When I've been interviewed by some journalists, I've certainly felt at times that necessity of being guarded. But I've also had plenty of soft soap interviews where it was just content, and they had no particular angle or axe to grind
Agree with everything except the first sentence -- I've never written a line of journalism and I think this book is fascinating (In fact I feel this way about all her books, ambivalent on psychoanalysis but love In The Freud Archives, not terribly invested in Plath/Hughes drama but couldn't put down The Silent Woman).
The way that we have to talk about system and individual agency one at a time does seem to make it harder to see whether or where there is a line between "result controlled by system/process" and "result controlled by individual actions" as I think, what Malcolm missed and Morris gets at, is that the an abstract system doesn't really account for how alert and actively resistant the participants in the interaction are to the system. Some subjects are canny and perceptive about publicity, and others are totally naive, and many are in between, and the same is true for journalists. The fact that systemically there is this relationship doesn't mean that at times the system is defeated (so to speak) by the agency of the individuals, and at others the system can clearly be seen to have caused the result. Just as Naomi notes, there are different contexts here that affect this system's efficacy in each individual situation.
None of which is to say that Malcolm was wrong, just that all systemic discussions tend to ignore this fact that the system isn't immune to gaming.
Separately, having read Morris, I think he gets it right solely by being careful and transparent about how he reaches his conclusions. The story MacDonald told WAS preposterous, but it may actually have been true. And McGinniss seems to have acted consistent with MacDonald's claim of running off with his own agenda in other situations, too. The Morris book is really good.
Nice. Interesting. Two points of clarification. "Journalism" here is overinclusive. A story about the broken German business model, or for that matter much of what you do (read, synthesize, comment) does not involved the personal interrelationships described here. You are really talking about the relationship between interviewer and interviewee, sort of on the model of therapy. Second, and as a few folks have suggested already, I'm not sure the power imbalance is constant, which the piece seems to imply. Speaking as a writer, I'd love to be "exploited" if I could sell books! Anyway, I liked this outing.
I am so glad to hear of your new "series" of writing of [my words] what you love -- and/or what you love and dare to do: what you have mind, heart, soul to do--experiment, dare to challenge your self, "fail," make mistakes.
Over the next few days I will read "the Journalist and The Murder."
And I will look forward to not only more from you, but as gift like this do : invite and produce more daring work from me.
I spent a long time doing journalism, and not much time reading about it. Inevitably, time being what is, the matter is to some extent zero-sum. But I am belatedly catching up. I haven't read this book, but am glad to know of it, and to read your take on it. My immediate impression is that (like Sontag on photography) she takes an excellent insight, which is certainly true of some journalists some of the time, and is so pleased with it that she generalises it. The result ends by being reductive, and serves only to undermine the attractiveness of the original insight.
I can only say from my own experience that sometimes (not at the time, but in retrospect) I have come to see that interviews and edits I made, especially in my 20s, were unsubtle and arguably unfair. In a few cases, culpably so. But they were never undertaken with that in mind. You might say 'he would say that, wouldn't he' - and an academic, especially a fan of false consciousness theories, would probably level that charge. But it's not how I experienced, or intended, the work I did, at the frontline or refugee camp, or in a press centre, or a ministerial office.
You could say that holding the microphone, or wielding the camera, means you ipso facto have 'the power'. But that depends on a narrow definition of power and becomes circular in an instant. Surely if you interview a politician, a bureaucrat, a cultural 'icon', a terrorist-cum-freedom fighter with a big gun... the relationship is more complex by far. Unreadably so, unless you beg logical questions that don't deserve the begging. Ultimately, one might instead contend that the reader/viewer/listener holds a fair amount of the ultimate power (in certain polities). (In contrast to time committing journalism vs. time reading about committing journalism, power isn't zero-sum.)
I'd also want to know what an absolutely 'fair' or 'adequate' account of another person's life, motivations, actions might constitute. Who'd be the judge? To tell any story, however you approach it, is necessarily to edit; both in terms of the sequences of information presented and its level of detail.
When I've been interviewed by some journalists, I've certainly felt at times that necessity of being guarded. But I've also had plenty of soft soap interviews where it was just content, and they had no particular angle or axe to grind
Agree with everything except the first sentence -- I've never written a line of journalism and I think this book is fascinating (In fact I feel this way about all her books, ambivalent on psychoanalysis but love In The Freud Archives, not terribly invested in Plath/Hughes drama but couldn't put down The Silent Woman).
The way that we have to talk about system and individual agency one at a time does seem to make it harder to see whether or where there is a line between "result controlled by system/process" and "result controlled by individual actions" as I think, what Malcolm missed and Morris gets at, is that the an abstract system doesn't really account for how alert and actively resistant the participants in the interaction are to the system. Some subjects are canny and perceptive about publicity, and others are totally naive, and many are in between, and the same is true for journalists. The fact that systemically there is this relationship doesn't mean that at times the system is defeated (so to speak) by the agency of the individuals, and at others the system can clearly be seen to have caused the result. Just as Naomi notes, there are different contexts here that affect this system's efficacy in each individual situation.
None of which is to say that Malcolm was wrong, just that all systemic discussions tend to ignore this fact that the system isn't immune to gaming.
Separately, having read Morris, I think he gets it right solely by being careful and transparent about how he reaches his conclusions. The story MacDonald told WAS preposterous, but it may actually have been true. And McGinniss seems to have acted consistent with MacDonald's claim of running off with his own agenda in other situations, too. The Morris book is really good.
Just read the new pieces in Compact and Unherd. Good stuff!
Sam,
Nice. Interesting. Two points of clarification. "Journalism" here is overinclusive. A story about the broken German business model, or for that matter much of what you do (read, synthesize, comment) does not involved the personal interrelationships described here. You are really talking about the relationship between interviewer and interviewee, sort of on the model of therapy. Second, and as a few folks have suggested already, I'm not sure the power imbalance is constant, which the piece seems to imply. Speaking as a writer, I'd love to be "exploited" if I could sell books! Anyway, I liked this outing.
Finally, someone dares to write "unapologetically high-brow." It was about time.
Oh damn this is the same Joe McGinniss who was Bret Easton Ellis' professor in college
Janet Malcolm was a goddess and Journalist and the Murderer is an extraordinary book. Thumbs up for giving it and her a shout-out.
Sam Kahn:
I am so glad to hear of your new "series" of writing of [my words] what you love -- and/or what you love and dare to do: what you have mind, heart, soul to do--experiment, dare to challenge your self, "fail," make mistakes.
Over the next few days I will read "the Journalist and The Murder."
And I will look forward to not only more from you, but as gift like this do : invite and produce more daring work from me.
Brooke Portmann
I spent a long time doing journalism, and not much time reading about it. Inevitably, time being what is, the matter is to some extent zero-sum. But I am belatedly catching up. I haven't read this book, but am glad to know of it, and to read your take on it. My immediate impression is that (like Sontag on photography) she takes an excellent insight, which is certainly true of some journalists some of the time, and is so pleased with it that she generalises it. The result ends by being reductive, and serves only to undermine the attractiveness of the original insight.
I can only say from my own experience that sometimes (not at the time, but in retrospect) I have come to see that interviews and edits I made, especially in my 20s, were unsubtle and arguably unfair. In a few cases, culpably so. But they were never undertaken with that in mind. You might say 'he would say that, wouldn't he' - and an academic, especially a fan of false consciousness theories, would probably level that charge. But it's not how I experienced, or intended, the work I did, at the frontline or refugee camp, or in a press centre, or a ministerial office.
You could say that holding the microphone, or wielding the camera, means you ipso facto have 'the power'. But that depends on a narrow definition of power and becomes circular in an instant. Surely if you interview a politician, a bureaucrat, a cultural 'icon', a terrorist-cum-freedom fighter with a big gun... the relationship is more complex by far. Unreadably so, unless you beg logical questions that don't deserve the begging. Ultimately, one might instead contend that the reader/viewer/listener holds a fair amount of the ultimate power (in certain polities). (In contrast to time committing journalism vs. time reading about committing journalism, power isn't zero-sum.)
I'd also want to know what an absolutely 'fair' or 'adequate' account of another person's life, motivations, actions might constitute. Who'd be the judge? To tell any story, however you approach it, is necessarily to edit; both in terms of the sequences of information presented and its level of detail.