Hiding Humanity: Verbal and Visual Ethics in Accident Reports  

Located at the critical intersection of technology and humanity, technical communicators must always try to avoid human injury and promote sensitivity to the needs of human beings. The reporting of human injuries and fatalities in accident reports, however, often strips victims of their humanity and hides the tragic human consequences of technological failures from individuals trying to devise appropriate public policy, establish effective safety regulations, and modify or abolish dangerous industrial processes—government officials, company executives, labor representatives, community activists, and ordinary citizens. Technical communicators have the rhetorical ability, the requisite editorial and graphic skills, and the moral responsibility to bring humanity to the verbal and visual display of information.

Dragga, Sam and Daniel W. Voss. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Writing>Ethics>Reports

Hiding Humanity: Verbal and Visual Ethics in Accident Reports    

The work of technical communicators transcends the purely technical—it has implications for real human beings. Located as they are at the critical intersection of technology and humanity, technical communicators direct traffic to avoid human injury and to promote sensitivity to the needs of human beings. When technology fails human beings, it is the ethical obligation of the technical communicator to sustain the humanity of the victims of that failure—to make those victims visible.

Dragga, Sam and Daniel W. Voss. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Writing>Ethics