The Journalist and the Murderer

by Ms Janet Malcolm (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  1990

  $17.34

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $5.58

  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. Janet Malcolm begins this book with the words above, which have become famous (and infamous), and then sets out to demonstrate the charge with the story of the lawsuit between Jeffrey MacDonald, a convicted murderer, and Joe McGinniss, the author of a book about the crime.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1991

  $28.06

  This is an enquiry into the morality of journalism. The author takes as the axis of her argument the case of Joe McGinniss, author of Fatal Vision , the story of a doctor convicted of murdering his wife and two daughters. Malcolm explores the inherent imbalance that lies between journalist and subject. In her interviews with the leading characters in the case - the principals, their lawyers, the members of the jury and the various people who testified as expert witnesses at the trial - Malcolm is always conscious of herself as a player in a game that, as she points out, she cannot lose. This book reflects some of the dominant intellectual concerns of our time.