Janet Malcolm: Constructing a journalist's identity

This dissertation centers on the controversial 1980s libel suit filed against the New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm, who was accused by one of her subjects of fabricating direct quotes that she attributed to him. Throughout the 13-year lawsuit, Malcolm maintained that she had accurately reported her subject's words and had followed editing and writing practices that were standard in her profession. The case functioned as a "hot moment" in the journalism community: it provided journalists nationwide with a chance to re-negotiate their boundaries of practice, compete for the right to define what counts as truth-in-journalism, and police the profession by constructing certain narrative practices and certain types of non-fiction writers as "deviant.";In this dissertation, I ask what does it mean to be a "legitimate journalist," how are those meanings discursively constructed, how are they articulated to individual journalists, and what are the stakes in this project? I draw on theories of identity and boundary work from sociology and media studies, and on the historical development of discourses of objectivity in the field of journalism.;My study is a textual analysis of trial transcripts, legal documents, and media narratives. This study revealed that news journalists invested in objectivity drew on powerful scientific discourses of truth to de-legitimize not only Janet Malcolm but a whole class of nonfiction writers who have become known as "literary journalists," and to reaffirm the meaning of "legitimate journalist" as that of "objective daily news reporter." Malcolm, in defending herself as a legitimate journalist, drew on her own experiences as a writer and on New Yorker traditions not codified in journalism textbooks, professional manuals and other forms of official professional discourse. She represented an alternative meaning of "legitimate journalist," one that emphasized the importance of subjectivity and good storytelling. However, her narrative resources did not have the authority of "official" journalism discourses, and while she did not lose the libel suit, her identity as a legitimate journalist suffered greatly in the news narratives written about her.