Ethics Newsline®

NEW YORK, ROME, and MONTREAL
Two ads that many found offensive and a Canadian executive who looted government advertising budgets figured in last week’s news in ethics:

• Boeing Co. apologized for an ad showing its V-222 Osprey attack helicopter dropping troops onto the roof of a mosque in a simulated battle scene. The Reuters news agency reports that Boeing, which created the ad with partner Bell Helicopter, said the ad never went through “normal channels” and was published by mistake in the Sept. 24 edition of the National Journal.
• Sony Corp., the makers of the PlayStation game system, withdrew an ad showing a man wearing a simulated crown of thorns, according to a report from Reuters. The ad, published in Italian newspapers, was captioned “Ten years of passion,” and drew sharp criticism from several Vatican officials.
• Paul Coffin, the advertising executive convicted of defrauding the Canadian government of $1.55 million by overbilling the federal government for an ad campaign, began the component of his sentence that requires him to deliver lectures on ethics to college business students. Although the lecture was closed to the public, and security guards at McGill University in Montreal papered over the windows in the lecture hall, the Globe and Mail reports that undergrads who attended the lecture were treated to a how-not-to lesson, with Coffin warning them “not to mix bad business with good.” Critics say Coffiin’s community-service sentence of two years of community service including lecturing is too light, and late last week the several Canadian papers reported that prosecutors might seek to appeal the lenient sentence.