by Janet Malcolm
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Product Description
In two previous books, Janet Malcolm explored the hidden sides of, respectively, institutional psychoanalysis and Freudian biography. In this book, she examines the psychopathology of journalism. Using a strange and unprecedented lawsuit as her larger-than-life example -- the lawsuit of Jeffrey MacDonald, a convicted murderer, against Joe McGinniss, the author of Fatal Vision, a book about the crime -- she delves into the always uneasy, sometimes tragic relationship that exists between journalist and subject. In Malcolm's view, neither journalist nor subject can avoid the moral impasse that is built into the journalistic situation. When the text first appeared, as a two-part article in The New Yorker, its thesis seemed so radical and its irony so pitiless that journalists across the country reacted as if stung.Her book is a work of journalism as well as an essay on journalism: it at once exemplifies and dissects its subject. In her interviews with the leading and subsidiary characters in the MacDonald-McGinniss case -- the principals, their lawyers, the members of the jury, and the various persons who testified as expert witnesses at the trial -- Malcolm is always aware of herself as a player in a game that, as she points out, she cannot lose. The journalist-subject encounter has always troubled journalists, but never before has it been looked at so unflinchingly and so ruefully. Hovering over the narrative -- and always on the edge of the reader's consciousness -- is the MacDonald murder case itself, which imparts to the book an atmosphere of anxiety and uncanniness. The Journalist and the Murderer derives from and reflects many of the dominant intellectual concerns of our time, and it will have a particular appeal for those who cherish the odd, the off-center, and the unsolved.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Insufficient Evidence, 2008-08-04
This is another book I read because it is on the Modern Library's Top 100 non-fiction list. The overall topic of the book is the journalist/subject relationship, which was interesting, but I thought Malcolm could've gone a lot more in depth on the issues. She stuck only to one particular case and seemed to have been discussing more of the innocence or guilt of the subject, Macdonald, rather than fully delving into the broader issues. I thought the book would've been much more powerful if she had worked more on proving her thesis, rather than detailing the accounts of the murder trial.
She seems to barely touch on the ideas of the original thesis, therefore ending on a very weak note.
The only reason I would suggest this to anyone is if you are itching for a quick and somewhat-interesting, and definitely thought-provoking read.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
 How far should they go?, 2007-05-30
Joe McGinniss put himself on the map writing the classic 1969 book, THE SELLING OF A PRESIDENT. That book detailed how Richard Nixon was sold to the public like any other consumer product. It's worth reading if you can find a copy. The Nixon book was such a hit and McGinniss was so young he couldn't find material good enough to follow it up and his next few books were mediocre.
Determined to find another worthy subject, he tackled the case of Dr. Jeffrey McDonald, a man accused of killing his wife and children. That story became the bestselling FATAL VISION and this book, THE JOURNALIST AND THE MURDERER, chronicles the techniques that McGinniss used to get close to McDonald, and how he pretended to support McDonald through the years of legal proceedings although he always thought him to be guilty and wanted a guilty verdict for a better book. McGinniss' technique led to unfettered access to legal files, evidence, but most importantly access to McDonald. They'd drink together, strategize together and were pals during the experience.
The central question is how far can a journalist go to get the story? Although a jury found McDonald guilty of murder, a later jury found in favor of McDonald in his suit against McGuinniss because they felt that his techniques were so underhanded and self-serving that even a murderer deserved better. The book shows the divide between the win-at-any-cost media and the public that grows weary of the techniques used against people to create news. Does the public have the right to know enough that journalists can lie to subjects to bring the story to press?
This short book makes you question a number of journalistic techniques and it doesn't hurt either that McDonald has strong supporters and could possibly be innocent of the murders, at least in the context of this book.
5 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
There's more where this came from ..., 2004-11-09
Ms. Malcolm slices off the hand that feeds her
With regard to item "a)" from "...pointless exercise," MacDonald v. McGuiness was over when Ms. Malcolm got involved. According to Fatal Justice by Palmer & Bost, McGuiness's lawyers threw a post-trial press conference for the court of public opinion: only Ms. Malcolm showed up.
Otherwise, Journalist & Murderer is mainly about journalistic ethics, if there are any. Here, McGuiness insinuated himself into the defense team (he was privy to trial strategy) of Jeffrey MacDonald, with the promise presenting him in the best possible light. When McGuiness sours on MacDonald, he puts up a cheery front & presses on. After Fatal Vision, MacDonald felt betrayed.
Of course, in our Cartesian-dualist society, since it's always either-or, we ask why he should feel betrayed? Guys convicted of killing their families have no reason to feel betrayed. They're bad guys; they deserve betrayal.
However, when McGuiness concluded that MacDonald was guilty, trial evidence just wouldn't do. McGuiness shamefully proved himself a member of the old Star Chamber (maybe Joe expected some votes as Cheney's heir @Halliburton?) by trundling out Cleckley's (1941) old psychopathology checklist & diagnosing Dr. MacDonald an incurable, speed-fueled sociopath. Dr. Phil's forbearer: super!
Ms. Malcolm is my favorite contemporary writer: she is foremost literate & like my favorite noncontemporary writer Mencken, she can be vicious without being vengeful. However, when you read, say, 1999's Sheila McGough, you may well wonder what sort of journalistic ruse Ms. Malcolm might cook up while slicing vegetables in the McGough kitchen. The Journalist & the Murderer is a blueprint for any such ruse. Better news is that after reading J&M, you can laugh without a twinge of guilt @gaudily & nightly paraded notions like "journalistic integrity."
17 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
 Zero stars - pointless exercise..., 2003-11-10
I'd have a bit more respect for Ms. Malcolm if:a) she had actually attended MacDonald vs. McGinniss, so that she could write from an informed viewpoint instead of relying on second- and third-hand accounts; b) she had spent less time oohing and ahhing over MacDonald's personal magnetism, and stuck to the facts of the case at hand; c) she had bothered to read the literary releases to McGinniss's publishing company, SIGNED BY MACDONALD HIMSELF, that gave McGinniss license to write any type of book he wished (including, one presumes, a book that might actually say that McGinniss himself had concluded that MacDonald was guilty, despite the friendship the Journalist may have felt for the Murderer); d) she hadn't stated - repeatedly - the total fiction that the jury hung 5-1 in MacDonald's favor. The fact is, the jury hung on ONE QUESTION OUT OF THIRTY-SEVEN, never actually voting on the other 36, because one juror believed that MacDonald had violated his agreements with McGinniss by cultivating other journalists and by ignoring his agreement not to sue McGinniss. Or is MacDonald next going to sue Malcolm, because in her very title, she herself calls him a murderer? Let's call an egg an egg, Dr. Jeff. You killed them. Pay the price. Be done with it.
25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
 Looking at the murky world of journalistic ethics., 2003-06-30
In 1970, a respected army physician named Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald claimed that four strangers broke into his home in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and killed his wife and two daughters. Although an army tribunal tried Dr. MacDonald and cleared him, years later the case was reopened. This time, MacDonald was convicted and sent to prison, where he still is today.
Janet Malcolm does not reopen the MacDonald case in her book, "The Journalist and the Murderer." Rather, she examines the issues behind a libel suit that MacDonald brought in 1984 against his supposed friend, Joe McGinnis, author of "Fatal Vision." Joe McGinniss posed as an ally of Jeffrey MacDonald for years. McGinnis lived with MacDonald for a while and even joined his defense team. McGinniss sent MacDonald sympathetic letters in support of his cause. In these letters, he frequently expressed his belief in MacDonald's innocence.
It was only after "Fatal Vision" was published that MacDonald discovered the truth. McGinniss did not believe in MacDonald's innocence; on the contrary, he portrays MacDonald as a psychopathic murderer. The author posed as a friend for the sole purpose of keeping MacDonald in the dark so that McGinniss would continue to have access to his subject. "Fatal Vision" became a huge bestseller and it eventually became a miniseries.
Malcolm's book, written in 1990, takes on added significance in 2003, when the ethics of journalists are under fire as never before. Time and again, a small number of journalists have been accused of plagiarizing and fabricating stories. The public is beginning to recongnize that reporters are fallible people who suffer from the same pressures, ambitions, and even psychological disorders as other ordinary mortals.
Malcolm's book is not merely a condemnation of McGinniss's behavior towards MacDonald. Her premise is that the journalist's relationship to his subject is, in its very essence, a perilous one. The gullible subject babbles away to his "sympathetic" listener, revealing more of himself than he realizes. When all is said and done, only the journalist and his editors have control over the final product. They are sometimes tempted to distort the facts to make the piece more interesting.
Malcolm asserts that certain journalists are con men who prey on people's loneliness, credibility, and narcissism to get a good story. Journalists have their own agendas and the "truth," which is elusive at best, is not always their top priority. Malcolm's book is a warning not to believe everything that is printed in a newspaper or a magazine, since each story is only one version of reality.
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