Literary Journalism on Trial: Masson v. New Yorker and the First Amendment

Forde, Kathy. Literary Journalism on Trial: Masson v. New Yorker and the First Amendment. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008. 288 pp. $28.95.

The story of Jeffrey Masson versus Janet Malcolm is not an easy one to tell. Neither of them are particularly sympathetic characters; the legal case turns almost entirely on just five, short, disputed quotations; and the lengthy and convoluted procedural history of the case can be of interest only to lawyers and the hardiest of lay readers.

Fortunately, in Forde's carefully constructed analysis, Masson v. New Yorker plays only a supporting role - a relatively superficial illustration - of the postmodern struggle between fact and truth in journalism. The author takes us deftly through the contemporaneous manifestation of those opposing views, using the New York Times' unrelenting criticism of Malcolm's techniques during the trials and their aftermath to explain objectivity in journalism. Literary journalism, which was practically invented by the New Yorker, comes to life in a highly original chapter on the magazines vaunted fact-checking department and the history of its aggressive defense of the technique.

But even that is not really the essence of this work. At bottom,...