Writer ethics

How reporting goes wrong

This entry was posted in Writer ethics Writing and tagged science writing on by

When you read the news, too often you find distorted and misleading accounts of the facts. It’s not “fake news” in the sense of deliberate fabrication, but the result of writers not understanding the issue, wanting to make it more exciting, or repeating errors which others have made for the first two reasons. I’ve been guilty of repeating erroneous reporting myself,

A video by Aron Ra shows how this works in reporting on paleobiology. He talks about an article that claims 800,000 year old DNA from Homo antecessor has been found.

The source was a respectable one, and its claims weren’t obviously impossible. He found multiple articles on the Web making similar claims, but only one of them provided a link to the original article in Nature. That article makes no claims about finding DNA; what was found was dental enamel containing identifiable proteins. That’s newsworthy enough to scientists, but not the same thing. Nonetheless, the report of hominid DNA four-fifths of a million years old even made it into the New York Times. (I hope I’ve got it right on whether that species is a hominid or a hominin. I think any member of the genus Homo is both.)

Ra says, “They were comparing dental enamel proteomes. What reporter is even going to know what that means?” He checked with some experts to confirm that proteomes aren’t genetic material. “They’re more like a genetic by-product.” Aside from the esoteric nature of the discovery, why did so many sources get it wrong in the same way? One reason is that “editors want to embellish everything to make it sound more interesting. Don’t ever do that.”

It’s good advice, but sometimes we get it wrong anyway. Reporting involves writing about things you aren’t an expert on. Sometimes you have to rely one another person’s explanation. But we should try to avoid making errors just to juice up our stories, and we should let our readers know when we discover our errors.

Inaccurate headlines

This entry was posted in Commentary Writer ethics and tagged fake news New Hampshire news on by

Update:The Union Leader corrected the headline, possibly in response to my complaint. Kudos!

News websites want clicks to their articles. They’re what bring in advertising revenue. Too many of them mislead the reader or sensationalize the story for the sake of clicks. Sometimes they engage in outright falsehood. An example is an article on the website of the Manchester, NH Union Leader, which carries the false headline “Free staters continue to meet despite ban.”

The article is actually about the Free Keene organization, which has no connection with the Free State Project beyond being based in the same state. Most libertarians in New Hampshire regard Free Keene as a little crazy. Putting their health at risk to make a point isn’t very smart.
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COVID-19 and curve flattening for writers 1

This entry was posted in Writer ethics Writing and tagged coronavirus COVID-19 mathematics pandemic statistics on by

When we write about issues related to COVID-19 and other major health risks, we carry a serious responsibility. Most of us aren’t medical professionals or specialists in biological sciences, but we have to get as much right as we can. Giving false reassurances and spreading panic are both harmful. Advising ineffective or dangerous preventive methods is still worse.

When we write for hire, we present our clients’ opinions, not necessarily our own, but that doesn’t let us off the hook. A pandemic is too serious to spin and make excuses about it. If a client wants you to give out inaccurate information, please decline the assignment.

But anyone can give that advice. I’d like to talk here about a couple of technical issues that writers need to understand. The projected spread of the disease is a matter of statistics. You’ve seen a lot of advice urging us to “flatten the curve.” What does this mean, and why do we want to flatten it? You’ve also seen that the number of cases is growing exponentially. That’s true, but most people don’t clearly understand what it means.
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This entry was posted in Writer ethics Writing Writing as business and tagged business clients on by | Open »

A while back, I got a solicitation from a Dan Marzullo saying, “I run a small copywriting firm and I’m looking for another writer to add to the team.” I didn’t respond, since it felt like mass marketing. Since then I’ve learned that he’s contacted other writers I know and may not have represented his conflicts of interest accurately. I recommend not dealing with him. Inadvertently violating your existing agreements can really mess up your business.

Lying for money

This entry was posted in Writer ethics Writing and tagged ethics writing on by

A piece called “Confessions of a Fake News Writer,” by someone using the name Winston Wordsworth, recently came to my attention. You can look it up if you want; I’m not giving this scumbag any “link juice.” He says in the article that he currently accepts money to write lies, so there’s no strong reason to accept anything he says as true. But by Russell’s Paradox, if he’s lying, he’s telling us the truth when he says he lies. And there must be people like this. They deserve to be spat upon.

Winston says he’s “prostituting myself out.” That’s an insult to prostitutes, who mostly deliver honest value for money.
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Excuses for dishonest writing

This entry was posted in Writer ethics Writing and tagged ethics ghostwriting writing on by

Some people see nothing wrong with writing dishonest articles. A discussion in an online forum recently reminded me of this.

Let me start by clarifying what I mean by dishonest writing. If you’re writing on someone else’s behalf, you can argue for a position which you don’t personally agree with. It’s legitimate if there’s some case for the position and you use accurate facts and valid arguments. You’re helping the customer to present a position in a reasoned way, and there’s nothing wrong with that even if it’s not your position.

It becomes dishonest when your argumentation is dishonest. If you cite sources which you know are unreliable, use arguments which don’t hold up, and present “facts” with no source, you’re serving up counterfeit goods. If the customer is unaware you’re spewing nonsense, you’re cheating the customer. If they do know they’re asking you to deceive, you’re collaborating in cheating the reader. In some cases, it could count as fraud under the law.
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Being an honest ghostwriter

This entry was posted in Writer ethics Writing and tagged ethics ghostwriting writing on by

It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
(Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5)

When you aren’t writing under your own name, the boundaries of honesty aren’t quite the same. You aren’t being hired to say what you believe, but to put someone else’s ideas into words. It isn’t dishonest as such to say things which you don’t personally believe are true, but you don’t have a license to lie. Where’s the boundary you can’t cross without becoming dishonest?

Advocacy vs. deception

The slope is slippery, so I stay well back from the brink. I’m willing to present a case for a conclusion which isn’t clearly false, even if I have doubts about it. For instance, I see no ethical problem with writing an article that says cloud-based VoIP is best on one day, then an article the next day saying an on-premises IP PBX is better. Both are true under some circumstances. However, I won’t write an article claiming an IP PBX is illegal — at least, not until I learn that some government has actually outlawed it.
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Don’t be an accidental plagiarist 1

This entry was posted in Writer ethics Writing on by

In the strange world of “content creation,” freelance writers often see requests to “rewrite this article” or “write an article similar to this one,” with a link to an article that the customer didn’t create and doesn’t own. They border on requests for plagiarism and sometimes step over the line. Is this a request you can fulfill in good conscience?

I’m going to skip over the issues of legal liability here. That’s for lawyers. Whether you get sued or blacklisted or not, plagiarism is appropriating the work of other writers to make money for yourself. It’s wrong.
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