The Boston "Cartoon Network" incident reflects declining professionalism in the media and elsewhere

The incident in Boston in the news yesterday and today - the setting out of devices as part of a promotional plan for the Cartoon Network - is another indication of how much high ethical standards, in the media especially, are under assault today. The advent of unbridled "guerilla marketing" poorly managed by people who must care more about making money than any responsibility they have to people in any community is a real danger both to the media and to the rest of us.

My advice to Time Warner executives is to start firing people and start writing checks to the City of Boston and to all of the government agencies to cover their costs, and a multi-million dollar gift to the people of Bosotn to reimburse them for their inconvenience. Those checks should not be drawn on Time Warner but taken out of the personal accounts of Time Warner executives, all of whom - collectively - bear responsibility for this. That includes CNN; no one in the Time Warner corporate hierarchy should escape liability.