General Standards
1. The Babel.Ua journalist serves the publication’s mission — to be the voice of common sense in a society that experiences a severe deficit of it.
2. There is an essential difference between journalism and propaganda. Journalism conveys facts and conclusions necessary for independent orientation in society. It is the equivalent of the cockpit's dashboard. The reader decides for himself where exactly to fly. Journalism treats the reader as an adult, responsible person. Propaganda, in turn, treats the reader as a child. It manipulates his emotions, tells him what point of view to have, whom to love and whom to hate.
3. Propaganda uses manipulative framing and emotionally colored vocabulary. It replicates rumors instead of testimonies, it mixes facts with points of view, uses assumptions and “forgets” to prove them. It uses all rhetorical manipulations (mainly, ad hominem) — in order to draw conclusions favorable to the propagandist. The poisoning of Ukrainian society with propaganda (both Russian and domestic, both conscious and unconscious) is the main challenge of modern Ukrainian journalism.
4. What a journalist is not. He is not a propagandist, a social activist or a preacher. He is not a prosecutor or a defense attorney. Most importantly, he is not a judge. Journalists do not pass judgment and in a very limited number of cases draw unambiguous conclusions. In most cases, we leave conclusions for readers to draw, because we respect their intelligence.
5. The journalist's role is to portray reality truthfully. Sometimes it resembles the work of an investigative detective, sometimes – a lawyer, sometimes – a market analyst. There are best practices in these professions. We study and apply them.
6. Journalists are subject to basic ethical rules. We are successful when our speakers know that we can be trusted. So, we do not deceive, do not falsify, do not steal, do not break agreements, do not reveal the details of people’s private lives without permission. In general, we follow a simple imperative — we act towards others as we would like others to act towards us.
7. Most people believe that if a journalist listens to them, he automatically agrees with them. Moreover, most people do not understand that the way they perceive themselves is different from how they are perceived by others. Sometimes it is the journalist’s duty to explain to the subject of the story in advance that the journalist is not his friend or lawyer, and the material may have an impact on his personal life or career.
8. Basic principles of ethics remain unchanged, but the nuances of their application do not. Ukrainian society and the world of media are changing, and the challenges of our work are changing with them. We update these principles based on our experience, primarily on the analysis of our mistakes.
9. We keep in mind that we are only human. We do have our own interests and prejudices, but we learn to keep them out of our stories. Standards are not meant for self-censorship. They are an insurance against mistakes and a measure of our accountability.
10. An important element of standards is a safeguard. There are a number of them. There are safeguards against propaganda (conscious or unconscious): we draw a line between facts (plus conclusions) and points of view, we do not use manipulative framing and emotionally colored vocabulary. There is a safeguard against the abuse of anonymous sourcing, and a safeguard against the abuse of the public interest principle — and some others.
11. Compliance with standards — our own accountability to the rules — gives us the moral right to demand accountability from politicians and officials. The ultimate responsibility of compliance with standards lies on the editor-in-chief of the publication.
Principle of Public Interest
12. A journalist may violate basic rules of ethical conduct (for example, revealing someone's secret) only in order to report on actions or plans that may harm a person or a group.
13. For example, such actions may be: fraud, slander, corruption, bribery, violent takeover, a criminal order of the military superiors, illegal political or market competition, rigging of elections, usurpation of power or authority, treason or another crime. Planning these actions is also in the social interest.
14. The journalist should demonstrate that the threat is real.
15. The actions he exposes must harm specific people or groups: “they are preparing a dirty PR campaign against so-and-so person”, “they are depriving so-and-so editorial office of funding”, “they are stealing from the budget of so-and-so ministry”, “they are forcing so-and-so court to close a case”, “they are bribing a deputy of so-and-so party”, etc.
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Here’s an example: a journalist contacts black hackers who are selling a database of user data, stolen from a telecom provider. The journalist could pose as the buyer (i.e. may lie) to find out the details of the transaction and investigate it. There is a specific group of people harmed by the hackers – everyone whose personal info is in the database. So, it’s okay to use the principle of social interest.
16. The reasoning behind the alleged threat cannot refer to ideas or principles (e.g. “freedom of speech will suffer”, “accountability of the authorities will suffer”). This is a safeguard against abuse of the public interest principle. It is necessary because any unethical behavior can be justified by protecting abstract ideals (abstract public interests).
Standards of Research
17. We listen to everyone, talk to everyone, and correctly depict the views of all sides. Depicting the views of any person, even one we dislike, we use the Steelman principle. This means that we learn their strongest arguments and present them (not how we imagine their arguments).
18. We treat all government agencies, companies, parties, NGOs, and people equally, recognizing that no one is infallible. Witnesses can be wrong or mislead us unconsciously. This applies to both people we personally dislike and people we admire. So, we check all the information we receive from our sources.
19. People tend to forget names, dates, and circumstances of events and conversations they witnessed, confuse details, or even invent nonexistent ones. When the witness’s words contradict the documents, we give preference to documents (if there are no signs that the documents are forged).
20. Describing events or conversations that we were not present at, we may rely only on the words of direct witnesses of these events or direct participants in these conversations. A journalist has to make sure that he is talking to the witness. He is obliged to ask something like “Did you see it with your own eyes?” or “Did you hear it by yourself?”.
21. There is an essential difference between witness testimony and rumors. Testimony is what we learned from direct witnesses, firsthand. Rumors are what we learned second- (third-, fourth-) hand (“I didn’t hear it myself, but someone who was there told me”). We do not rely on rumors and do not retell them, even if they are spread by the highest officials of the country. There is a simple reason for that rule. Even eyewitnesses often distort events that they saw with their own eyes. Information is always distorted in dual narrative.
22. Sources in security and intelligence services require special caution. The essence of the work of these services is to conduct special operations, including covert information operations. A journalist should treat sources from special services with increased skepticism. All stories that Babel.Ua publishes based on sources in security and intelligence services should be attributed accordingly (preferably in the headline).
23. Anonymous sources require the same attention. In the ideal case, a journalist should avoid references to anonymous sources. In the real world, it is impossible to work without them. Which makes it all the more important to verify their words. Anonymous sources should be listed and attributed (attribution rules are described in paragraph 53). It is also worth explaining to the reader why our source requests anonymity and why we can trust him. All of it will allow the reader to assess the overall quality of the material, which depends on the number of sources, the proximity of these sources to the event, the motives of these sources, and their quality.
24. Anonymous sources may describe events or conversations they have witnessed (see paragraph 21 on the difference between witness testimony and rumors). They may comment on documents, events, connections, ideas, and trends in their area of expertisу, but doing it always with proving or direct evidence. They may also substantiate or refute statements made by others in their area of expertise. Under no circumstances may anonymous sources assess (give their opinion on) the expertise, reputation, or moral character of others. This condition is a safeguard against abuse of anonymity.
25. In the ideal case, journalists use only independent and impartial experts. In the real world, almost all experts (like all people) depend on someone and are biased: they worked in companies or in government, were involved in advocacy, gained experience and a point of view. That is why they are experts. Experts working in academia or public organizations are also mostly biased — they are generally loyal to the professional environment and its stable hierarchy, as well as to the government or donors as a source of funding. So, the criterion of “expertise” (depth of professional knowledge and experience) is as important when choosing an expert as independence (which in reality is almost always limited). At the same time, any circumstances that may affect the impartiality of the expert should be listed in the story, so that the reader can decide for himself whether to trust the expert or not.
26. The expert should comment on the essence of the issue (“the court’s decision contradicts such and such an article of the code, because…”). When commenting on the essence of the issue, the expert cannot simply refer to his regalia or previous experience (“I’ve seen cases like this before”). He should answer the question “why?”. The journalist may not check the facts that the expert provides (although they should be checked), but he should check the logic of the expert.
Standards of Interview
27. Before the interview, it is important to discuss conditions for its publication with the speaker. The speaker must understand two things. The first one is that he must speak in essence on the topics that are key to us. The second one is that after the interview is recorded, he cannot change the essence of his answers.
28. The speaker can be shown a list of topics for conversation in advance, but the list of questions is not. After the interview is recorded, the speaker can be shown his theses, only so that he can correct factual errors or inaccuracies that occur in oral speech.
29. We always warn speakers that we are recording their words. We do not record speakers without their explicit consent (the exception is public events where journalists are accredited). We also do not post any information from social networks that are published with limited access without their consent.
Standards of Analysis
30. А journalist collects facts from reliable sources (a reliable source is one that has a good track record – we have already checked its statements and they turned out to be true). Based on the facts, he builds all reasonable versions, including unlikely ones. Then he checks all versions and writes out how he checked them and what his conclusions are — this is the essence of quality analysis.
31. There is an essential difference between a fact, a conclusion, and a point of view. A fact is something that can be checked (confirmed or refuted). A conclusion is a statement that is based on facts, logic, and statistics. A point of view is a subjective statement that cannot be confirmed or refuted.
“The President subordinated SAPO to the Prosecutor General’s Office” and “the independence of SAPO is a condition for European integration” are facts. They can be checked against official documents.
“The President risked European integration” is a logical conclusion from these two facts. It is logical to use the word “risked” because conditions of European integration can change.
“The President turned the country into authoritarianism and played into the enemy’s hands” is a point of view. It cannot be confirmed or refuted on the basis of the facts presented — for three reasons. Firstly, the subordination of SAPO to the Prosecutor General’s Office in itself is not a sign of authoritarianism. Secondly, “everything that is not European integration is authoritarianism” is a false dichotomy – Ukraine can be democratic without the EU. Thirdly, in this situation it is impossible to assess what plays into the enemy’s hands (authoritarianism may or may not play into the enemy’s hands; democracy — the same).
32. A forecast of the future, made not on the basis of statistical data analysis, but on the basis of intuition and historical parallels, is a type of point of view.
33. There are only two steps from an honest point of view to intentional propaganda (through unintentional propaganda). So, we treat points of view with caution. As a safeguard we divide texts into two distinct types: analytics and op-eds. In analytics (news, reports, explainers, investigations, profiles and features) we give facts and can draw our own conclusions, but we do not give a point of view. We may give a point of view (our own or that of an expert) in an op-ed and clearly mark it in the title. Then the reader can understand better what exactly he gets — the points that the journalists have checked, or the journalists’ own thoughts — and make a conscious choice.
34. A journalist can observe a person’s emotions and describe their external manifestations: “blushed”, “raised his voice”, “sweated”, “blinked”. But he should avoid directly identifying emotions in the text (“scared”, “angry”), because the probability of error is too high. Under no circumstances may a journalist draw conclusions whether a person is lying or telling the truth (or generally about what he is thinking) based solely on observations of his emotions. Malcolm Gladwell explains why this cannot be done in the book “Conversations with Strangers”.
35. Since a journalist is not part of the justice system, he does not establish guilt or innocence. A journalist cannot call a subject a criminal (corruptor, thief, murderer, traitor) without a court verdict. However, he can draw the conclusion that actions of a subject contain essential elements of a crime.
36. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are rare. For example, if a murder is recorded on video and the subject can be recognized from the video without any doubt, a journalist can say unambiguously that he committed a crime.
37. A journalist is truly the “4th pillar” of state. With one story he can destroy a person’s personal life or career. So, when a journalist makes an unambiguous conclusion that the actions of a subject contain essential elements of a crime — he must be as thorough as a judge.
38. If a journalist wants to make an unambiguous conclusion that the actions of a subject contain essential elements of a crime, he must prove it according to the “beyond reasonable doubt” standard. This means that the totality of the facts must exclude any other logical conclusion. The final conclusion must explain all relevant facts. If there are facts in the story that cannot be logically explained or it is possible to build another logical explanation, this means that the standard has not been met. In order to meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard, it is not enough for our conclusion to be simply the most probable of all other explanations. It is necessary that any other logical explanation be refuted by the facts.
39. If there are other logical explanations for the subject's actions – besides that he may have committed a crime — one should never make an unambiguous conclusion that he did. However, it can be presented as one of the versions, along with other versions.
Most Common Mistakes in Analysis
40. “Simultaneous means coordinated”. Not necessarily. The fact that two events happened at the same time does not prove that they are connected.
41. “After means as a result”. Not necessarily. The fact that events follow each other does not mean that the first is the cause and the second is the effect. If a plague occurred after a solar eclipse, this does not mean that the eclipse caused the plague. Similarly, if the president met with the prosecutor general and after that the prosecutor general opened a case against an opposition leader, this does not in itself mean that the president ordered him to do this (although such a possibility exists, and this version is worth checking).
42. “A meeting means a conspiracy”. Not necessarily. A conspiracy is not proved by meeting (or even working in the same team or having friendly relations). People don’t meet only to plan joint actions. They can meet to quarrel, argue, and reminisce. There are always dozens of possible explanations for the meeting other than conspiracy.
43. “If so-and-so is a boss, it means so-and-so directed specific actions of subordinates”. Not necessarily. A subordinate may have official or unofficial autonomy; he [or she] may work contrary to orders. He [or she] may also hide something from the boss. The boss may be distracted by some crisis, or he may be lazy.
44. “It is only beneficial to him, that is why it was he who did it”. People are too irrational creatures for their actions to be guessed on the basis of this principle. They often misjudge their long-term interests. And even if they really understand them — they do not always take them into account. Moreover, a journalist can almost never reliably assess what is beneficial (or not beneficial) to another person. This can be difficult to do even for investigators who are allowed to seize documents and question witnesses under oath.
45. “[They] purchased goods at inflated prices”. Not every product has “market price” that can be used to compare with purchase price. It is indeed possible to claim that the goods were bought at an inflated (relative to the market) price. But first one has to show that at the time of the contract signing, some version of a market exchange for this product was operating. This means that when the buyer chose the product, there was a place (a one-time auction, a permanent trading platform, a network of connections) where different suppliers simultaneously offered batches of the same product at different prices. Only in such a case one can claim that an average market price existed, calculate it, compare with it the price in the contract and draw a conclusion.
46. “These people are business partners because their companies have the same addresses and telephone numbers”. This is the most common mistake in investigations based on public registers. Business partners do sometimes have the same addresses and phone numbers. But this may also happen when strangers use the services of the same registrar — it provides the same phone number and legal address for hundreds of different companies.
47. “Coincidence? I don’t think so” (“Connecting the Dots”). The greatest sin of investigative journalism is to take a set of facts, make an assumption that they are all connected somehow, and present them as a single narrative. One can build a false narrative about anyone or anything simply by cherry-picking enough facts. In general, the larger the set of facts, the more we are inclined to see a pattern (narrative, plot, conspiracy) in it, because we are trained by evolution to do so. In quality analysis, before we conclude that a pattern exists, we have to prove each individual connection. When a journalist finds more individual facts that fit into a pattern, his task becomes more difficult, not easier.
48. Journalist may draw conclusions from facts, but not from assumptions. Doing otherwise is the same as tailoring conditions of the problem to fit the desired answer.
Standards of Clear Presentation
49. The title of a story should honestly reflect the contents of a story. The title may contain an explicit question, but only if the story gives an explicit answer. The answer “we don’t know” is allowed — also in an explicit form only. (This is a safeguard against posting of unproven statements disguised as questions.)
50. We cite any fact with a clear reference to the source (person, article, book, etc.). Ideally, it has to be reliable, meaning we have checked its statements in the past and they turned out to be true. A reliable source can sometimes (rarely) be wrong, but it never misleads deliberately.
Sometimes we have to refer to questionable sources. In this case, the fact sheet should describe the quality of the source and why we are using it.
51. All anonymous sources should be listed and attributed. The attribution should indicate the degree of proximity of the source to the event it is telling about. Ideally, we attribute the source in full — with name, surname and job title. If the speaker is ready to speak only anonymously, then (depending on the importance of his testimony) we make concessions to him according to a special algorithm:
we omit the name and surname, but indicate the job title and work place (“one of the ministers of the Ukrainian government”, “one of the directors of “Naftogaz”, “a member of parliament from “Servant of the People”);
we omit the name, surname and job title, but indicate the work place (“source in the Prosecutor General’s Office”);
we indicate the job title without the surname and work place (“director of strategy and business development in one of the largest financial and industrial groups of Ukraine”, “head of one of the factions in parliament”);
we name the occupation/position (“banker”, “oil worker”, “politician”);
we indicate the degree of proximity to the issue (“source close to the party leadership”, “source who was present at the negotiations”).
52. Sometimes it is simply not possible to present the full picture of an event, to dig out the root of the conflict, to determine the positions of the parties, to obtain the key facts that are necessary to draw conclusions. In such situations, it is worth saying so explicitly and explaining what exactly is missing. This way the reader won’t get confused by an unfamiliar topic.
53. We present the material in an active voice (in which the subject is clear). We avoid passive voice structures that hide the subject.
Examples of active voice: “Ihor made a mistake”, “I went into the office and took the documents from the safe”.
Examples of passive voice: “a mistake was made”, “the documents were removed from the safe”.
The Principles of Abstaining from Propaganda
54. We do not use manipulative framing. This means the following: describing a subject of a story we never set the context in such a way that it presents him in a negative or positive light in advance.
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An example of manipulative framing: “It was the fourth year of the fullscale invasion. Thousands of volunteers were barely raising funds for pickup trucks for the army. Businessman Petrov drove out of the gates of his estate in a one hundred thousand dollars Mercedes.”
55. We do not use emotionally colored vocabulary. That is, vocabulary that in itself humiliates or exalts, paints in black or white.
Examples of emotionally colored vocabulary: spat, babbled, tow-row (inf.), parrot (inf.), regime (regarding the Ukrainian government), brood, servant, scandalous.
56. The principles of abstaining from propaganda apply regardless of the subjects of the story or whether we personally consider these people to be heroes or villains.
First edition: 08/19/2025
Last edition: 10/11/2025