Word: mcginniss
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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." Although she focused on a ruptured relationship between author Joe McGinniss (Fatal Vision) and his subject, murderer Jeffrey MacDonald, many readers assumed that Malcolm was writing confessionally, if unknowingly, about herself...
After the suit failed, Malcom, who had initially worked with McGinniss on the project, took up the fight with two lengthy articles in the New Yorker magazine last month. Malcom said McGinniss had deceived MacDonald, and was bound ethically, if not legally, not to use the information...
...process, however, McGinniss himself became convinced that MacDonald was guilty. His book reflected this bias, and MacDonald sued McGinniss, saying that the author broke their contract...
Finally, Monday's Times included an op-ed piece written by McGinniss himself, which also missed the major issues the New Yorker piece raised...
...debate is more complex. McGinniss probably stepped over the ethical line in giving a verbal guarantee that his book would vindicate MacDonald. It is a cardinal rule of journalism not to promise sources that stories will be favorable, and McGinniss' assurances went far beyond simple cleverness...