30 Rock: The Most Unethical Show on Television

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This, ahem, award can be summed up in two words: Jack Donaghy.

When Global Compliance sat down to study ethical violations in the work place on television, NBC’s 30 Rock was the clear champion, with an average of 11 violations per episode. Based on their study, the cast manages to create as many potential violations in one year as a company with 40,000 employees. Though the research doesn’t call him out directly, NewsFeed is pretty sure Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) is to blame for many of the violations. He single-handedly (hilariously) offends the entire population of the universe — or at least scoffs at typical company code — in just about every episode.

(See the top 10 TV series of 2010.)

The unsurprising runner-up, for anyone who has ever watched the show, are the doctors of Grey’s Anatomy who cannot keep their paws off one another. The show racked up 7 violations per episode. In one instance the show’s title character Meredith Grey violates the HIPAA patient privacy law by sharing patient information with someone not authorized to receive it. Other top offenders include CSI and House, each with 6 violations per episode, and NCIS and The Office with 5 violations per episode each.

(See the top 10 TV episodes of 2010.)

The study says these shows are funny because the situations they portray in the workplace are absurd, but also because the unethical scenarios are things we can all recognize from our own work environments. “The research highlights that we must continue to reinforce to employees that what was funny the night before on The Office is inappropriate in their office,” Global Compliance says.

They fail to recognize, however, that these shows, namely 30 Rock and The Office are funny because the characters are unethical. (via CNN)