CEO of AOL, Bill O’Riley, College Coaches, Professional Ethics and Blog Readers

I like to stay informed. Everyday prior to my arrival here, at least once, I read a few stories out of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Seattle Times. I knew I was going to have to hit the ground running here in D.C. so I wanted to be ready.

As you can imagine, during my extended stay in Costa Rica I spent very little time watching any of the American news networks and when I returned…I was not pleasantly surprised by their progress.

Before I left in May, I had periodically argued that some of Fox New's presentations were becoming dangerously slanted.

Lately, many of the broadcasts have become simply unwatchable. To make things worse, CNNBC has seemingly reacted with programming that directly responds to, if not initiates, slanted banter between itself and Fox News. (Sadly ESPN is just safer....)

So at this week's Presidential Lecture Series when I had a chance to ask the current President of AOL, Randy Falco, (who also worked at NBC for 35 years, during which he held positions which influenced news programming, including president of the network) about his view on the current trends in news broadcasting, in terms of the growth of highly opinionated politically polarized broadcasts...I could not resist.

He responded like a disappointed father, basically stating that he understood recent trends as efforts to compete for ratings but that he always believed news broadcasts had a responsibility to simply present the news as it happened. (He also stated out right that he doesn't consider Bill O’ Riley to be a real journalist--volunteering the answer to a question that I was too afraid to ask!)

I thanked him for his answer and walked back to my seat, feeling more satisfied than I had expected to be. He went on to answer a question about ethics in the business world, which he described as “doing what you say you’re going to do.” That sent my mind into the typical bad listener habit of tangential thinking…I daydreamed about leaders that I respected in my past, finding that all lived up to Falco’s definition of ethics.

Like the aspiring ethical professional I am, I applied Mr. Falco’s mantra of ethics and returned a favor to my old college coach. He knew a kid at another college who was a son of a coach he knows. The student wanted to talk to me about my experience at the Washington Center. I told my coach I would do it right away but it was 10:30 when I got home after a day of work, the lecture, and a 4-hour LSAT diagnostic test. Remembering Mr. Falco, I made the call and luckily left a message on his answering machine.

Today he called back while I was at work. And guess what he said? “I’ve looked at the Washington Center web site and I’ve been reading all your blogs”. What? Someone is reading my blog besides my immediate family! Other prospective students are reading this in an attempt to gain perspective on what’s going on out here in D.C.? (New TWC blog experiment working?)

Well “readers,” I’m busy. D.C. is a infinitely interesting place--and thanks for reading. Tomorrow is my lunch with the VP of the Washington Center and tonight (at 10:15 after a day of work and 4 hour lsat class) I’m going out to interview a Spanish-speaking witness and I’m excited about it.

On the run,

IW