I think I've reached my first ethical dilemma as a writer.

I've been taken on to write daily(ish) articles on various industry sectors. One of the sectors is energy and it's becoming difficult to find energy companies that I feel comfortable writing about. The impression that I get from my editor is that these are supposed to be business oriented columns. As in, "what can we learn from these businesses," sort of thing.

Well, I'm not sure that I really want to present a "what can we learn" piece on BP (remember that giant oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico? Wasn't that fun?)

And as I delve into the biggest energy companies, I'm finding similarly unsavory histories. I feel like I'm supposed to ignore the social/environmental context for everything I'm talking about and focus on the rich white guy who was able to create an empire because, surprise surprise, he was a rich white guy. And I'm supposed to pretend it was due to some romanticized notion of entrepreneurial "captain of industry" type stuff. It leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

Soooooo. I'm still going to write. I have other projects. I just think I might need to change this particular arrangement.

- P.S. This is why I'm going to school to write manuals! Unless someone tries to hire me to write a guide on "how to torture puppies", I'll probably be clear of this sort of stuff!