Doubting sources

"Of course, it's not uncommon for writers and their sources to disagree over how facts should be interpreted, especially in such emotionally fraught circumstances. In the course of reporting a long article or book, writers will talk to many sources and try to gain their confidence. In doing so, they may cast their research in the most favorable light or leave out the full scope of their project. When the project comes out, sources may feel they've been betrayed."

Motoko Rich of The New York Times buried that nut graf in a piece about a key source repudiating the central premise in a new book by Sebastian Junger, the best-selling author of "A Perfect Storm."

But it's worth the wait as Rich explores yet another book controversy in this season of de-Oprahed favorites. What is truth to the author and to a source? "In the course of researching the book, Mr. Junger discovered that the truth — or what he could learn of it — was much more elusive, and the book is a sort of journalistic meditation on doubt."

Beyond journalistic doubt, there's also the issue of getting things right. The story about "A Death in Belmont" points out that Junger has a history of accuracy problems.

Rich's observation is dead-on, and echoes New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm's excoriating lead from her book, "The Journalist and the Murderer." 

"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. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse."

Taking on what she saw as author Joe McGinnis' betrayal of Jeffrey McDonald, a Green Beret doctor convicted of killing his family, Malcolm tarred journalists; although hyperbolic, and unfairly damming every reporter who ever conducted an interview, her tarring should make all of us look deep inside to ask, "Is she right about me?"

Rich's story is far less stinging. Even so, it resurfaces an important ethical challenge, especially for journalists who prefer painting news in black and white, all the while ignoring the grays that in most journalism dominates the spectrum of light that is reality.

Comments

[Meg Heckman]

Lately, I've been writing about eldercare and retirement issues, so I spend a lot of time talking to older people. I worry constantly about exploiting a subject or missing some nuance of a story because of the many subtle stereotypes of aging. The opening of Malcolm’s book rattles around in my head at least once a week and I like to think it keeps me humble. Nervous. But humble. And honest.
Btw: The blog is great Chip, a fun useful way to get a little shop talk every week.
Meg Heckman
Concord, NH