Ethical decisions in journalism are rarely black and white. Many fall in a gray zone, where there’s no obvious answer and thoughtful, experienced journalists can disagree about what to do. Those are the calls that tend to reach a standards editor. And it’s how you work through them, what you ask, what you consider and how you explain your decision, that reveals your editorial judgment and helps you strengthen it.
In my first column, I wrote about why newsrooms need standards editors. But having someone to turn to is only the beginning. The harder question is what happens once everyone sits down to talk through a difficult call. Often, there’s no policy that quite fits. This is where some of the most valuable standards work happens.
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