'The least talented talk about Art'

The classic opening paragraph of The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm:

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. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse. Like the credulous widow who wakes up one day to find the charming young man and all her savings gone, so the consenting subject of a piece of nonfiction learns—when the article or book appears—his hard lesson. Journalists justify their treachery in various ways according to their temperaments. The more pompous talk about freedom of speech and “the public’s right to know”; the least talented talk about Art; the seemliest murmur about earning a living.

Comments

[atom]

This quote summarizes why I've never really been comfortable being friends with you, B-dawg. I've always feared you have been preying upon my vanity. Now I know.

[atom]

Furthermore, do you lose cred with your writer friends if one of your non-writer friends calls you "B-dawg"? Or is that offset by the fact that you *have* non-writer friends? I've always wondered.

[Brendan Wolfe]

These are all interesting questions, Atom. But I can't talk to you right now. I'm busy being a writer.