The Journalist and the Murderer

The Journalist and the Murderer Summary | Detailed Summary

The Journalist and the Murderer is Janet Malcolm's study of journalistic integrity and ethics related to the fraud and breach of contract case brought by convicted murderer Jeffrey MacDonald against author Joe McGinniss in 1984.

Malcolm begins her essay by discussing the morally indefensible state of the work conducted by each journalist, regardless of skill. Malcolm contends that journalists prey on people's vulnerabilities and vanity in efforts to get information for their published pieces. While this may be true in the expedient cases of journalistic news, the situation regarding books is especially pertinent, because the journalist or author needs a relationship with the subject. It is the betrayal of that relationship and the realization of the betrayal by the subject that is the core topic of this essay.

The libel case about which Malcolm writes was brought by convicted murderer, Jeffrey MacDonald, against author Joe McGinniss. MacDonald was convicted of murdering his wife and two young daughters in 1970, while he served as a physician in a U.S. Army Green Beret unit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. MacDonald claimed that hippies broke into the MacDonald home and murdered the family members, while they slept.

MacDonald was charged and then released by the Army legal system and eventually moved to California, where he established a new life and medical career. Charges were brought against MacDonald again in 1979, the case was re-opened, and this time MacDonald was found guilty of the murders.

Joe McGinniss was hired by MacDonald's defense team to write a novel about the second trial. When McGinniss' book, Fatal Vision, revealed an agreement with the jury's guilty verdict, MacDonald viewed the novel as a huge betrayal of trust and friendship. The 1984 fraud and breach of contract suit ensued.

Malcolm first hears about the fraud and breach of contract trial in 1987, when she receives a letter from Daniel Kornstein, the attorney who represented Joe McGinniss in the case. Kornstein explains the facts of the trial, which ended in a hung jury and the very real possibility of a retrial in order to prove that journalists and authors cannot escape with telling untruths.

Kornstein's larger concern, and the reason for his letter to Malcolm, is that the case could set a precedent upon which an author must disclose his state of mind and attitude toward the subject about which he has written.

Malcolm initiates an interview with McGinniss, who suddenly terminates the process, because he is exhausted from discussions about the case, which was settled for $325,000 a few years prior. Malcolm continues her investigation of documents related to the case and realizes that McGinniss has a right to be weary but has also left an imprudent trail of letters written to MacDonald, which essentially sealed McGinniss' fate and vulnerability for the charges of fraud and breach of contract.

McGinniss had been a successful author at the time he was contacted by MacDonald's legal defense team to write a book about MacDonald's murder trial in the hopes that a best-selling novel would generate the necessary funds for MacDonald's legal fees.

McGinniss had written the best-seller, The Selling of the President, 1968, which presents the advertising efforts promoting Richard Nixon in the campaign for the U.S. presidency in that year. McGinniss had been granted insider access to Nixon's campaign efforts, especially as related to the promotional efforts. The Nixon team was cooperative and pleased about McGinniss' efforts but were less enthused, when the book was finally published and portrayed Nixon in less than flattering light. At the time, no one thought about bringing a lawsuit against McGinniss for fraud. The experience was attributed to a calculated and flawed risk on the part of Nixon's campaign management staff.

McGinniss continues to publish after this, but none of his subsequent books achieves the success of this one. McGinniss remembers learning about Jeffrey MacDonald while reading a Los Angeles newspaper in search of topics for his own newspaper column. McGinniss notes a fundraiser by a Long Beach police association to benefit the legal defense for MacDonald, who is a local physician on trial for murder.

McGinniss recalls the MacDonald case of nine years ago, and the questions that still remain regarding no evidence of intruders in the house, and MacDonald's escaping murder when his wife, Collette, and daughters, Kimberly and Kristin, were brutally attacked. MacDonald's acquittal through the Army tribunal let him free to establish a new life in California, but Collette's mother and stepfather were unrelenting in their pressure on the Justice system. A new investigation began in 1971, which ultimately provided enough information to bring MacDonald to trial once again.

McGinniss visits MacDonald shortly before the fundraiser, and MacDonald asks the author if he would be interested in attending the murder trial in Raleigh, North Carolina, and writing a book about the trial from the defense team's perspective. McGinniss privately acknowledges the lure of success and publicity garnered from his book on Richard Nixon and accepts the challenge to take on the MacDonald trial story.

At the proposal of his attorney, Bernard Segal, MacDonald had approached many authors to write his story in order to garner funds for his extensive legal fees. The deal was struck between MacDonald and McGinniss' legal representatives, giving McGinniss exclusive access to MacDonald and a release from all legal liability. MacDonald promises to work only with McGinniss and agrees not to sue McGinniss for libel in the event that MacDonald does not like McGinniss' work.

The formal release is drafted in the form of a letter from MacDonald to McGinniss stating, "I realize, of course, that you do not propose to libel me. Nevertheless, in order that you may feel free to write the book in any manner that you may deem best, I agree that I will not make or assert against you, the publisher, or its licensees or anyone else involved in the production or distribution of the book, any claim or demand whatsoever based on the ground that anything contained in the book defames me."

Segal adds these words to the end of the document, "provided that the essential integrity of my life story is maintained." These words will haunt McGinniss eight years later during the fraud trial. MacDonald claimed that the essential integrity of his life story had not been maintained, and that McGinniss had murdered MacDonald's trust, an act for which he must be held legally accountable.

During the course of the trial, McGinniss is to have close contact with MacDonald and his attorneys, even living in the same rented house with them so that all information is within McGinniss' reach. McGinniss relinquishes his newspaper column and takes up residence with MacDonald and his attorneys in North Carolina.

One attorney in the group, Michael Malley, MacDonald's Princeton roommate and co-counsel in MacDonald's Army trial, disputes the presence of a journalist in the midst of defense strategy discussions. From Malley's perspective, McGinniss' presence would be a clear violation of attorney-client privilege, wherein a defendant may discuss anything with his legal representatives without fear of weakening his own defense.

Segal remedies the situation by temporarily hiring McGinniss as an official member of MacDonald's defense team. This will not only provide MacDonald with unrestricted communications but also protects McGinniss from subpoenas from prosecution attempts to garner McGinniss' notes and confidences.

MacDonald's trial lasts seven weeks, and he is convicted of murder on August 29, 1979, much to the shock of his defense team, McGinnis included. MacDonald writes a letter to McGinniss the next day declaring his friendship for McGinniss, as well as his innocence in the trial, and the hope that McGinniss believes in that innocence.

Unfortunately for MacDonald, McGinniss does not believe that MacDonald is innocent after hearing the horrific testimony in the trial. McGinniss recalls later that he has conflicting emotions because of the friendship forged with MacDonald due to the close contact during the trial period, but cannot ignore the facts presented in the case which prove MacDonald to be a murderous monster.

After MacDonald is transferred to the Terminal Island Federal Correctional Institution in Long Beach, California, McGinnis maintains a four-year relationship with him in order to garner more information to complete his book, Fatal Vision. The communication takes the form of prison visits, letters and tape recordings of MacDonald's voice smuggled to McGinniss from MacDonald's mother.

McGinniss' tone and attitude during this time is friendly and accommodating while he hides the fact that the book will portray MacDonald as a psychopathic monster convicted of brutally murdering his wife and daughters. MacDonald never anticipates this twist to the original intentions and continually provides McGinniss with intimate details of his life.

In the early days of their correspondence, McGinniss assures MacDonald of his friendship and his faith that MacDonald's appeal will result in his exoneration. McGinniss also urges MacDonald not to cooperate with other authors who may seek interviews to write their own versions of MacDonald's story. McGinniss continues to deflect MacDonald's attempts to view galleys of the book and all requests to see an advance copy.

After the publication of Fatal Vision in 1983, MacDonald realizes the betrayal by McGinniss and files suit alleging fraud and breach of contract. MacDonald hires attorney Gary Bostwick, an unremarkable looking man with amazing instincts for jury selection and unexpected trial skills. Ultimately, Bostwick is able to convince the jury that MacDonald, a man convicted of murdering his young family, is grievously wronged by McGinniss' novel.

During the McGinniss trial, Bostwick uses the paper trail of letters McGinniss had sent to MacDonald as evidence of McGinniss duplicitous nature and objectives. In one letter, McGinniss writes, "Goddamn it Jeff, one of the worst things about all this is how suddenly and totally all of your friends - self included - have been deprived of the pleasure of your company."

Bostwick grills McGinnis on his position of friendship to MacDonald as stated in this letter and many more like it as opposed to the betrayal of the book's actual content and direction. On the stand, McGinniss admits to continuing the false relationship with MacDonald so that he can finish the book in which he has invested so many years at this point.

McGinniss defends his actions by declaring them untruths as opposed to lies as established by author Joseph Wambaugh in his non-fiction crime novels. McGinniss contends that many famous authors bend the rules in order to glean information from their subjects. McGinniss' attorney, Daniel Kornstein, had called some of these authors to testify, including William F. Buckley, Jr., Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin and Wambaugh, among others.

Wambaugh's definition of an "untruth" as opposed to a "lie" stems from the difference between malicious intent associated with a lie, while an untruth is simply a means to an end of garnering information. Wambaugh confirms this position in his testimony on the topic when he states, "In writing The Onion Field, I can recall one of the murderers asking me if I believed him when he said he didn't shoot the policeman, and I at that time had interviewed scores of witnesses and had a mountain of information, and I did not believe him, but I said that I did, because I wanted him to continue talking. Because my ultimate responsibility was to the book."

Bostwick had shrewdly collected a jury of working class people whose literary pursuits were left at the doors of their high schools. The nuance of "untruth" vs. a "lie" is lost on these people who staunchly hold firm to beliefs learned in childhood about telling the truth or telling a lie. The jurors support Bostwick's contention that no one, including journalists and authors, has the right to do whatever he deems necessary for personal gain or public enlightenment and is obliged to always do the right thing.

Ultimately, the trial ends in a hung jury and McGinniss agrees to pay MacDonald $325,000 with the stipulation that the payment does not concede wrongdoing on McGinnis' part.

Malcolm travels to California to interview Bostwick about the case and is in Bostwick's office on the day that the McGinniss settlement is announced. During discussions with Bostwick and his therapist wife, Janette, Malcolm is able to understand the possibility that McGinniss holds two truths inherently; that he had considered MacDonald a friend, and also that MacDonald is guilty of committing murder. Janette confirms that psychologically it is possible for a person to hold on to more than one truth about a situation and the circumstances will reveal which truth will be exhibited.

Bostwick also believes that McGinniss followed through with his book in spite of his possible friendship with MacDonald, because McGinniss had already spent the advance provided by his publisher and is in deep financial trouble.

Malcolm contends that McGinniss became aware early on that MacDonald held no special attributes or quirks which would make his story any different from any other murder case. Still, McGinniss became enraptured with being on the inside track of the situation and his ego, combined with financial woes, drove him to completion of the project.

In true journalistic fashion, Malcolm wants to report on McGinniss' side of the story and visits a psychologist, Dr. Michael Stone, who testified at McGinniss' trial that MacDonald is a pathological narcissist capable of ruthless manipulation and abandonment of societal rules by which other people are judged.

Stone's contention is that, ironically, MacDonald did tell the truth in his murder trial when he stated that there were four intruders in his home that night. Those were Collette, Kimberly, Kristin and an unborn fetus carried by Collette, who all challenged MacDonald's wish to live a hedonistic existence, which was severely limited by his family.

Stone also tells Malcolm that he was in such fear of MacDonald as a threat that he made it a point to discover the earliest date MacDonald could be paroled. He agreed to testify only after he knew that he would be dead long before MacDonald could be out of prison.

Malcolm then interviews Jeffrey Elliott, another author of the MacDonald case who testified in McGinniss' trial. Elliott's testimony revealed that he does not approve of an author's befriending or manipulating a subject in any way to gather information for a book.

Elliott tells Malcolm that he based his decision to write a book about MacDonald on the letters written to MacDonald by McGinniss which blatantly lead MacDonald to believe that McGinniss' book would take an entirely different perspective from the one it eventually exhibited. Elliott claims no special fondness for MacDonald especially in light of his hubris in appearing on television talk shows to discuss the murders but to also garner a huge measure of celebrity. Elliott maintains that although MacDonald had exhibited reprehensible social behavior, those characteristics do not prove that MacDonald is a murderer and that the true story based on information gained with clear intent should be published.

A few weeks later, Malcolm interviews Bob Keeler, a reporter for Newsday, who had covered the MacDonald case for years and whose plan to write a journalistically balanced book was eclipsed by McGinniss' book through a conflict within the publishing house. When Keeler's book plan evaporated, Keeler shared notes and information with McGinniss in the hopes that perhaps some of his information about the case would at least come to light through McGinniss' book.

Keeler shares the feelings of many others who feel that McGinniss betrayed MacDonald after Keeler reads some of McGinniss' letters sent to MacDonald. When Keeler reads that McGinniss had urged MacDonald not to collaborate with Keeler, Keeler feels as if he, too, has been strong-armed by McGinniss and regrets offering notes and information to McGinniss.

Malcolm slowly comes to the realization that her own situation with McGinniss is much like the one between McGinniss and MacDonald. Just as McGinniss changed the focus of his book as originally presented to MacDonald, Malcolm finds herself siding with Bostwick and others who contend that McGinniss acted without integrity with MacDonald, a position which she did not have, when she initially interviewed McGinniss.

Malcolm also comes to some realizations about MacDonald, too, through her communications with him in prison. Malcolm says, "In my talks and correspondence with MacDonald I glimpsed some of the more appealing facets of his personality - for example, his stoicism in the face of the very harsh conditions of solitary confinement - and I came to allow for the vapidity of his speech and writing, as one allows for a handicap. But the MacDonald of Fatal Vision was also there. McGinniss betrayed him and devastated him and possibly misjudged him, but he didn't invent him."

After Malcolm had spent time with Bostwick at the time of the McGinniss settlement, she had hoped to interview Kornstein who backed out of a meeting at the last minute, offering Malcolm access to the case files in his office but she never hears from his again.

Malcolm then interviews Joseph Wambaugh on his experience during the McGinniss trial and on the difference between an "untruth" or a "lie." Wambaugh explains that there is malice involved with a lie while an untruth is not ill intended. Wambaugh contends that every journalist and author knows the difference and utilizes it to his advantage to get a subject to open up and reveal information.

Wambaugh also tells Malcolm that Bostwick cleverly selected a jury that he knew would not be favorable to McGinniss. The jury on the case was a typical big city jury, and the only person who had a college education was immediately dismissed. Therefore, McGinniss was judged by people who admitted that they "didn't understand writers, they didn't understand the publishing world, they didn't understand anything that Buckley and Wambaugh were saying up there, they didn't understand this business of the difference between a lie and an untruth. They said there's no difference, and if you tell somebody anything that isn't exactly true you should be punished for it."

Wambaugh believes that McGinniss did not receive a fair trial for this reason. In his own experience of interviewing sociopathic killers, part of the process in getting the subject to open up is to feed into his exaggerated ego. If you tell that person that you do not believe him or that you are going to present a counter position, that person will no longer cooperate and the book is doomed.

A few months later, Malcolm views McGinniss on William F. Buckley's television program Firing Line. She notes that he seems like a different person from the one she had tried to interview, perhaps because he is in the company of Buckley who testified in the McGinniss trial and knows that he is among kindred spirits. On the program, McGinniss reveals that his case had been ruled a mistrial, because the jury claimed to be too confused by the testimony to render a verdict, resulting in a hung jury.

Malcolm finds a different version of the mistrial, when she interviews a few jurors who felt comfortable with discussion of the trial but the major point of contention was not a legal technicality but rather a fellow juror named Lucille Dillon who would not deliberate.

Malcolm spends Thanksgiving Day, 1987, with Dillon in a hotel in Los Angeles. Dillon admits to liking McGinniss from the start of the trial and firmly believes that his First Amendment Rights were in danger of being violated. That is why she took the stance that she did, ultimately hanging the jury.

The next person Malcolm interviews is Bernard Segal, MacDonald's attorney in his second trial. Segal admits that having a writer in the MacDonald defense camp had been his own idea to present a case from the inside, so that people could know the accused and the circumstances of his life with more information than that presented in media coverage. Obviously, now Segal regrets the move, because McGinniss used information out of context to paint the picture of MacDonald as a monster whom Segal contends did not commit the crimes.

Malcolm is able to visit MacDonald once more in California, and he admits that McGinniss had tried to elicit responses from him in order to garner information, whose relevancy MacDonald could not understand at the time. MacDonald claims that McGinniss probed for intimate details of his marriage to Collette. When MacDonald questioned the purpose, McGinniss would say that the information was intended to fill in some background so that McGinniss could understand every facet of his subject and would not be used directly. MacDonald claims to have provided the information in the hope that the truth about the case would come out.

Malcolm gets an interesting perspective on MacDonald and McGinniss, when she interviews Michael Malley, MacDonald's law school friend and one of his defense attorneys. Malley believes that MacDonald entered into the book project with MacDonald wanting to tell the world about himself, but soon it became important for MacDonald to impress only McGinniss because of the friendship, which quickly developed between the two men.

Malley is also sympathetic toward McGinniss, whom he believes did not have malicious intent toward MacDonald and crafted a salacious novel which would sell better in spite of his personal belief in MacDonald's innocence. Malley thinks that McGinniss' personality may be ingratiating at the core, and this personality trait undermined McGinniss in this situation.

Malcolm continues to correspond with MacDonald for a short time and is moved by his long letters. She comes to understand that MacDonald secretly hopes that Malcolm would write the story he had wanted McGinniss to write. Malcolm believes that the definitive story about the murders has been written in McGinniss' book and is not interested in pursuing communication with MacDonald on the subject.

In closing, Malcolm states that the relationship between a journalist or author and a subject will always be a sort of tension-filled dance with the subject balancing his ego with the risk of journalistic interpretation.