Updating our ethical storytelling guidelines

Roughly five years ago a sea change started in our sector. 

The recognition of a problem – the stories that we had been telling since the 1980s had done more than the good we intended; they had also caused harm. This took the form of stereotyped, othering representations steeped in saviourism and racism. 

This recognition was uncomfortable for anyone who, like me, had produced story materials in their careers, but not as uncomfortable as it was for those on the receiving end of a narrative that contributed to a socioeconomic global power structure designed to maintain the ‘us and them’ dichotomy.

Since that sector-wide recognition, there have been many interventions designed to enact positive shifts in both story production and content creation. Consent policies rooted in discourse rather than form filling, a recognition that production teams need to be contextually specific, equity checkers to help inform and guide decision making when creating fundraising and communications materials and much more. 

These Bond guidelines were a part of that first wave of action. Adopted or utilised by over 70 organisations, they were based on The People in the Pictures research carried out by me and Siobhan Warrington, and were rooted in the choices and preferences of the contributors to stories told by our sector. But as the discussion moves on, so must our guiding documents, so this year we’ve refreshed them, amending them in the face of new research and knowledge.

What’s new?

The core changes include new sections on power, inequality and race – something which we discussed in the first guidelines but didn’t reference explicitly. We have also included short sections on participatory approaches and content production in emergency settings, and a slightly longer section on the responsible use of AI-generated images and content. Lastly, we have comprehensively refreshed the existing sections on putting contributors first in your story production process, consent, and responsible portrayals in light of the new thinking and research that we as a sector have produced.

These guidelines are designed to be used by a wide range of Bond member organisations and beyond, a group that ranges from enormous NGOs with dedicated communications and fundraising teams to much smaller, grassroots charities staffed by tiny multi-tasking teams. 

They are, therefore, necessarily broad, and we invite you to use them in these various ways depending on your resources and specific needs:

1. To adopt as your own guidelines. Although feel free of course to tweak and amend to suit your specific story requirements.
2. To sense check and/or amend existing internal guidance documents, from a consent process through to a full-scale ethical storytelling policy.
3. As a learning resource. Alongside the suggested actions and advice is plenty of information to help deepen your knowledge of this area.
4. To develop training resources. The structure of this document is designed to capture the main story productions and use processes, and could therefore be used as the basis of internal training workshops.
5. To facilitate internal discussions and shifts in working practices. Some of you will be working hard to initiate change or evolution in your organisation and maybe struggling to make it a reality. This document could provide the practical stages that make it seem more possible.

Like any set of guidelines, this document is not the answer to the problem that, as a sector, we only began to publicly acknowledge recently. It is instead a tangible example of just one of the many steps and actions being undertaken to try and evolve. 

Change is always challenging, and often slow, but I find it useful to remember the words of one of the young people who generously agreed to share their insights for The People in the Pictures, which kickstarted this work: “I want to take the photos, not be an object.” It’s impossible to have equity when you are objectified, it is all of our responsibilities to fight for and support this young person’s wish for change, and adopting the suggestions in these guidelines is just one of many ways to do this.

The original guidelines, and this updated version, were written by Siobhan Warrington with support from the co-chairs of the Bond Ethical Storytelling working group: Jess Crombie, Rachel Erskine, Jodie Frosdick, Kate McCoy and Shagufta Yaqub.