Business_Ethics_3.5

Business Ethics 3.5 Ryan Hart University of Phoenix BUS415-Eric Nord April 25, 2011 The National Enquirer is a supermarket tabloid. William Randolph Hearst founded the paper in 1926, and it has gone through a change of ownership since. The main goal of the National Enquirer is to sell copies by shocking statements in bold letters on its cover. The main objective of these bold statements is to shock people into thinking that there is more inside the paper so they buy it off the news stand or supermarket rack. It is not considered to be legitimate information oftentimes and many readers find much of the material controversial and appalling. As far as ethics are concerned, it was not very ethical for National Enquirer to try to avoid suit in California. Since the Plaintiff resides in California, once there was a legitimate lawsuit filed, the National Enquirer should be obligated to defend itself in whatever state the lawsuit was filed. Since there are so many copies of the newspaper sold in the state of California, it makes more sense that they would need to defend their case there versus trying to defend it from Florida. Yes, the defendants are subject to suit in California. Being that is where the plaintiff resides and is where the lawsuit was filed; it is up to the National Enquirer to make the travel arrangements to send their lawyers and principles to California to defend their suit. In my opinion, the National Enquirer has made a name for themselves for towing the line of legal defamation of celebrities. In doing so, it is only a matter of time before they said the wrong thing about the wrong celebrity and got themselves into trouble. This is a perfect example of saying the wrong thing about the wrong person.