While sometimes it is unavoidable, lawyers do everything they can not to become witnesses in their own cases. Such a contingency may require new counsel, adding to client expense. It also leads to some real ethical minefields. While as a witness they are obliged to tell the truth, they are also bound as lawyers by their duties of confidentiality and zealous advocacy for their clients, creating conflicts between these competing obligations.
Journalists, too, used to have certain ethical restrictions, some formal and some that arose as part of the culture. One of those restrictions is similar to that facing lawyers: journalists are not supposed to “become the story.” Journalists should be neutral conduits through which the facts are presented.
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