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.
As a study of the uneasy relationship between a journalist and his subject it has no equal. The wooing of MacDonald and his later betrayal are examined unflinchingly with Malcolm's trademark intelligence and honesty, as well as with the self-knowledge she brings to the case as one of the world's finest and most forensic reporters.
This is an uncomfortable book for journalists, and an enlightening one for the rest of us, their subjects and victims. As an American reviewer remarked: "If Janet Malcolm had blown up an ink factory, forcing the presses to shut down for a week, she couldn't have sparked greater outrage in the media kingdom."
