In the 1981 film, Absence of Malice, Meghan Carter, one of the main characters makes a number of mistakes that, may show an absence of malice, but point to a presence of irresponsibility.
Ms. Carter, who is a reporter for the Miami Standard, is caught between a demanding editor and Michael Gallagher, a man who she connected to a murder in a story. Throughout the film, Ms. Carter makes a number of errors that bring her professional credentials as a journalist into question and point to a pattern of irresponsibility.
Firstly, Ms. Carter does not inform Mr. Gallagher that she is about to publish a damaging story about him. Journalists should always alert people before they are going to print damaging information because it gives the suspected party a chance to defend himself on the record and to correct any mistakes in the reporter’s story. Ms. Carter leaves a phone message on Mr. Gallagher’s answering machine, but this does not satisfy her responsibility to inform him of what is about to hit him in the Miami Standard. She prints the story to appease her desk editor, which naturally raises the ire of Mr. Gallagher when he encounters the story.
The next mistake that Ms. Carter makes is secretly recording Mr. Gallagher when they are on his boat for lunch. A responsible journalist should always alert a subject that he is being recorded prior to “hitting play.” Ultimately it matters little because Mr. Gallagher discovers the hidden recorder in Ms. Carter’s jacket pocket when he suspects that she is hiding something because she refuses to remove her jacket, despite the warm afternoon temperatures.
Ms. Carter actually drives Theresa Parrone to suicide when she publishes the fact that the woman had an abortion in Atlanta. Ms. Parrone makes the confession to Ms. Carter to provide proof that Mr. Gallagher was not in Florida during the time of the murder. Ms. Carter’s indiscretion leads Ms. Parrone, who came from a conservative Roman Catholic family, to commit suicide out of social shame. To make matters worse, Ms. Carter tells Ms. Parrone that no one would care if she had an abortion showing a complete ignorance for the social implications of such an action, especially with Roman Catholic friends and family.
Ms. Carter shows more poor decision making when she decides to sleep with Mr. Gallagher. What people choose to do in their private lives is up to them, but this is still very unprofessional. In fact, their relationship leads Ms. Carter to give-up Elliot Rosen as her source for the story. Of course, a journalist should never reveal her sources.
Ms. Carter makes plenty of mistakes throughout the film and is a good case study of what not to do as a journalist.
-Logan
