My job, indeed that of all journalists, would be so much easier if journalistic standards and ethics were always a clear-cut matter of “Thou shalt do this, Thou shalt not do that.” It is rarely that simple. The reality of the complexity of journalism ethics in our ever-evolving digital era is the guiding principle of an important new ethics initiative presented last week at the annual Online News Association conference held in Los Angeles and attended by more than 2,000 journalists from across North America. The “Build Your Own Ethics Code” project, led by veteran journalist Thomas Kent, standards editor of The Associated Press, involved more than 20 journalists working together for more than two years and soliciting input from many more journalists throughout North America. The initiative is rooted in the premise that beyond a few fundamental and unassailable principles, journalistic ethics cannot be cast in stone and that policy and practice can — and does — vary across news organizations and among individual journalists.

the writer's intensely personal writing found the gray areas in a war usually told from polar extremes.