| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
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| NUMBER: | 37599 |
| QUOTATION: | 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. |
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| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
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