Posts Tagged ‘the new yorker’
“Journalism on Trial:” my letter to New York Times Book Review
May 21, 2011
The New York Times Book Review will publish on Sunday my letter about Janet Malcolm’s many long-ago falsifications about the reporting I did while working on Fatal Vision. I point out that my rebuttal to Malcolm has lingered in obscurity for twenty-two years, but can now be found here.
I believe it speaks for itself.
After 22 Years, My Rebuttal to Janet Malcolm Goes Public
May 9, 2011
Thanks to the miracles of modern science (i.e. the internet) the 26-page essay I published as an epilogue to the 1989 edition of Fatal Vision, in response to Janet Malcolm’s wrongheaded and factually inaccurate New Yorker attack on my journalistic ethics and me, (later published as a book titled The Journalist and The Murderer) is now available online.
And guess where?
Right here. On this very site where you already are.
As I say in the introduction to the epilogue–I know it’s weird to have an “introduction” to an “epilogue,” but what can I do?–
In 1989, the New Yorker published a two-part article by Janet Malcolm entitled “The Journalist and the Murderer.” In the article, which was published in book form a year later, Malcolm offered her skewed perception of my relationship with Jeffrey MacDonald–the subject of my 1983 book, Fatal Vision–to support her bizarre hypothesis that “Every journalist…knows that what he does is morally indefensible.” So numerous and egregious were Malcolm’s omissions, distortions and outright misstatements of fact that I felt compelled to set the record straight in an epilogue to the updated edition of Fatal Vision that was published in 1989. There is no statute of limitations on truth. Even now, twenty-two years later, Malcolm’s fictions ought not to be accepted uncritically.
What makes this relevant to THE ROGUE is that Jeffrey MacDonald was the first pathologically narcissistic psychopath about whom I ever wrote a book.
Guess who’s the second?
Refreshing Rationality from New Yorker’s Amy Davidson
April 24, 2011
Finally, someone who personally believes that Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig respects the right of
Andrew Sullivan and others to ask legitimate questions. Amy Davidson, a senior editor at The New Yorker posts on her Close Read blog.
This is like a breath of pure oxygen after choking on the aggressive contempt spewed by Salon, HuffPo, etc. over the past few days.
I can understand skepticism. But what’s fueling the anger of MSM toward those like Andrew Sullivan, who simply keep asking questions because no one is giving answers? You would think journalists would applaud Sullivan for doing his job. Instead, so many try to marginalize and demean him. I would expect this from hack polemicists like Breitbart, but I’d really like to know what’s behind the defensiveness at MSM sites such as Salon, Slate, and HuffPo. They laugh at and scorn Sarah for everything else she says, but on this one issue she’s declared beyond reproach and taken at her word? And the thoughtful and diligent Sullivan is ridiculed for saying it does matter if Sarah’s whole bit of performance art with Trig was only that?
What could matter more? This woman almost became vice president of the United States, and still harbors hopes (because God will open the doors for her) of becoming president.
I suspect, and certainly hope, that we’ve not heard the last from Andrew Sullivan on this question. I know we haven’t heard the last from me.
Posted in 2012, Andrew Sullivan, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, Palin children, Sarah Palin, The Rogue, Trig Palin | 
Tags: amy davidson, Andrew Sullivan, huffington post, joe mcginniss, MSM, salon, Sarah Palin, slate, the new yorker, the rogue, Trig Palin | 
29 Comments »
