Let there be light! With light, according to a new study, comes honesty.

As for the back story, researchers from the University of Virginia and College of William and Mary investigated how daylight saving time impacts crime rates. Results revealed daylight saving decreased robbery by a staggering 51 percent! Rape decreased by 56 percent and murder by 43 percent. Researchers argued that more lighting increases the likelihood of witnesses identifying criminals.

To take things one step further, Francesca Gino, associate professor of business administration at Harvard University, and her colleagues studied how lighting conditions would impact honesty within organizations. Read more

When the Lance Armstrong interview airs this Thursday night on OWN, we’re already hearing via CBS News and The Associated Press that he confessed to doping.

What can we learn from all of this, in particular as it relates to ethics and landing a big interview from a career perspective?

Aside from countless discussions we can have about credibility, PR damage control and related topics, there are a few things we can learn without having even watched the interview yet. Read more

As news surfaced late last week about Closer, the French magazine that published topless photos of Kate Middleton, one can only wonder about the ethics of the editor and for that matter, the photographer as well.

According to Fox News/The Associated Press, attorneys for the royal family are going to make a criminal complaint against the photographer and they’ve already launched a civil suit against Closer.

This begs the question: If you were the editor-in-chief, would you have published them anyway? Would the consequences of a fall-out even occur? Would you consider the “public road” from which the photographer took the photos as a legitimate reason to not only snap the photos but publish them as well?

Moreover, what if you were a bystander? If you were a staffer, another photographer, a  copy editor — if you weren’t directly involved with the publishing but knew it was going to happen, what would you do? In this slow economy perhaps the first inclination would be to remain silent but at what price?

Of course, the photos of the Duchess of Cambridge is under the global spotlight but what if something of less magnitude occurred at the office? Would you speak up? Look the other way? Alert someone else, perhaps your immediate editor to inform him or her of what was going on so you did your part? Just some food for thought.

Merely a few weeks ago we wrote about the importance of ethics regarding the former Yahoo! CEO and not fabricating a resume. Our post began: “Always tell the truth. In life, in job searching, in everything.”

Well, we’ll add one potent statement to punctuate the sentence by simply stating, “In reporting.”

The Wall Street Journal fired an intern who apparently fabricated sources and quotes, according to The New York Times’ Media Decoder blog. Whether you’re a full-time staffer, freelancer or even an intern who’s three weeks into the job, it matters not: It will cost you if you’re not abiding by one of the main tenants of journalism. As in, the truth. Read more