Navigating dual roles as journalist and consultant
Launch library · evergreen read
Some practitioners move between journalism and communication consulting over the full course of a career, and occasionally hold elements of both roles at once during a transition. Navigating this well requires being explicit, with every audience involved in either capacity, about which role is currently in play and what obligations come attached to it.
The two roles carry genuinely different responsibilities that cannot simply be blended together comfortably. A journalist owes independence to their readers above all else, while a consultant owes advocacy to their paying client, and attempting to hold both simultaneously in the very same relationship creates a conflict that is extremely difficult to manage honestly, however good the underlying intentions might be.
The safest approach is a clear separation, both in time and in disclosed identity, between periods of journalism and periods of consulting work. Ambiguity about which role someone is currently occupying in a given interaction tends to undermine trust in both directions at once, damaging credibility built up in either profession.