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.
ATTRIBUTION:
Janet Malcolm (b. 1934), U.S. author. The Journalist and the Murderer, pt. 1 (1990).
Opening paragraph of the book, which discusses the case of journalist Joe McGinniss. The latter won the trust of an alleged murderer, then wrote a best-seller, Fatal Vision (1984), proclaiming his guilt.
