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Quote by Janet Malcolm

“He never asked me what I thought, and I never told him what I thought, because in my view that's the way a journalist ought to behave. You ought not to be going around to people volunteering your feelings. That's daily journalism.”

Book:The Journalist And The Murderer

Work

The Journalist And The Murderer

This book delves into the complexities of journalism and the ethical considerations involved when reporting on sensitive and controversial topics. It explores the interactions between a journalist and a murderer, offering insights into the challenges faced by journalists in their pursuit of truth and the impact of their work on both parties. more

Author

Janet Malcolm

Janet Malcolm is an American writer renowned for her profound insights into figures and culture. Her works often focus on celebrities, politics, and the media, and are praised for their unique narrative style and critical thinking. more

“Unlike other relationships that have a purpose beyond themselves and are clearly delineated as such (dentist-patient, lawyer-client, teacher-student), the writer-subject relationship seems to depend for its life on a kind of fuzziness and murkiness, if not utter covertness, of purpose. If everybody put his cards on the table, the game would be over. The journalist must do his work in a kind of deliberately induced state of moral anarchy.”

Journalism Journalist Reporting Reporter

Book:The Journalist And The Murderer

Source: The Journalist And The Murderer

“Like the young Aztec men and women selected for sacrifice, who lived in delightful ease and luxury until the appointed day where their hearts were to be carved from their chests, journalistic subjects know all too well what awaits them when the days of wine and roses — the days of interviews — are over. And still they say yes when a journalist calls, and still they are astonished when they see the flash of the knife.”

Journalism Journalist Reporting Reporter

Author:Janet Malcolm

“Blogs are assailed on all sides, by the crushing economics of the business, dishonest sources, inhuman deadlines, pageview quotas, inaccurate information, greedy publishers, poor training, the demands of the audience, and so much more. These incentives are real, whether you're at The Huffington Post or some tiny blog. Taken individually, the resulting output is obvious: bad stories, incomplete stories, wrong stories, unimportant stories.”

Journalism Blogs Reporting

Book:Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

Source: Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

“It wasn’t really up to the writer to decide what questions were relevant. The conversation “out there” had already done that, and all the poor writer could do was to shake his head sadly and try to bring some clarity to it. Surely politics would be better if we could all just refocus the debate on the things that really mattered, but it never seemed to be the journalist’s job to do the refocusing. The given issues were the given issues, in the same way that rivers just flow the way they flow, and all the helpless reporter could do was selflessly hurl himself into the murky current and try to help his readers navigate their way through.”