Robin Hood Ethics

Robin Hood Ethics

To put it lightly, Robin Hood ethics is pretty easily described at “What would Robin Hood do?” We all know the story of Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to give back to the poor. It’s a little different in Russell Crowe’s newest rendition of the story, but you get the picture. Robin Hood ethics for a journalist is something that I often use. When reporting something that is a touchy subject for a certain group of people. I make sure that I report it in a way that will create the least amount of harm to the reader as possible. This in no way means lying, it means not including harsh facts that could potentially harm a reader.

When reporting a story one time, I wrote about someone who had a very well known spouse. At the time, my editors got a hold of the information that they were in the middle of a divorce. This information was irrelevant to the story and using my Robin Hood ethics, I continuously asked the editors to leave that part out of my story. But it was too late, once the copy editors got a hold of my story, they reported the divorce and it was out of my hands. The article did more harm than good and that one small part of my story was now the center of it, instead of my touching piece that I originally wrote.

I was so devastated and so was my interviewee. It was hard to face this person after I came to hear about how upset they were when this information was printed. But I explained the situation and sent the person my original story. Which was met by approval.

The publication received a lot of slack from that, and this could have been avoided if Robin Hood ethics were used. No matter how many readers that the article would have drawn with the divorce fact, it took away from the original message of the article.

Robin Hood ethics is the way to go. And has proven itself very affective with many of the publications that I work for.