Every journalist who is not too stupid or full of himself to notice knows that what he does is morally indefensible: he preys on a subject's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gains trust, and betrays it without remorse. The relationship is built on the subject's mistaken belief that the writer is a friendly ally rather than someone extracting material for his own ends.
The journalist cultivates the subject with the flattering attentiveness of a suitor, listening tirelessly and withholding all judgment during the courtship. This indulgence is a technique, not affection: it induces the subject to keep talking and reveal himself, and it is withdrawn the moment the writing begins.
Convicted murderer Jeffrey MacDonald sued author Joe McGinniss for continuing to write warm, encouraging letters that implied belief in his innocence while secretly composing a book that portrayed him as guilty. The jury deadlocked and the case settled, establishing that a subject could seek damages not for libel but for the deception embedded in the reporter-source relationship itself.
A writer who has committed to a theory of his subject will subordinate contradictory facts to the shape of the story he has already decided to tell. The finished account reads as truth because it is coherent, not because it faithfully tracks what actually happened.
The subject is not merely a victim: he enters the arrangement hoping the published account will flatter or vindicate him, trading candor for an imagined payoff. His sense of betrayal comes less from being quoted accurately than from the collapse of the self-serving story he expected the journalist to tell.
Journalists justify the betrayal by appealing to higher abstractions: the public's right to know, freedom of the press, the service of art or truth. These rationales function to convert a personal act of using another human being into a professional duty, letting the writer avoid confronting the ordinary dishonesty at the core of the work.