The Journalist and the Murderer Essay | Critical Essay #3

The Journalist and the Murderer Critical Essay #3

In the following review, Lukas calls The Journalist and the Murderer ' 'a work of inspired quackery, " and asserts that Malcolm projects her own interests onto all journalists.

Every reader of this magazine who isn't a moron or a pompous ass knows that his literary taste is utterly depraved.

There. Have I got your attention?

A year ago, writing in The New Yorker, Janet Malcolm fashioned a lead of comparable authority: "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."

The ensuing articles were particularly arresting because they purported to be not just another haymaker thrown from the disaffected ranks of Middle America but sophisticated critiques by a practitioner of the very craft under attack.

But a rereading of these articles and a new "afterword,"...
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