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« The recession is no excuse to discriminate | Home | Can Madoff ever apologize? »

Madoff will plead guilty, and it’s not about the drama

By Lauren | March 11, 2009

Bernard Madoff’s lawyer surprised a lot of people yesterday when he quietly admitted to the judge that his client would plead guilty to eleven criminal counts related to his alleged Ponzi scheme. According to news reports, Madoff may have defrauded his clients out of as much as sixty-four billion dollars, which would make his reported scam one of the biggest in history. No surprise, then, that the maximum sentence Madoff could be facing is a hefty 150 years, far longer than he can possibly be expected to live.

So, Madoff admits he’s guilty, justice will prevail, and that’s that, right? Not exactly.

I’ve been a little perturbed by the way the media are scrambling to save the “story” in this situation. Ordinarily, a crime this big would provide weeks of “infotainment,” a news-related spectacle for professional commentators to analyze endlessly, presumably keeping us all glued to our screens as the advertising dollars roll in. By admitting his guilt Madoff has broken the arc of the story, jumping to the end before the press has fully processed his misdeeds into spectacle. Once his guilty plea is entered, we’ll all know how the tragedy ends, and we’ll probably be a lot less interested in how we got there. I can practically hear media moguls around the country lamenting over the loss of a particularly savory tale.

Don’t get me wrong - reporters have to make a living too, and it’s important for the public to hear about the news. But when the “story” becomes more important than the event, when facts become almost fictional as they’re processed and regurgitated, it’s easy for the human element to get lost along the way. A great many real, live people - not fictional characters in a miniseries - lost a whole lot of money investing with Madoff. They deserve to have their losses respected as the genuine injuries they are, rather than as plot points in a melodrama.

Topics: Business Ethics, Professional Ethics, Social Ethics, business communications, corporate responsibility, ethics |

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