Absence of Malice: journalism movie assignment

SPOILER ALERT!

Quick synopsis of "Absence of Malice": Meg Carter is an investigative journalist. Elliot Rosen is a government guy in charge of finding out what happened to an important guy named Diaz, who's gone missing. Rosen leaks false information (on purpose) about an impending investigation to Meg, who gobbles it up and puts out a story that winds up on the front page of the next day's paper. Mike Gallagher is the guy who's supposedly being investigated, but he doesn't know anything about it until he reads his name in this article. He confronts Meg at the paper, demanding to know where the story came from, and she stubbornly protects her "anonymous source." At first she is convinced, as is everyone else in the community, Gallagher had something to do with Diaz's disappearance. But then she gets an exclusive interview with Teresa Perone, Gallagher's best friend, who provides an alibi for Gallagher- he took her to have an abortion the weekend Diaz went missing. She begs Meg not to name her in her story- nobody but Gallagher and now Meg know about the abortion- but that doesn't happen, and Teresa kills herself the day the paper comes out. The story is about how Gallagher clears his name and Meg just tries to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.

This is what I wrote about the movie:

“Absence of Malice”

It’s interesting to note that everything Megan Carter’s paper put out about Michael Gallagher in the film “Absence of Malice” was accurate, but not correct. It made me think of the Pentagon Papers. When they were printed everyone realized the government had been lying through their teeth about how the Vietnam War was going. All the papers up to that point had been reporting what the officials had to say- and they’d been reporting accurately. But none of what they printed was actually true.

There was an obvious lack of verification with Meg Carter’s first story about Gallagher, the one that reported he was currently under investigation for the disappearance of a guy named Diaz. After Gallagher came to the paper and demanded to know where their information came from, Meg mentioned trying to call him- but she only tried to call him once, and she didn’t mention any other things she did to make sure what she printed was true, which makes me think she based her whole article off what was in the file on Elliot Rosen’s desk. This doesn’t sound like a good journalistic trait to me.

Rosen brought in a host of issues we’ve discussed in class: leaked information, anonymous sources, discipline of verification, and public’s right to know. His whole plan to “squeeze” Gallagher for information by leaking false information to the press was fishy from the start, and unfortunately Meg Carter was too dim-witted to see through his act. She should have considered Rosen’s motives for leaving her alone with the file on Gallagher a lot more than she did and then use some of her observations of his suspicious behavior to better decide whether Rosen was a trustworthy source or not. I think Meg was so eager to tell the public something important she neglected some of her duty as a journalist- a duty to the truth.

Meg also handled her interview with Teresa Perone very badly. As Michael Gallagher put it later in the film: “Couldn’t you see her? Couldn’t you put down your [darn] ballpoint pen for a minute and listen to her?” Listening was definitely a problem of Meg’s. Which is interesting; one would think journalists do more listening than talking and judging. Why would you keep a whistleblower anonymous but claim the public “has a right to know the alibi”? What’s the difference? Doesn’t the public also have a right to know who gives incriminating evidence?

In this country, people are innocent unless proven guilty. I thought of that when Meg gave her reporter friend advice about a story she was working on- “Don’t mention the sharks. There aren’t any sharks unless they walk up on land on their fins- then they’re news. If they’re in the water, we call them fish. That way we don’t scare the tourists.” To which Meg’s friend replies: “‘Fish-infested waters,’ then. Thanks.” But it’s hypocritical advice, because Meg has already made Gallagher out to be a shark without a lot to back up her story, and Gallagher’s life and livelihood is slowly ruined because of her mistake.

Before I watched this movie, I was in favor of a media shield law to protect journalists with anonymous sources, but now that I’ve seen the harm anonymous or “leaked” sources can do, I’ve changed my opinion. It just doesn’t make sense to protect the identity of one person but not another. Anonymous sources can be helpful, but they should be used sparingly, and definitely not in a touchy story if you can help it.