The Journalist and the Murderer

The Journalist and the Murderer is a study by Janet Malcolm about the ethics of journalism, published by Alfred A. Knopf/Random House in 1990. It is an examination of the professional choices that shape a work of non-fiction, as well as a rumination on the morality that underpins the journalistic enterprise. The journalist in question is Joe McGinniss; the murderer is the former Special Forces captain Dr. Jeffrey R. MacDonald, who became the subject of McGinniss's 1983 book Fatal Vision. When Malcolm's work first appeared in March 1989, as a two-part serialization in The New Yorker magazine, it caused a sensation, becoming the occasion for wide-ranging debate within the news industry. This heavy criticism continued when published in book form a year later. But The Journalist and the Murderer is now regarded as a "seminal" work, and its "once controversial theory became received wisdom." It ranks 97th on the Modern Library's list of the 100 best non-fiction works of the 20th century." Themes Malcolm's thesis, and the most widely quoted passage from The Journalist and the Murderer, is its opening paragraph: "Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible." She continues: He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse. Like the credulous widow who wakes up one day to find the charming young man and all her savings gone, so the consenting subject of a piece of nonfiction learns—when the article or book appears—his hard lesson. Journalists justify their treachery in various ways according to their temperaments. The more pompous talk about freedom of speech and "the public's right to know"; the least talented talk about Art, the seemliest murmur about earning a living. Content Malcolm took as her subject the popular non-fiction writer Joe McGinniss; McGinniss had become a best-selling author with his 1969 work The Selling of the President 1968. After McGinniss interviewed the accused murderer Jeffrey MacDonald, MacDonald proposed that McGinniss write a book of his story and asked for a share of the revenue from the book as a way to fund his legal battle. McGinniss agreed. Having received a sizable advance payment for the true crime project that would become Fatal Vision, McGinniss struck up a close friendship with MacDonald.