The Ethics of Writing About Someone

Writing about a real person creates obligations that writing about a film does not. The subject will read it, so will people who know them, and it will remain the most accessible account of them for years. That asymmetry — the writer decides, the subject lives with it — is the ethical core of the form.

Consent to be interviewed is not consent to a framing

A subject agrees to talk. They do not agree to the interpretation placed on what they say, and they generally cannot anticipate it.

This is legitimate. A profile that merely relayed a subject's self-description would be a press release. The writer's judgement is the value.

But it means the writer holds power the subject cannot check, and the honest response is not to pretend otherwise. It is to ensure the interpretation is supported by what actually happened rather than by what makes a better piece.

The temptation of the good line

The most persistent ethical pressure in the form is a sentence that is beautifully written and slightly unfair.

It usually takes the shape of a characterisation that is defensible from one moment and misleading about the person overall. It will be quoted, it will define the piece, and the writer will know while writing it that it is a little more than the evidence supports.

There is no rule that resolves this. The workable test is whether the line would survive the subject reading it and objecting — not whether they would like it, but whether the writer could point to what justifies it.

Off the record is a real obligation

The conventions are widely misunderstood and should be established explicitly rather than assumed. Off the record means not usable. Background means usable without attribution. On the record means usable and attributable.

The obligation attaches to what was agreed at the time, not to what the writer later wishes had been agreed. A subject who says something damaging and then asks for it to be off the record afterwards is asking for a retrospective agreement the writer is not obliged to grant — but the honest practice is to say so at the moment rather than to let them believe it was granted.

Proportionality about private life

Public figures accept scrutiny of their public conduct. It does not follow that everything about them is fair material.

The useful test is relevance to the public role rather than public interest in the loose sense of what people want to read. A subject's health, family or relationships are generally not material unless they bear directly on what the person is publicly accountable for.

This is a line the form has historically drawn badly, particularly regarding women and particularly regarding mental health. The retrospective embarrassment of a great deal of past profile writing is instructive about how confidently those judgements were made at the time.

Accuracy is the floor, not the standard

Every quote accurate and every fact checked can still produce a misleading piece, through selection and arrangement. A subject who was warm for two hours and irritable for five minutes can be portrayed accurately as irritable.

This is the hardest obligation because nothing external enforces it. The only check is the writer asking whether the impression created matches the impression they actually formed.

Third parties

Profiles routinely include people who never agreed to appear — family members, colleagues, former partners. They have no relationship with the publication and no opportunity to respond.

The defensible standard is to include them only where they are material, and to give anyone who is characterised critically a genuine chance to comment. This is often inconvenient and it is the difference between a profile and a piece of gossip with a byline.

None of this makes profiles safe. It makes them defensible, which is the most the form can honestly offer.