Literary journalism on trial: Masson v. New Yorker and the First Amendment

Abstract

In November 1984, Jeffrey Masson filed a libel suit against writer Janet Malcolm and New Yorker, claiming that Malcolm had intentionally misquoted him in a profile she wrote for magazine about his former career as a Freud scholar and administrator of Freud archives. Over next twelve years case moved up and down federal judicial ladder, at one point reaching U.S. Supreme Court, as lawyers and judges wrestled with questions about representation of in journalism and, by extension, limits of First Amendment protections of free speech. Had a successful Freudian scholar actually called himself an gigolo and the greatest analyst who ever lived? Or had a respected writer for New Yorker knowingly placed false, self-damning words in her subject's mouth?In Literary Journalism on Trial, Kathy Roberts Forde explores implications of Masson v. New Yorker in context of history of American journalism. She shows how case represents a watershed moment in a long debate between advocates of traditional and literary journalism and explains how it reflects a significant intellectual project of period: postmodern critique of objectivity, with its insistence on instability of language and rejection of unitary truth in human affairs. The case, Forde argues, helped widen perceived divide between ideas of literary and traditional journalism and forced resolution of these conflicting conceptions of truth in constitutional arena of libel law.By embracing traditional journalism's emphasis on fact and objectivity and rejecting a broader understanding of truth, Supreme Court turned away from First Amendment theory articulated in previous rulings, opting to value less free, uninhibited interchange of ideas necessary to democracy and more trustworthiness of public expression. The Court's decision in this case thus had implications that reached beyond legal realm to values and norms expressed in triangular relationship between American democracy, First Amendment principles, and press.