Has profit displaced basic patriotism?
A recent article by Hoyt Purvis in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette Voices page Wednesday, March 9, 2016, contained some comments by the Chairman of CBS that left me appalled and when that subsided, led to outrage. The comments quoted the chairman, Les Moonves as saying “it may not be good for America, but it is d*** good for CBS.” He was talking about the Republican Party presidential debates and Donald Trump.
It is difficult for me to believe any sane person, much less a business community leader, could make such a remark publicly and be sincere.To check this out I went to Google and found there were numerous articles quoting him from a speech given at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in San Francisco and apparently reported first by the Hollywood Reporter. This man, Moonves, is actually listed as CBS’s cxecutive chairman, president and CEO, which makes me wonder a bit about the rest of the organization.
For any well-known American corporation to allow their leader to flagrantly scoff at the welfare of America for the sake of pure unadulterated, probably excessive, profit and then brag about, should be seen in the same vein as intentionally selling classified technology to our enemies. If he acknowledges that it can be harmful to the nation’s best interest doesn’t he wonder about the effect it might have in the long run? It would be nice to think he made these remarks in jest or tonguein-check, but that apparently is not the case. Whether it be debates on all the networks, personal interviews with Trump or baiting questions by network interviewers, this should be a process of helping the United States select a new leader for the future.
Making profit is not a crime. It is the motivating force behind those who risk everything to start and build a business. The issue for me is what else CBS, and possibly other networks, are willing to compromise in the name of profit? Are they, solely for the sake of profit, intentionally showing adult material to teenage children to promote behavior that is detrimental to the future of a generation of young people? It is the attitude of the CBS networks leadership that I have to question. Where do they draw the line between “good for them and destructive for society”?
This is probably the attitude of others in corporations in America and other nations as well, in how they view their responsibility. Maybe it’s the same attitude that causes American corporations to build manufacturing plants overseas at the expense of jobs in our country. It might be the same attitude that corporate executives resort to when they hire Washington lobbyists to promote their company’s interest. It is probably the attitude that pours millions of dollars of company profits into PACs to promote specific candidates for the same office we are trying to fill.
My observation is that Les Moonves, like Donald Trump’s campaign, exposes a deeper problem than we see on the surface, hidden by the glitter of gold.
••• Editor’s note: Leo Lynch is an award-winning columnist. A native of Benton County, he is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace. He can be contacted at prtnews@ nwadg.com.