How good should a media organisation try to be?

Google's famous motto 'Don't be evil' was only ever informal and rather jokey.

Like any outspoken moral statement of purpose, it left the company open to charges of not living up to its own standards. Google's former long-standing PR boss David Krane was reportedly unhappy with it, complaining that "I always felt it would come back to bite us in some way, that we would end up building concentration camps, or something even worse. The universe seems to love irony, why leave ourselves wide open?"

I don't believe News Corp ever had an equivalent motto, but the final issue of the News of the World couldn't duck moral statements altogether:"Wefinally say a sad but very proud farewell to our 7.5 million loyal readers," proclaimed the front page. Proud? Well, maybe, but can you really feel proud in the midst of a crisis caused by what you're saying you are ashamed of?

And can a newspaper or any other organisation be said to have those kind of feelings? Maybe not, but we're drawn to thinking they can: we easily think of companies as proud, ashamed, ambitious or whatever, rather than as the abstract concepts they really are. 

And if an organisation is going to have its own character and morality, there's a role for the people in it to decide what that'll be.

The BBC defines its purpose in its 'Mission and Values', which includes things like... 

Trust is the foundation of the BBC: we are independent, impartial and honest.

Audiences are at the heart of everything we do.

We take pride in delivering quality and value for money.

Creativity is the lifeblood of our organisation.

We respect each other and celebrate our diversity so that everyone can give their best.

We are one BBC: great things happen when we work together.

As to how that translates into what actually happens, there's a whole set of Editorial Guidelines to be read by the world as well as BBC staff. Again, it can be a hostage to fortune, but at least in a crisis it shows that these things have been thought about.

I'm glad not to live under the briefer moral ambitions of Tesco's new British boss Richard Brasher, whose statement of values, quoted in the Times, leaves everyone feeling uncomfortable: "What I want to do is embrace the staff, love the staff, so that they in turn will love the customers." 

Lucy Kellaway in the Financial Times put this to the test with the cashier of her local Tesco:

"I fixed my gaze on Niraj's red shirt, not daring to meet his dark eyes.

'Do you love me?' I asked.

He put the Vanish stain remover into a plastic bag, acting as if I hadn't said anything.

After a pause he enquired: 'Do you have a Clubcard?'"

To find the cutting edge of corporate moral ambitions take another look at Google. It recently convened a summit in Dublin to which it invited almost a hundred former extremists - jihadists, neo-Nazis, gang members etc - to work out how to fight extremism.

It's a subject way outside Google's core business, of course, and one that strays into the realm of social justice or even politics. Google boss Eric Schmidt, in an interview for the FT magazine, was happy to say "we see ourselves as doing good. This is about a good thing." 

That would be worthy of the Salvation Army. But elsewhere in the piece Schmidt sounded like the most dispassionate technocrat: "We're scientists. So if it works, great. If it doesn't, we'll try something else." 

Whether you're the BBC, Google, Tesco or News International, there's a fine line between announcing ambitions to be good and finding yourself at least embarrassed or, at worst, seriously caught out by the consequences. Of course, not setting those kind of goals doesn't free you from moral expectations, so perhaps it's best to state your intentions anyway.

I think Warren Buffett has the soundest advice on moral behaviour, which he regularly gives to the companies he owns: 'Act as if everything you do will end up on the front page of a newspaper.'

He didn't mean it literally, but if Rupert Murdoch is looking for something in this area perhaps it could be adapted?