Who Will Give Bad News to the Losing Candidates after Super Tuesday?

Originally submitted by: jadelay

As today is both Super Tuesday and Fat Tuesday, there are going to be parties everywhere. Some, of course, will be bad news parties, that is for Presidential candidates who lose in the primaries and caucuses being held in 24 states across the nation. This week, a2ethics.org is gearing up for our own big party-at the Blackbird Theatre. We are hosting two panel discussions over the next two weekends as lead-ins to the Blackbird's staged reading of Tony Kushner's prize-winning plays, "Angels in America." The first of these panel discussions is on the ethics of breaking bad news. Our panelists cover a wide range of professions, including a coach, a physician, a business manager and a journalist. In planning for this discussion, it never occurred to us that we should have a politician or elected official on the panel. Why? Is it because elected officials have so corrupted the breaking of news in general that anything they have to say to us will not be considered truthful? Is it because politicians manipulate bad news so much more than the other professions we have asked to talk on our panel that we think they have little worthwile to tell us? Is it because elected officials are so catered to by their staffs that we know anything they tell us about breaking bad news will be vetted and written by their aides and speech writers? I know this. I wouldn't want to be the aide chosen to tell the candidate after the results are in from Super Tuesday any bad news.