What Journalism Teaches About Ethics at Work

Editor’s Note: This essay sits within Cultivated’s wider canon of work on clarity, communication, and behaviour — exploring how ethical work is not enforced through policies, but practised daily through habits, decisions, and care.

What Journalism Teaches About Ethics at Work

I studied Media Science, worked on a scrappy local paper, served as creative director for a trade magazine, and spent my twenties making zines, DIY publications, and small-town reporting projects.

It wasn’t a career path.
It was something better.

Journalism gave me a way of seeing the world — habits that quietly followed me into technology, HR, leadership, consulting, and organisational work.

Those habits were simple, but demanding:

Tell the truth.
Write things down.
Ask harder questions.
Treat people fairly.
Protect what’s private.

Recently, while reading Essential Radio Journalism (aff link) for podcast inspiration, I was reminded just how transferable — and necessary — these ethics are inside modern organisations.

What follows isn’t a checklist.
It’s an argument.

That ethical work is less about values statements — and more about everyday practice.

Truth Is the Starting Point

Journalists learn early that there are always multiple versions of events:
your view, their view, and what actually happened.

Work improves when we tell the truth about progress, behaviour, and risk — not the comforting version, but the accurate one. What shipped versus what slipped. What we observed, not what we assumed. What might break next, not what we hope won’t.

This is why watermelon reporting thrives in unhealthy cultures. Green on the outside. Red underneath. Reputation management replacing reality.

Truth is harder.
But truth keeps organisations alive.

Without it, decision-making becomes theatre.

Notes Are an Ethical Tool

Good journalism runs on good notes.
So does fair leadership.

I always carry a notebook. Always. Facts, observations, dates, decisions. Written down. Separated from interpretation.

Notes protect fairness. They anchor memory. They prevent power from rewriting history.

When performance dips, notes allow clarity without cruelty.
When things improve, they show progress.

Arguing from memory is arguing from bias. And in difficult moments — disciplinary conversations, disputes, legal scrutiny — the absence of notes is not neutral. It is dangerous.

Critical Thinking Is a Moral Act

Journalists triangulate. Leaders should too.

They cross-check people with data, and data with people. They ask what would disprove their own belief. They distinguish signal from noise.

Anecdotes feel persuasive. They’re often wrong.

Clarity comes from holding multiple perspectives long enough to see reality emerge. That matters — because action taken without a clear view of the current reality is rarely wise.

Ethics begins with accuracy.

Fairness Is Not Sameness

Fairness doesn’t mean treating everyone identically.
It means holding consistent standards while adapting how you coach, support, and lead.

Two people can be treated differently — and fairly — if expectations are clear and behaviour is assessed honestly.

What must never vary is the standard itself.

Fairness lives in what is written, shared, modelled, and enforced — not in intention alone.

Behaviour Is the Real Policy

Journalists feel pressure to bend rules for a scoop.
Leaders feel pressure to bend rules for a deadline or a target.

When those with power cut corners and are rewarded for it, everyone learns the real values of the organisation — regardless of what’s written on the wall.

Culture is not what you say.
It is what you tolerate, what you do and what you celebrate.

Integrity, once traded for speed or results, is rarely regained cheaply.

Privacy Is Boring — and Sacred

Journalism treats privacy as non-negotiable. Work should too.

People issues don’t belong in public spaces. Leadership disagreements don’t belong in team gossip. Sensitive data should be handled with restraint and care.

Trust is built on discretion.
Break it once, and people stop speaking.

Ethics often fails not through malice — but through casual carelessness.

Why This Still Matters

Ethics isn’t a mood or a trend.
It’s a system of decisions made under pressure.

Journalism codified these habits because the stakes were high. Work has stakes too: people’s lives, livelihoods, reputations, and futures.

Tell the truth.
Keep notes.
Think critically.
Be fair.
Guard what’s private.

Lead in a way you’d be comfortable seeing reported — because when ethics fail at work, it rarely stays hidden forever.