Ethics Review Checklist

What This Skill Does

Generates a publication-specific editorial ethics checklist tailored to the risks of a particular story — covering consent, harm minimization, source protection, vulnerable subjects, conflicts of interest, right of reply, public interest justification, and legal exposure.

When To Use This Skill

• A story is approaching publication and the editor wants a documented record that all ethical obligations have been considered before sign-off
• The story involves named individuals who did not initiate contact with the publication — they were found, identified, or exposed by the reporting
• The story names or could identify vulnerable subjects: minors, crime victims, people experiencing mental health crises, refugees, or anyone in a position where publication could cause direct harm
• A source has been promised anonymity and you need to verify that the published text does not inadvertently identify them through detail accumulation
• The reporter has a potential conflict of interest — personal relationship with the subject, financial interest in the outcome, prior public statements on the issue
• The story could cause reputational, financial, or physical harm to named individuals and you need to document the public interest justification for publication
• You are editing an investigative piece and want to ensure right of reply has been offered to everyone who is accused or characterized negatively
• A legal threat has been received and you need to document the ethical basis for proceeding with publication

What You Need To Provide

Required: A summary of the story (500+ words preferred), including: the central claim or narrative, who is named or identifiable, what allegations or characterizations are made about them, how sources were obtained, and whether any sources requested anonymity.

Optional: The publication's code of ethics or editorial standards (if one exists); the jurisdiction of publication (ethics standards vary by country and press council); whether legal counsel has already reviewed the draft; the publication timeline and any external pressure to publish (competitive, legal deadline, news cycle); prior correspondence with subjects (especially any right-of-reply responses or legal threats); the reporter's relationship to the story or subjects.

How the Assistant Approaches This

Phase 1: Risk Mapping

1. Reads the story summary and identifies every person who is named, described, or could be identified from the details provided — including people who are not directly named but whose identity could be inferred by readers with local knowledge
2. For each identifiable person, assesses their status: public figure (elected official, CEO, public spokesperson), limited public figure (expert in a specific field, minor public role), or private individual — because the ethical obligations differ for each
3. Maps the specific ethical risks in the story against eight categories: consent, harm, vulnerable subjects, source protection, conflicts of interest, right of reply, public interest, and legal exposure
4. Assigns a risk level to each category: No Concern (this category does not apply to this story), Review Required (the category applies and requires documented clearance), or Unresolved (the category applies and the current state of the reporting does not satisfy it)

Phase 2: Checklist Generation

5. Generates a checklist of specific yes/no questions organized by risk category — each question tailored to the facts of this particular story, not drawn from a generic list
6. For every item marked Unresolved, provides a concrete action item: who needs to be contacted, what question needs to be asked, what documentation needs to be obtained, or what editorial decision needs to be made
7. Flags items where the ethical obligation and the editorial interest are in tension — situations where full compliance with one principle (e.g., protecting a source's identity) could weaken the story's credibility, and the editor needs to make a judgment call

Phase 3: Publication Readiness Assessment

8. Produces a summary assessment: how many items are cleared, how many are unresolved, and what must happen before publication
9. Closes with a "Next Step" note: the single most important unresolved item to address first, whether libel-check-brief should be run in parallel for legal exposure, and the estimated time to clear all unresolved items

Ethical Risk Categories

Every story is assessed against these eight categories. The checklist includes only the categories that apply to the specific story — a restaurant review does not need a source protection section, and a city council report does not need a vulnerable subjects section.

1. Consent

What it covers: Whether every person named or identifiable in the story was aware they were speaking to a journalist, understood how their words or image would be used, and agreed to that use.

Key questions by situation:

On-record interviews:

• Did the subject know they were speaking to a journalist for publication?
• Did the subject understand the topic and angle of the story?
• If the story's angle changed significantly after the interview, was the source re-contacted?
• Were quotes read back or provided for review if the publication's policy requires it?

Observation and public settings:

• Were people described or photographed in public spaces where they had no expectation of privacy?
• Were people described or photographed in semi-public spaces (hospitals, shelters, support groups) where their presence reveals private information?
• If the story describes behavior observed at a private event, was the reporter's presence and role as a journalist known to the host and attendees?

Documents and records:

• Were documents obtained through legal means (public records requests, court filings, voluntary disclosure)?
• If documents were leaked, does the public interest justify using material that was not intended for publication?
• Do the documents contain personal information about individuals who are not the subject of the story? If so, has that information been redacted?

Undercover and deception:

• If the reporter used deception to obtain information, was this approved by an editor before the reporting began?
• Was deception the only means of obtaining the information?
• Does the public interest served by the story outweigh the ethical cost of the deception?

2. Harm Minimization

What it covers: Whether the publication will cause disproportionate harm to individuals relative to the public value of the information.

Key questions:

• For each person named or identifiable: what specific harm could publication cause them? (reputational, financial, physical safety, emotional, professional)
• Is the harm proportionate to the public interest served by the story?
• Could the story achieve its public interest purpose with less identifying detail? (e.g., naming the institution but not the junior employee)
• Are there details in the story that serve reader curiosity but not the public interest? (e.g., details about a subject's personal life that are unrelated to the story's central claim)
• If the story describes criminal allegations, does it distinguish between allegations and convictions?
• If the story names someone accused of a crime, does the severity of the alleged crime justify naming at this stage? (naming in a murder investigation is different from naming in a minor fraud case)
• Could publication endanger anyone's physical safety? If so, what steps have been taken to assess and mitigate that risk?

Proportionality test: For each person who could be harmed, ask: "If this person read the story, would the harm they experience be justified by the benefit the public receives from knowing this information?" If the answer is uncertain, the editor needs to make a documented decision.

3. Vulnerable Subjects

What it covers: Additional protections for people whose circumstances reduce their ability to give meaningful consent or increase the harm publication could cause.

Who qualifies as vulnerable:

• Minors (under 18)
• Victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, or trafficking
• People experiencing acute mental health crises or suicidal ideation
• People in custody, detention, or institutional care
• Refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented individuals
• People with cognitive disabilities that affect their capacity to consent
• People in grief (recently bereaved, survivors of mass casualty events)
• Witnesses to or survivors of traumatic events

Key questions:

• Does the story name or identify any vulnerable person?
• If a minor is named: is naming justified by the story's public interest? Could the story work with the minor anonymized?
• If a victim of sexual assault or domestic violence is named: did the victim explicitly consent to being named, and was that consent given freely (not under pressure from a family member, advocate, or the publication)?
• If the story describes someone in a mental health crisis: does the description respect their dignity? Does it avoid gratuitous detail about the method or circumstances?
• If the story identifies refugees or undocumented individuals: could publication put them or their families at risk in their country of origin?
• Has a parent, guardian, or advocate been consulted where the subject cannot give meaningful consent?
• Could the details in the story — even without a name — identify the vulnerable person to people in their community?

Special rule for minors: Unless the minor is a public figure in their own right (e.g., a named plaintiff in a court case, a public activist), the default is not to name. Naming requires an affirmative editorial decision documented in the checklist.

4. Source Protection

What it covers: Whether sources who were promised confidentiality are actually protected by the published text.

Key questions:

• Which sources were promised confidentiality, and what was the exact scope of the promise? ("Not named" is different from "not identifiable." "Background" is different from "deep background.")
• For each confidential source: could a reader who knows the organization or community identify them from the details in the story? Consider: job title, gender, department, timeline of events described, specific knowledge that only a few people would have
• Has the reporter tested the story's text against the "jigsaw identification" risk — could accumulating details across the story (or across multiple stories) reveal the source's identity even though no single detail does?
• If the source is a whistleblower: has the reporter considered whether the subject of the story (typically the source's employer) could identify the source through internal investigation — and if so, has the source been warned?
• Are documents or data attributed in a way that narrows the pool of possible sources?
• If the source's identity must be protected from legal process (subpoena, court order): has the reporter discussed this possibility with the source and with legal counsel?
• Is the confidential source's information corroborated by at least one independent source or document? (Single-source confidential claims carry higher ethical risk because the claim cannot be fully verified by the reader)

Detail accumulation test: List every detail in the story that describes or characterizes the confidential source — job level, gender, department, length of tenure, specific events they witnessed. If three or more of these details are present, assess whether the combination narrows the pool of possible sources to fewer than five people within the organization. If it does, the story needs to be edited to remove or generalize some details.

5. Conflicts of Interest

What it covers: Whether the reporter, the publication, or any source has a conflict of interest that could affect the story's fairness or that readers should know about.

Reporter conflicts:

• Does the reporter have a personal relationship with any subject, source, or party in the story? (family, friendship, romantic, financial, professional)
• Has the reporter previously taken a public position on the issue the story covers? (opinion columns, social media posts, testimony, advocacy)
• Does the reporter or the reporter's household have a financial interest in the outcome of the story? (investments, property, business relationships)
• Has the reporter received any gifts, hospitality, or benefits from any party in the story? (travel, meals, event access, review copies beyond standard media provision)

Publication conflicts:

• Does the publication's owner, parent company, or major advertiser have a financial interest in the story's subject?
• Has the publication received funding, sponsorship, or in-kind support from any party named in the story?
• Is the story critical of a competitor, and could it be perceived as commercially motivated?

Source conflicts:

• Does any source in the story have a financial, professional, or personal interest in the story being published or in the story taking a particular angle?
• Is any source in the story a paid spokesperson, lobbyist, or advocate for a position related to the story?
• Are any sources in the story in a legal dispute with the subject of the story? (If so, their testimony may be self-interested)

Disclosure requirement: Any conflict identified above that cannot be eliminated (e.g., the reporter cannot be reassigned) must be disclosed in the story. The checklist should specify where in the story the disclosure should appear and what it should say.

6. Right of Reply

What it covers: Whether every person or organization that is accused, criticized, or characterized negatively in the story has been given a fair opportunity to respond before publication.

Key questions:

• For each person or organization accused or characterized negatively: were they contacted for comment?
• Was the contact made with sufficient time for a meaningful response? (Calling at 4:55 PM on a Friday with a 6:00 PM deadline is not a good-faith effort)
• Was the specific allegation or characterization put to them — not a vague "we're writing about your company" but the exact claim they need to respond to?
• If they declined to comment: is the "declined to comment" statement accurate? (Did they actually decline, or did they not respond? "Declined to comment" and "did not respond to requests for comment" are different)
• If they responded: is their response included in the story? Is it placed fairly — not buried at the bottom after 2,000 words of accusation?
• If they responded with a factual correction: has the correction been verified and, if accurate, incorporated?
• If they responded through a lawyer: is the legal response characterized accurately?
• If the subject is deceased: has a family member, estate representative, or institutional successor been contacted?

Documentation standard: For every right-of-reply attempt, the reporter should be able to produce: date and time of contact, method (email, phone, letter, in-person), specific questions or allegations put to the subject, and the response received (or documentation of non-response).

7. Public Interest Justification

What it covers: Whether the story's publication serves a legitimate public interest that justifies the intrusion, harm, or ethical cost identified in the other categories.

What counts as public interest:

• Exposing wrongdoing, corruption, or incompetence by people in positions of power or public trust
• Protecting public health or safety
• Preventing the public from being misled by a person or organization in a position of authority
• Contributing to a matter of significant public debate
• Holding public institutions accountable for how they spend public funds or exercise public authority
• Exposing a significant gap between public statements and private actions by a public figure

What does not count as public interest:

• Satisfying public curiosity about a private individual's personal life
• Embarrassing someone the reporter or publication dislikes
• Generating engagement, traffic, or subscriptions
• Beating a competitor to publication

Key questions:

• What is the specific public interest served by this story? (Name it in one sentence)
• Is the public interest proportionate to the harm the story could cause?
• Could the public interest be served without naming specific individuals? If so, why is naming justified?
• If the story involves private information about a public figure: is the private information relevant to their public role, or is it private life that has no bearing on their public responsibilities?
• If the story involves a private individual: what action or position by the private individual elevates their conduct to a matter of public interest?
• If the public interest justification is "accountability": who is being held accountable, for what, and on whose behalf?

The weighing test: List the public interest served on one side and the potential harms on the other. If the harms outweigh the public interest, the story should be revised to reduce harm (more anonymization, fewer gratuitous details, more context) or held until the balance shifts (more evidence, more corroboration, a legal proceeding that puts the information on public record).

8. Legal Exposure

What it covers: Whether the story creates legal risk for the publication — defamation, privacy claims, contempt of court, or breach of reporting restrictions — and whether that risk has been assessed.

Key questions:

• Does the story contain allegations of criminal conduct, professional misconduct, or moral failings against named individuals? (If so, run libel-check-brief)
• Does the story publish private facts about an identifiable person that are not a matter of public record? (Privacy claims)
• Does the story concern active legal proceedings? If so, is the reporting subject to any contempt of court or sub judice restrictions in the publication's jurisdiction?
• Has the publication received a pre-publication legal threat (cease and desist, lawyer's letter, injunction application)? If so, has legal counsel reviewed the threat and advised on whether to proceed?
• Are there any reporting restrictions, suppression orders, or name suppression orders that apply to any person or proceeding described in the story?
• Does the story use leaked or confidential documents? If so, could their publication violate any law (official secrets, trade secrets, data protection)?

Note: This category flags legal questions — it does not answer them. Any item flagged here should be referred to a qualified media lawyer. The checklist documents what was flagged and whether legal review occurred, not the legal conclusion.

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Output Format

Structured checklist, organized by risk category. Length scales with the story's complexity — typically 800-1,500 words for a straightforward feature, up to 2,500 words for an investigative piece with multiple subjects and confidential sources.

Format per category:

[Category Name] — [Risk Level: No Concern / Review Required / Unresolved]

For categories rated Review Required or Unresolved, a numbered list of yes/no questions specific to the story. Each question followed by:

• Status: Cleared / Unresolved / Requires Editor Decision
• Action required: (only for Unresolved items) — the specific step needed to clear this item
• Tension note: (only where ethical principles conflict) — what the editor needs to weigh

Summary section:

• Total items by status (Cleared / Unresolved / Requires Editor Decision)
• Categories with no concerns (listed but not expanded)
• Publication readiness: Ready / Conditional (list conditions) / Not Ready (list blockers)

Next Step note:

Which unresolved item to address first, whether libel-check-brief or source-credibility-brief should be run in parallel, and estimated time to clear all unresolved items.

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Quality Criteria

• Every person named or identifiable in the story appears in at least one checklist item
• Checklist questions are specific to this story — not generic "did you consider ethics" prompts
• Harm assessment identifies concrete, specific harms — not abstract "could cause harm"
• Source protection section includes the detail accumulation test for any confidential sources
• Right-of-reply items specify who needs to be contacted and what specific allegation needs to be put to them
• Public interest justification is stated in one sentence, not a vague gesture at "accountability" or "transparency"
• Conflicts of interest are checked for all three parties: reporter, publication, and sources
• Legal exposure items are flagged for referral to legal counsel, not resolved by the checklist itself
• Every Unresolved item has a concrete action — not "consider whether..." but "contact [person] to ask [question]"
• The publication readiness assessment gives a clear verdict, not a hedge
• Output includes at least one concrete next action the user can take immediately
• Output is free of generic AI-template phrasing — no "delve into," "navigate the complexities of," Latinate filler verbs ("utilize," "facilitate," "leverage" where a plainer verb fits), restate-the-question intros, summary-of-the-summary closes, or em-dash overuse

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Example

Input

Story summary: A 3,500-word feature about a whistleblower at a mid-size medical device company. The whistleblower, a former quality assurance manager named David Linden, resigned six months ago and has agreed to be named. He alleges the company — Meridian Surgical Systems, based in Minneapolis — suppressed internal testing data showing that its flagship hip implant, the ProFlex 360, had a failure rate three times higher than what the company reported to the FDA. Linden says he raised concerns internally for two years before resigning.

The story is based on: an on-record interview with Linden (recorded), internal documents Linden retained after his resignation (testing reports, emails, and a memo from the VP of Regulatory Affairs instructing staff to "use the revised dataset" in the FDA submission), interviews with two former Meridian employees who corroborate Linden's account but will not be named, and a review of Meridian's FDA 510(k) submission which is a public record.

Meridian's CEO and VP of Regulatory Affairs were contacted for comment. The CEO's office referred the reporter to outside counsel. The outside counsel sent a letter stating the allegations are "false and defamatory" and threatening legal action if the story is published. The VP of Regulatory Affairs did not respond to three emails and two phone calls over a period of two weeks.

The reporter has no personal or financial connection to Meridian, the medical device industry, or David Linden. The publication is an independent health journalism outlet with no advertising from medical device companies.

Output

Ethics Review Checklist — Meridian Surgical Systems / ProFlex 360 Whistleblower Feature

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1. Consent — Review Required

1. Did David Linden understand that he would be named in the story, that the story would describe his allegations against his former employer, and that the story would reference specific internal documents? Status: Cleared — Linden agreed to be named and participated in an on-record, recorded interview. Note: Confirm that Linden reviewed or was read back the specific allegations as they will appear in the published text. His consent covers the interview, but the published characterization of his allegations may go further than what he said in conversation.