ESSAY

By Michael Kinsley (

"An article devoid of ((quotes)), one that consists entirely of the author's own observations and conclusions, will generally leave readers dissatisfied and unpersuaded, as well as bored."

-- Federal Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski (dissenting), Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc.

During the last election a television journalist called up to say he wanted to interview me. Puzzled -- this man knows far more than I about politics -- but flattered, I said sure. He showed up at my office, set up his lights and camera, and asked, "Mike, would you say that . . ." Then he proceeded to enunciate some theory about the course of the campaign.

Me (eager to please): Good point. You're absolutely right about that. I never thought of it before.

Him (testy): No. Would you say it.

Ah. He didn't want my wisdom. He wanted a sound bite. Or, in the outmoded argot of print, a quote. Under the conventions of American journalism, his insight was worthless to him until he could get someone else to utter it, thus conferring on his nugget some spurious authority and relieving himself of any taint of opinion or bias. I could just as easily quote him to the same purpose. Someday I will.

In a way, American journalism has brought Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., on itself by worshiping at the shrine of the quote. The case is now before the Supreme Court. Most journalists would probably agree with Judge Kozinski of the lower court that an article without quotes just doesn't hack it.

Jeffrey Masson, a psychiatrist, was the subject of a New Yorker profile by Janet Malcolm. Masson claims that Malcolm libeled him by putting in his mouth words he never said, such as "intellectual gigolo" to describe himself. Malcolm denies making up quotes but also claims a constitutional right to do so.

Despite all the fuss, the issue doesn't seem very complicated. "X said Y" is a factual assertion. If X didn't say Y, it is a false assertion. But falsehood is just one part of a libel case. You have to prove the falsehood was defamatory. You have to prove you've been harmed. These constraints will take care of most of the nightmare scenarios journalists worry about, such as being sued for "cleaning up" quotes. Above all, if X is a public figure, you have to prove the misquote was committed with "reckless disregard for the truth." (The lawyers call this "actual malice" -- the "actual" being a lawyer's way of indicating that it doesn't actually mean malice at all.)

The Supreme Court has given limited constitutional protection to falsehoods in order to give the truth some breathing room -- to protect honest mistakes. In a tort-crazed nation, this is a great luxury. In other countries journalists live in fear of lawsuits. In America all professionals except journalists live in fear of lawsuits. Journalists are rightly alarmed that the mere accusation of fake quotes could land a journalist in a costly lawsuit, and the Supreme Court should protect us against that. But if quotes are made up, this alone surely displays reckless disregard for the truth. The claim of Malcolm and her defenders that the Constitution should protect even purposely made-up quotes, as long as the author thinks they reflect the subject's views, is an embarrassment.

How the New Yorker's reputation can survive this assertion of privilege is a puzzle. Nowhere in journalism is the quote more sanctified. A typical New Yorker profile is nothing but a string of lengthy quotations from the subject and his or her associates, with a connecting tissue of irrelevant scene- setting detail. Malcolm has admitted to fabricating some of this detail, such as moving the site of a conversation from her flat in New York City to a restaurant in California. The myth is that by relying so heavily on seemingly verbatim quotations, the journalist is functioning as a crystal-clear piece of glass through which the reader can see the subject whole and true. But if the quotes are the result of art and not tape recording, the whole genre needs rethinking.

Newsmagazines also rely heavily on quotes, though their style emphasizes compression and bustle, in contrast to the New Yorker's leisurely pace. Each point the writer wishes to make comes with a quote to add color and authority. The color and the authority often take up more precious space than the point itself: "Iraq may not become a quagmire. 'We'll feed the Kurds and then amscray,' says retired Lieut. Colonel William Finnegan, now a senior fellow at the Center for War, Pestilence, Famine and Death in Washington."

Newspapers treasure quotes from "ordinary" people, for authenticity rather than authority. A poll, conducted at great expense with the best psephological technique, is thought to gain extra credibility if 1 out of 250 million citizens can be found to restate its findings in prose. "Seventy percent of Americans list inflation as one of their top five concerns. 'These prices are just getting out of sight,' says Judy Draper, 38, a data processor and mother of three in Molina, Mo."

At the opposite extreme, a foreign correspondent I used to edit would weave elaborate tales of international intrigue, ending each delirious paragraph with the vestigial incantation, ". . . according to sources." Even he felt that by merely declaring he had "sources" -- never mind who or where -- he was allaying suspicions that he might be making it all up.

Maybe what American journalism needs is not just better quotes but fewer quotes. The Masson case is a reminder that the accuracy and wisdom of a piece of journalism inevitably depends on "the author's own observations and conclusions," as Judge Kozinski puts it. It is often more efficient, not to say more honest, to express these directly. Quotes can become a crutch. Or rather, "Quotes can become a crutch," says one observer of the journalistic scene.