Project director Peter Loge joined Scripps News Morning Rush to discuss the indictment of former President Trump and the danger posed by baseless attacks on democratic institutions by candidates and elected officials.
Perspective: The Forrest Gumping of Donald Trump
Artificial intelligence has inserted the former president into military settings, leading even some supporters to push back
Peter Loge, founding director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at The George Washington University, said the ennobling Trump photos “appear to be a mix of hyperbole and deception.”
He noted that the American Association of Political Consultants compares these sorts of images, called deepfakes, to “false and misleading statements.” The PR Council similarly recently wrote, ”Do not use generative AI to create or spread deepfakes, nor misinformation or disinformation.”
If there is an “intent to deceive” in an ad, Loge said in an email, the ad is out of bounds.
How could ChatGPT and artificial intelligence change politics?
“Most of what we do in politics is also cliché generation,” said Karpf, an associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, during an online panel on AI in politics with the Project on Ethics in Political Communication on Friday.
Rise of the Chatbot: Alabama lawmakers confront questions about artificial intelligence
But aside from a study, professors like Loge at George Washington University, believe there is little that politicians can do on the state level to regulate AI.
“You can’t build a digital wall around Birmingham and say falsehoods shall not enter,” said Loge, who advocates for more ethics instructions in political science classes, saying that rogue AI applications are a product of humans, not the fault of the digital device.
ChatGPT/Bing 2024: AI is better than no intelligence
“The use of AI language models like ChatGPT in political campaigns can raise a number of ethical concerns.”
At least that’s what ChatGPT told Jessica Nix, a former student of mine at George Washington University when she asked it to answer a question about the ethics of using chat ChatGPT on political campaigns…
Perspective: The good, the bad and the ugly in this year’s elections
“Some campaigns spoke to our higher selves, others to our worst instincts. But American politics has never been for the faint of heart or thin of skin.”
Read Project director Peter Loge’s full essay in the Deseret News here.
Interview with The Business of Politics
Project Director Peter Loge joined the Business of Politics podcast to talk about ethics and careers in political communication. You can listen to the conversation here.
Responding Better in Anger to the Media
“Democracy only works if people have faith in our basic institutions, including the press,” says Peter Loge, the Director of Project on Ethics in Political Communication at The George Washington University. “Those who work in politics have an ethical obligation to strengthen, or at the very least not undermine, trust in democratic institutions. Ms. Pushaw's suggestion that readers go after a reporter because the governor disagreed with a story makes a journalist, someone doing the basic job of democracy, an enemy.”
Trump’s Repeating Donation Tactics Led to Millions in Refunds Into 2021
The New York Times quotes Project director Peter Loge about Trump campaign email fundraising tactics:
“It’s pretty clear that the Trump campaign was engaging in deceptive tactics,” said Peter Loge, the director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University. “If you have to return that much money you are doing something either very wrong or very unethical.”
A fraudulent fundraising gimmick favored by Pelosi and Trump has been all but banished. Now a Vegas man faces 20 years in prison in part for doing it.
If politicians must rely on trickery and deception to generate money from supporters, they're contributing to an erosion of political trust, said Peter Loge, director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at The George Washington University.
"They should say, 'We can make the truth clickbait,'" Loge said. "This doesn't have to be a choice between being ethical and being effective."
How to get Jason Chaffetz to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to your mom
Peter Loge, director of The Project on Ethics in Political Communication at The George Washington University, said that purchasing Cameo videos in order to use them in a campaign is “sad, but not necessarily unethical.”
“If I were a campaign manager and someone came to me and said ‘Let’s get Larry Wilcox of CHiPs fame to endorse us for $50,’ I would suggest the staffer consider finding a different line of work,” Loge said. To knowingly sell an endorsement is ‘politically daft,’” he added.
Political Consultants And Ethical Responsibility In 2021
It’s been often said that actions speak louder than words, but in 2021, it is clear that words, either spoken or written, tend to speak volumes. As Loge notes, “Politics is talk and we should take that talk seriously.”
Is America losing her civil religion?
“Although he’s a former congressional staffer who knows the U.S. Capitol well, Peter Loge says he’s still awed when he looks at the Apotheosis of Washington, the painting in the Capitol dome that depicts George Washington ascending to heaven.
“Nothing will crush your soul like a post-State of the Union media scrum, but I still catch my breath” looking at the fresco, said Loge, an associate professor at George Washington University.”
Interview on Upstream Downstream
Project director Peter Loge talked to the Stubblefield Institute for Civil Political Communication podcast and radio program Upstream Downstream about ethics in political communication. You can listen to the conversation here.
Experts warn against undermining elections as Trump, GOP congressman press for fair recount in Georgia
“U.S. Intelligence agencies, the media, local elected officials, local appointed officials, local election observers, campaign election observers who were in all these rooms say – yeah this actually worked pretty well, this seems fair,” he said.
Loge warns that saying otherwise endangers the country.
“It damages the democracy in which we are all privileged to participate,” he said.
Interview on Sirius/XM
Project director Peter Loge talked to Tim Farley, host of Morning Briefing on Sirius/XM’s POTUS channel, about ethics in political communication and the new book Political Communication Ethics: Theory and Practice.
San Antonio congressional candidate used faux Border Patrol agent in TV ads
“Any time you make an agency appear to be an arm of one party or another, it makes it harder for that agency to do their job,” said Peter Loge, the director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University.
Close Read - 04 - Framing, Abolition and Reform with Peter Loge
Abolition or reform? It's not just a question of messaging: it’s about framing. For this episode, I spoke to my old professor Peter Loge, one of the smartest political communicators I know. Loge did some foundational framing work that helped dramatically undermine the death penalty in the United States. It’s an example of reframing that worked, but it also had tradeoffs for advocates who had long organized around abolishing it. These same strategic considerations are impacting debates on carceral state abolition and criminal justice reform today, as well as the degree to which racial and environmental justice are integrated into climate policy.
Why this man says America needs to talk about political ethics
An associate professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., [Peter] Loge is the director of a new initiative called the Project on Ethics in Political Communication, which seeks to improve the tone of campaigns and political speech. He’s also edited a new book on the topic, which will be released in August.
Loge spoke with the Deseret News recently about the project and what he hopes it will accomplish, as well as who he believes is doing political speech right.
A call to find a new rhetoric for a humble civil religion
Project director Peter Loge calls for a rhetoric of humble civil religion in The Fulcrum.
“Our politics has become, in popular parlance, tribal. The challenge is finding a rhetoric that binds us together. As Jordan put it in that convention speech, the question is how we can "fulfill our national purpose, to create and sustain a society in which all of us are equal."
One answer is a humble civil religion that recognizes we are moving from a flawed but optimistic place toward a more perfect union — and that we can only do so together…”
