The Ethics of Freelance Writing

You can’t believe everything you read.

I was on Amazon shopping for a microphone about a month ago. I sorted results by Average Customer Review, and bought one based on the 9 glowing reviews one microphone received.

Too bad they were fake reviews.

Oh, I did my homework. I looked for the “verified purchase” tag next to the name. They all had it.

What these reviewers also had, once I dug a bit more deeply, was the same habit of giving five-star reviews.

They also had other telling habits, which were:

• Reviewing two to four products in one day
• Spacing the reviews about two weeks apart
• Giving exactly zero bad reviews (not even giving one below a four-star review)
• Reviewing the exact same products among them (four different reviewers reviewed the same microphone and the same reverse wiring harness — is there really that much of a demand for those?)
• Reviewing the same type of product (four microphones in one month? Really, “Dimitriy”?)
• Reviewing products that were definitely for a different gender (one guy reviewed a makeup mirror, saying he and his daughter “fight over it”)
• Having profiles that stretched back about four to six months tops

We’ve known for a while that there are people being paid to review products. What may not have been known is that they’re actually buying them (and probably returning them or being reimbursed) so that they can legitimize the product review and escape Amazon’s wrath.

For those of you considering making a few bucks from writing such reviews, know this:

This is not writing.

It’s the furthest thing from writing, in fact.

Professional writers — and you should always emphasize the “professional” part — do not lie to their audience. (And I won’t even go there with the “fake news” cries from those who are actually creating the phony shit to begin with.)

Are you lying to your audience? You are if:

• You skew the facts to make your point (or worse, you make them up)
• You embellish your credentials
• You put out there anything you’ve written that can’t be backed up with facts (unless you clearly state it’s an opinion)
• You overpromise and under-deliver
• You repurpose anyone else’s content but your own
• You present someone else’s words or ideas as yours
• You willingly work for clients who expect you to compromise your ethics in order to make them look good

We as a profession are under attack these days. Writers, journalists are under a microscope and being labeled unfairly because someone somewhere is itching for a fight (and I think you know who and where). Despite working as ethically as we can, we’re being discredited daily by people who have no idea what it takes to do this job properly.

It’s up to us to make sure every syllable we put out there is without dispute (meaning there are solid facts to back it all up).

So a quick Journalism 101 primer to make sure you’re operating ethically:

• Substantiate all statements — If you can find at least two credible sources for your information, you’ve substantiated it. If you have to ask what “credible” looks like, maybe it’s best you stick with fiction writing.
• Attribute always — If you didn’t say it, you have to identify who did. And please, make sure you’re not just parroting the latest Internet meme — those things are notorious for attributing quotes to the wrong person (Einstein did not say “If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.” He said something akin to “If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the theory.”)
• Don’t promise what you can’t deliver — That’s actually part of the Code of Ethics on the SPJ website. Keep the promises you make and if you can’t, don’t make them to begin with.
• Identify your sources — you can’t simply say that 34% of people surveyed love your pumpkin pie recipe. You have to identify who conducted that survey (even if it’s you taking an informal count of “Wow, I love this” statements)
• Don’t steal — ever. If you didn’t write it, you have no damn business rewriting it or “tweaking” it to make it look like you did. Start from scratch and attribute the sources you do use.
• Stop touting your “award-winning” status — unless you’ve won a credible award, don’t embellish. No one really believes that your making it on the Top Ten Blogs for Bee Keepers list is a credible award, particularly if your friend is the one who created the award.
• Don’t tweak the facts to make a buck — That’s unethical. And it makes it impossible to believe everything you write from that point forward.

Writers, how do you make sure you operate ethically?
What do you think of paid reviews? What other “writing” jobs are skirting/crossing the line?