Journalsim about journalists

In the past week I have encountered two rather parallel examples of the journalist becoming not just the focus but the cause of a story. As the general populace suffers the problems of private and public life becoming indistinguishable the journalist seems to be in a particularly risky place. It isn’t just the TV news anchor or commentator who has signed away his protection as a private citizen. Many are now just as eager to expose the people behind the exposes as they are to thrust their own selves misguidedly into the public sphere.

I thought this was interesting and startling: The New York Times did a piece in The Arts section about this guy named Ted Genoways, a young and talented man, who took over the staid yet small publication the Virgina Quarterly Review which is published out of the University of Virginia. Helping bring it big accolades, everyone celebrated Genoways until the managing editor killed himself. The story, which goes so far as to assert a connection between the stress Genoways put on his staff and the suicide also alleges his shirking of responsibilities, abusive interpersonal interactions and general bad management without attributing to many named sources:

“Then on July 30, the review’s managing editor, Kevin Morrissey, took a gun to a coal tower on the outskirts of town and killed himself, an act that some of Mr. Morrissey’s friends and family attributed partly to stress in the workplace — even going so far as to lay that stress publicly at Mr. Genoways’s door.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/books/11quarterly.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=virginia%20quarterly%20review&st=cse&scp=1)

Since the investigation is ongoing and at this point only being carried out by the university, I felt that much of this story walked the line of libel as the implications are clear and unretractable - whether or not Genoways is found responsible for any real crime.

In more slanderous news, I discovered a contact and acquaintance of mine is facing a career meltdown after former staff members took to a blog (which aspires to be a pop news hub) to anonymously bash everything he had done as EIC of his magazine. This guy had started a cutting-edge music mag that saw some national exposure in Borders etc. which ended up folding. The accusations range from bad editorial decisions to sexual harassment, racism, financial delinquency and outright fraud. The posts have been up since June and the chronicles are both epic and demoralizing. Despite his Cease and Desist letters the blog host will not remove the posts. Although I’d like to get your opinion of the posts and the legitimacy of the stories, I’d rather not perpetuate a bad situation by re-posting any part of them or linking you to them (but I will if you insist). Whether or not this guy is guilty of the transgressions I wonder how professional – or legal – and never mind decent it was for these people to go so far as to make these damaging and unsubstantiated accusations. It also points to the ever-growing issue of free-speech on the internet and whether or not a blog is a news outlet like any other that must operate with under the same legal parameters.