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Expert: Jack Marshall - 11/3/2009


Question
When a reporter makes a mistake in an article they run a correction, but if a doctor makes a mistake someone could die...should we hold some professions to higher standards and accountability?

Answer
Well, we do. Actually there is very little accountability for journalists, who make many mistakes that are never corrected, and seldom lose anything but credibility, if that. Many times, stories in the press don't even carry a by-line. Doctors who truly make mistakes---negligence--frequently pay large cash damages to patients and their families. A lawyer who is careless can lose his or her license, and also may have to pay damages. The difference between a reporter's mistakes, which are generally clear and easily proven, and a professional's, is that a doctor can do a good job and still fail to save a patient; a lawyer can be superb and still lose. Distinguishing failure from error is very difficult, and sometimes impossible.

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Jack Marshall

Expertise

Jack Marshall is President of ProEthics, LTD. and a trainer, lecturer, writer and consultant on a wide range of ethics issues, including day-to-day ethics issues, personal relationships, workplace ethics (including sexual harassment and discrimination of all kinds), management ethics, financial ethics, professional ethics (including law, accounting, fiduciary, medical, and dental), ethics in the arts, politics, and government, and many more. He is an attorney, a published writer ("The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow" with Ed Larson, a playwright, and an award-winning stage director as well as his primary profession as an ethicist. Can advise on ethics of accepting personal gifts from bosses or colleagues for good performances at jobs; reporting friends, relatives for drug trafficking, animal abuse, or theft; tape-recording friends or acquaintances; responding to sexual advances from spouses, children, or lovers of friends or relatives; whether to reveal hurtful betrayals to close friends and relatives; sharing credit for good ideas, or blame for bad acts or decisions. Also professional and business ethics, government, journalism and politics.

Experience

I have created and facilitated over 250 ethics seminars in law, accounting, workplace, associations, non-profits, state, national and local government. For 6 years I have been the primary author of "The Ethics Scoreboard," an ethics resource and opinion website, and now write a daily ethics commentary blog, "Ethics Alarms." I have been a regular ethics columnist for O Magazine and Menz magazine, and regularly discuss ethics issues on TV and radio. I have been a lawyer, teacher, manager, entrepreneur, actor, playwright, writer, humorist, prosecutor, publisher, researcher, marketer, father, and husband.

Organizations
President, ProEthics LTD The Massachusetts Bar The DC Bar The American Continuing Legal Education Association The American Century Theater (Board, co-founder and Artistic Director)

Publications
The Weekly Standard Newsday The Virginia Monthly The Hardball Annual (2009 and 2010) Trial Magazine The Federal Lawyer Subtext (newsletter) The Ethics Scoreboard (www.ethicsscoreboard.com) Ethics Alarms (www.ethicsalarms.com)

Education/Credentials
I served in the administration of Georgetown Law Center for seven years and was an adjunct professor of legal ethics at the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, DC. I am graduate of Harvard college (BA) and Georgetown Law Center(JD).

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