Live Q&As

This is a journalism question, and an interesting one.   A quick and glib  answer is that you should not lie to hostile sources because you are not the police and this is not a criminal matter.   Police are dealing in an entirely different theater of  motivations, risks, and consequences.   They are dealing, oftentimes, with desperate, evil people.

We, presumably, are not.    We are dealing with people who have every right not to talk to us.   More important, we are dealing with people who agree to speak to us voluntarily, at their own risk, with an implicit trust that we will not betray them.   They have the right to expect honesty and straightforwardness.

Even within this general framework, though, there are nuances.   Complications.

This matter of implied honesty  was the basis for Janet Malcolm's 1980s New Yorker essay, "The Journalist and the Murderer,"  in which she famously contended that all journalists are, basically, con men.  

The thesis of her piece was contained in its first sentence:  "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."

Her point was that journalists use people -- that we subtly mislead them, flatter them, etc. -- to get what we want out of them.   The case around which she built her argument was "Fatal Vision," a book by Joe McGinniss about Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, who was convicted of killing his family.    Malcolm contended that McGinniss had dealt dishonestly with MacDonald to keep his trust and cooperation; she cited the fact that McGinniss didn't tell MacDonald when he came to believe he was guilty -- that he kept stringing him along, letting him think that the book he was writing would exonerate him.

And that was true.   McGinniss did do that.   And after Malcolm's essay was published, he took a lot of heat.

But not from me.    I knew McGinniss -- had socialized with him once or twice.   And I had an opinion on this matter, which I wrote about.

I said that there is a direct or an implied covenant between writer and subject:  That each will be truthful with each other: Not necessarily entirely transparent -- no human relationship requires that -- but honest with the other as to anything important.    Once that covenant is broken, all deals are off.   I believe McGinniss no longer had any obligation to deal forthrightly with McDonald at the point he realized McDonald was lying to him about the very central fact of the book -- his own guilt.

This opinion entered the public debate; McGinniss suddenly publicly adopted it.    

Anyway, my sole point here is that ethics are complex and situational.  In my opinion.

There is also a magazine writer name Richard Blow.  I am pretty darn sure he never uses a nickname.   There is also a Texas urologist (yes, he does vasectomies) named Richard Chopp, whom I once wrote about in a chat.  It is here, in the intro, and is well worth revisiting.   Dr. Chopp, in fact, uses the name Dick, for comic effect.    

I haven't checked the etymology but I am guessing the term "Dick" to refer to the male member is relatively new: second half of the twentieth century, coinciding with the dramatic dropoff of persons going by "Dick".  

All of this leads, rather divinely I think, to a link to one of the strangest column ever written, by the strange and inexcusable Bob Greene.   It's from many years ago, and I remembered it because it is either brilliantly disingenuous or completely idiotic.  Greene was capable of both states of mind. 

Here it is.  Decide for yourself whether Mr. Greene actually had no idea why so few people are named Dick nowadays.

This is about the vague old man in the hospital, whom I questioned about the contents of a little black book containing evidence of what seemed to be bribes to public officials.

Your point is valid.   I have to answer with an analogy.   Let's say the man held a secret about where a nuclear bomb was hidden in an American city.    Would you be debating whether it was okay to question him in a not-quite lucid state?  I doubt it.

Well, there's a continuum of importance, obviously, but at the moment, this was a big, important story.    I made the field judgment that I could talk to him, decide his state of lucidity, and make the honorable decision once I knew his state of mind.    In fact, although he was a bit confused, he was VERY solid on the meaning of the book, and the scribbles therein.   It was clear to me he knew what he was talking about.

I'm pretty sure I handled this correctly.   But if you disagree, you disagree.    I'm  not claiming it's a slam-dunk, ethically.

I don't think so.   I think I'm with Stephen Hawking on this one:  Man is probably going to exterminate himself in the relatively short term  via genetic experimentation.   A killer virus, probably developed as an instrument of warfare.

I would fly as exclusively as I could in an airline that did not allow reclining seats if someone is behind you.    Just a general announcement:  Please don't do it.   That would be enough.

This is about a political/ social opinion I have that must be kept secret because it would hurt too many people.

Nope.    I think single parents can do a fine job. 

This subject actually came up in the last chat, and will be the subject of a poll in the next chat!    Do people find high school aged people sexually enticing? 

Interesting.   I have never experienced sleep paralysis.   Have you alls?

What I have experienced is super-realistic dreams, including tactile sensations.    I have unquestionably felt I was touching something.

Hahahaha.

Apart, perhaps, from the rightness of gay marriage, there is no social issue about which I am more certain than the rightness of pro-choice.

Breeds do show behavioral tendencies, and pits were, sadly, bred to fight.   So I'm suspicious of pits, but think each dog should be judged as an individual.    Molly's dog, Mattingly, is a pit and is a danger to no one.

Yeah, but, see, Garry made a rookie mistake.   He never ADMITTED it.

Any reporter knows the answer to this: You develop dysentery.   You visit the bathroom a LOT.