Missing the Point

Inever expected something so petty from The New York Times.

The Times, after all, is the most revered newspaper in the nation, and journalists expect the Times to defend the media when it is being attacked.

But when the Times took up its latest crusade against a recent article in The New Yorker magazine, they completely missed the point. Instead of reexamining the role of the press in the political process, as the New Yorker article had asked, the Times just became defensive.

So while Janet Malcom initially made serious charges that the basis of American investigative journalism was unethical, the Times--and much of the journalism community--volleyed back with personal insults instead of analyzing the issue and making a sound response.

In the controversial New Yorker articles published last month, Malcom sharply criticized author Joe McGinniss for the methods he used to write Fatal Vision, a book about a military doctor who brutally murdered his pregnant wife and two children one night 20 years ago.

McGinniss had told Jeffrey MacDonald, who had just been charged with the crimes, that the book would vindicate him, proving his innocence. This in mind, MacDonald gave McGinniss access to private memoirs and conversations, all of which were essential to the book.

In the process, however, McGinniss himself became convinced that MacDonald was guilty. His book reflected this bias, and MacDonald sued McGinniss, saying that the author broke their contract.

After the suit failed, Malcom, who had initially worked with McGinniss on the project, took up the fight with two lengthy articles in the New Yorker magazine last month. Malcom said McGinniss had deceived MacDonald, and was bound ethically, if not legally, not to use the information.

WHAT made her article so significant--and so important for the Times and all journalists to consider--was that Malcom said most investigative reporting was questionable because it often relied on such potentially disingenuous means of obtaining information. The charges certainly deserved a response.

Unfortunately, the Times' answer was as muddled as Malcom's article was alarming.

First, the Times printed a staff editorial that concentrated more on Malcom's poor record as a journalist than on the issues at hand.

Several days later, they published a "news analysis" that seemed to imply that newspapers were above such criticism. The news piece, which included statements better suited for an editorial page, was so unprofessional that the paper ran an editor's note the following day, retracting most of the article.

Finally, Monday's Times included an op-ed piece written by McGinniss himself, which also missed the major issues the New Yorker piece raised.

Instead of carefully considering Malcom's charges--and the possibility that they might have certain truth--the Times took up a crusade to discredit her and her work completely. The response from the highest echelon of American Journalism was to scoff at the charges as so ridiculous that they did not deserve a substantive answer. How unfortunate.

JOURNALISTS do often use deceptive means to gain information. The classic and accepted style of investigative reporting--made famous by Woodward and Bernstein--is based on beguiling sources into divulging information, and a little trickery here or there never hurts.

There is a reason that the press is afforded such leeway--leeway which law enforcement officials do not have. The fourth estate has an important role in the political process of the United States, as a kind of watchdog over officials and institutions. The press is expected to scrutinize what public officials do not, and therefore must be allowed greater investigative freedom.

And for what it's worth, people like Jeffrey MacDonald should know better than to try forcing a writer to produce a favorable story. Journalists are trying to get the best stories possible and to report what they believe to be true.

But the debate is more complex. McGinniss probably stepped over the ethical line in giving a verbal guarantee that his book would vindicate MacDonald. It is a cardinal rule of journalism not to promise sources that stories will be favorable, and McGinniss' assurances went far beyond simple cleverness.

Unfortunately none of these myriad issues came out in the Times, which was too busy throwing insults to step back and take a serious look at the issue. This major press institution had an opportunity to address a vital question about the appropriate role of the press in society, and it failed.