists.

Governments regularly create debt to pay for more than they can afford today, by leaving it to future generations to clean up the mess, if it even gets that far. During the 20^th century, a couple of countries had accumulated such massive national debt that they would have collapsed had the World Bank not forgiven and/or restructured billions of dollars of loans. Italy’s birth rate has decreased so substantially that there are now nowhere near enough young people to cover the cost of the baby boomer generation’s social security bills as they retire. One of the first big government debt scandals of the 21^st century in the United States was the city of San Diego, California. The seventh largest city in the country drove itself into such severe debt, and a subsequent cover-up, that Wall Street stopped allowing San Diego to issue municipal bonds, and the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) initiated an investigation, as did multiple federal agencies.

On San Diego’s behalf, I do want to add that I believe its leaders as of 2006 are committed to correcting the debting, corruption and secrecy that led to this awful example of Unintegrity, and to restore San Diego to a model of Integrity in government.

Businesses too often create huge debt to pay for an almost obsessive need to grow as large as possible as quickly as possible. The kind of debt I am talking about jeopardizes a company’s long-term viability or causes the company to have to inflate its short-term prices in ways that make them less competitive in the marketplace.

Individuals figure that if irresponsible debt is okay for government and business, then it must be okay for them too. Credit card companies do their best to legitimatize this. The consequence is that consumer credit card debt has grown to utterly astronomical proportions. And this is despite it being virtually universally recognized that this does not serve either the highest good of individual stress levels or long-term economic stability.

A Final Example of Unintegrity through Disregarding Highest Good: Internet Spam & Junk Faxes

Those who engage in internet spamming and junk faxes have no regard for how they are imposing on the unwitting recipients of the garbage they send. I spend an average total of about a half hour each day just weeding out and eliminating spam from my e-mails before I start looking at the e-mails that were actually intended for me. Invasion of privacy, which is what this amounts to, is an excellent everyday example of blatant disregard of highest good. Spammers and junk fax senders offer yet another example of how widespread is the Unintegrity Pandemic.

I offer you a couple of warnings before I launch into the examples:

1. This is Not About Blame: As I said above, the purpose of this chapter is not to lay blame but to expand your awareness of the range of ways in which Unintegrity expresses itself. Because I see the Unintegrity Pandemic as a systemic problem, I hold to blame no one individual, culture, religion, organization, business, profession, political party, governmental agency, country and organization of countries. I propose instead that each one of us has a huge role to play in solving this problem. Each individual, culture, religion, country, organization, business, profession, political party, governmental agency, country or organization of countries. So, as you read the rest of this chapter, I ask you to not dwell upon the question of who is at fault. Rather, simply open your eyes to how pervasive the Unintegrity problem is, so you can begin to focus on the solution (an integrity revolution), instead of continuing to view each of these illustrations as separate problems needing to be addressed separately.
2. Refrain From Despair: While it might be tempting to throw your hands up in despair as you read about the magnitude and pervasiveness of the Unintegrity Pandemic, please keep in mind that this book is about a solution to this problem. Only this chapter is about the problem itself. I therefore urge you to treat this chapter as a call to consciousness and as a means to motivate, not as an invitation to despair.
3. Examples Cross Categories: I have placed the examples you are about to read into individual categories to make it easier to understand each category. In reality, though, most of these Unintegrity illustrations could just as easily have been used to illustrate other categories as well. So, if you find yourself thinking, “This example could have been an illustration of arrogance as greed,” that is probably true.