SOURCE: Stimpson, Catharine R. “The Haunted House.” Nation 250, no. 25 (25 June 1990): 899-902.

In the following review, Stimpson discusses The Journalist and the Murderer, and Malcolm's opinion that moralistic shortcomings are inherent in journalistic endeavors.

The Journalist and the Murderer is a slim book that has raised a hefty ruckus because of its chilly thesis: “The journalist must do his work in a … deliberately induced state of moral anarchy … [an] unfortunate occupational hazard.” To get information, a journalist must gain access to people. To write up this information, he must betray their faith in him as a good buddy and sympathetic publicist. Journalism is a rough trade that trades off human solidarity for the chance to craft a powerful likeness of reality. Trado, ergo sum, not Cogito, ergo sum or even Scribo, ergo sum, is its existential slogan. In brief, the journalist must become a kind of murderer.

Journalists have...