It’s difficult to make good decisions on deadline. The mind, muddied by the ticking of the clock, resorts to dualism—do or not-do, print or not-print, edit or not-edit, forgetting to consider ethical dimensions, such as who the decision will affect.
Poynter, together with ASNE, has created The Ethics Tool, a 10-step guide to better decision-making on deadline. The tool asks you to compose responses to a series of questions, and then compiles these responses in a printable document.
For example, Step 6 provides this list of potential stakeholders in an issue:
1. Source
2. Subject of the story
3. Family of subject or source
4. Institution affected
5. News organization
6. Other news organizations
7. Person making the decision
8. The journalist involved
9. Others
It then asks you to identify the stakeholders in your case that will be most affected as well as those that are most vulnerable. Step 7 asks you to identify alternative courses of action, and Step 8 tells you to evaluate these options by considering the likely favorite of both types of stakeholders.
After you’ve completed the steps, you can invite others to work on the case and give feedback to your responses.
The Ethics Tool forces you to articulate, test and defend the action you choose. It reminds you to slow down and consider the ramifications of editorial decisions.
Jeff Nusser, journalism adviser of JayWire newsmagazine at Emerald Ridge H.S. (South Hill, Wash.), wrote in a shout-out to the Ethics Tool on the Washington Journalism Education Association’s blog:
