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.
So begins Janet Malcolm’s renowned book, The Journalist and the Murderer. It was written more than 30 years ago, yet this negative notion has endured.
